We waited at the curb with our big packs at our feet, cars backed up in front of us, dropping off passengers, picking some up. It took a while for my buddy’s wife to make her way through it but she made it. We threw our packs in the trunk and jumped in the car. She asked us about our trip, steering away from the curb and out into traffic, and my buddy let me tell the story of our days on the trail.

She listened until I had finished and it was quiet until she said “I was just on the phone with 911 in Georgia.” My buddy looked at her. “Mom couldn’t find dad. She looked everywhere for him in the house. A neighbor knocked on the door and told her he’s on the roof.”

The roof? How’d he get up there?

Ladder.

He’s got a ladder that tall?

I guess. He got up there and hurt his leg or something and then he couldn’t get down. Mom called me.

She didn’t call 911?

She said she didn’t want to. I told her to call 911. The neighbor told her to call 911. Then I got off the phone and called 911. They couldn’t have been nicer. They told me they’d go right over. They told me nobody should try to help him down ‘til they got there because it could make it worse. I got off the phone and called mom back. A neighbor had helped dad down. I told the mom to give the ladder to the neighbor and tell him to take it home.

Did she do it?

She said they don’t work like that.

Who doesn't work like what?

Mom and dad don't do things behind each other's back.

What was he doing up there?

I don’t know. Cleaning the gutters.

He’s 89 years old. He doesn’t have anyone who he could pay to clean his gutters?

Pay someone to do something he’s been doing for thirty years? He’d rather die.

I guess.

She looked at me using the rear view mirror. You’re the elder law attorney. What do I do?

I looked back at her but couldn’t meet her gaze for long. I wished I was back in the woods. I looked out the window. Wait, I said.

Wait? Wait for what?

‘til he falls.

She didn’t say anything.

An 89 year old man who would climb an extension ladder to scramble onto a second story roof, so he can lean over gutters to clean them, not because he thinks there’s cameras or aliens in the gutter but because he doesn’t want to pay someone to do something he’s always done, only gravity is going to stop that man. Not elder law.

She shook her head.

Elder law is powers of attorney and medical directives. He’s given your mom and you those authorities but he’s not going to step aside and let you use them. Elder law is guardianship. Guardianship is incapacity. He made a decision getting on that roof. A stupid one, but it wasn’t caused by dementia or any other condition other than his hard-headedness and cheap tendencies, and he’s probably always had those. Even if he was incapacitated and you could convince a judge to take his decision making authority away and give it to you, or to your sister, what is a guardian going to do to make him safe? Lock him up?

She didn’t say anything.

Elder law has nothing for you now, or next to nothing, but you and your sister and your mom have something more: he loves you. You are his family. Your mom thinks calling 911 or giving his ladder away is betraying him so maybe it’s up to you and your sister to lean on him harder than you’ve ever leaned, remind him that if something happened to him your mom would be alone, and she needs him. Convince him that being on that roof was stupid, and he has never been a stupid man. Tell him that you need him and that his grandkids need him and he needs to protect his life and not be careless with it. Travel to Georgia. Go to their house. Take a sledge hammer to the ladder. Find a neighborhood kid. Pay the kid in advance to clean the gutters when your dad is golfing or away somewhere else.

Been there. Done that. He just turns the tv up and tells me to mind my business.

Then maybe you’re doing everything you can do.