What's the good of prescience?

Prescience is a vastly overrated thing. In November, after my mother, who had a stroke two years ago, broke her knee cap and failed to seek medical attention for three weeks, resulting in a permanently bifurcated patella, I spent a week railing at my aging parents to give me durable power of attorney. I believe my exact words may have been "What if Mom has another stroke and Dad gets hit by a bus and you need someone to handle your affairs until you can take over again?"

Well, on December 13, my mother had a stroke in the morning, and as my father was leaving the hospital on foot after bringing her some personal belongings, he was hit by a bus and taken to the ICU of another hospital with four broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, a fractured sacrum and internal bleeding in his skull, chest cavity and kidney. And it did me no good whatsoever to have dreamed up that precise scenario a month earlier. To add pathos to pathos, when I called my brother, he told me that my sister-in-law had just been told she has uterine cancer. 

I flew to San Francisco the next day. Now just to show you that the population of this world is wondrously varied, here are the reactions of the other two condo owners in my parents' building: When I arrived and let myself in to No. 3, I called No. 2 to tell her what had happened to my parents and to let her know I'd be staying in the apartment while I oversaw their care. "But who's going to take out the garbage?" she asked. Shortly thereafter, No. 1 showed up at the door with fresh-baked cookies and asked if there was anything she could do. "I can take them to doctor's appointments," she offered. I told her that because of her broken patella, my mother needed a wheelchair transport. "How much could she weigh?" scoffed the beautiful, willowy No. 1. "I can carry her."

Three weeks later, my mom is back at home with a 24-hour aide, my dad is in rehab struggling to regain his strength, and my sister-in-law is recuperating from a hysterectomy (no further treatment needed). And I'm finally back in New York, still without power of attorney.