Seaweed's Crystal Ball

I haven't been back to The Old City in about a year and a half.  I haven't seen my father in that time - I saw my mother a bit last winter when she visited us in Vacation City.  Holy shit, what a sea change has occurred in that time!  Holy shit!  Being very old must be like being very young - stuff changes fast.

Like a lot of people my parents don't want to leave their home.  Fair enough - they've been there 55 years.  My sister keeps an eye on them to make sure that things aren't getting too out of control and we're trying to be careful to respect their wishes.  Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially by their children.  In "The World According to Seaweed" - a very, very bad, scary world - they should have moved to a retirement home about 10 light years ago and, yes, I know that a light year is a distance and not a time, but it just sounds so impressively long.

I've spent a lot of time with them this week and they're clearly way past the time when they would have benefited from some help.  My dad is almost too physically feeble to move around and this terrifies him, and my mom is drifting mentally.  They aren't eating well; they aren't bathing regularly; the house is getting messy - it's not what I would want for them.

So . . . do I try to make them do what I think they should do,  given my track record in doing things not in the best interests of anyone?  Or do I try to be of service when asked, keeping my nose out of their business, risking a fall or a fire or something like that?  Sometimes when failing people leave their home and go into a retirement place they really thrive and sometimes it's the death of them.  Let me get out my crystal ball and see into the future. . . .

Normally my crystal ball is used to help me find my car keys or a glass of drinking water.  It's not a high end crystal ball.  I don't pull it out for big projects because I don't have a good track record of getting things right with this particular crystal ball.  It's more of a reverse crystal ball. It's good if you want to know what not to do.

I definitely don't know what to do here.