It's been awhile since being here

[Rylee]

Hi Everyone,

It's been awhile since I've been here. I've been kind of withdrawing myself from everything and everyone since my mom's death. It will be four months since she died come Sept 1st. A lot has happened. In spite of my not wanting to go through my mom's stuff I did it anyway to get my family off my back. They wouldn't let up and the more that I had to hear from them, "When are you going to go through mom's stuff? I want to have some of it..." "when are you going to sell the van? when are you going to sell her chair? when when when??? I just got tired of it and went through her things. I started reading her journals as well and read some very sad and also happy things about her life. I had to go to Utah to get my mom's journals from my brother. He was throwing everything away and I had to go get them. I think I mentioned that in another post but I have been quite emotional and feeling overwhelmed. I'm trying to get myself together so I can help other people who are grieving like you have all helped me. I'm sorry I haven't come in for so long. I just wish I could get my brain to say, "I love you mom, I'm missing you BUT I'm ok" I'm not ok yet. I still cry and I still think of her every day. I recently had a weird experience though. I was sitting just relaxing and I smelled the scent of the original Jergen's lotion waft by. It was my mom's favorite lotion. I don't have any in the house right now but it is an unmistakable scent (at least to me). It happened a few times throughout the day. It hasn't happened before or since. I wonder if it was my mom near me that day. I want to believe that is the case.

Rylee

[kayc]

1 hour ago, Rylee said:

I smelled the scent of the original Jergen's lotion waft by. It was my mom's favorite lotion. I don't have any in the house right now but it is an unmistakable scent (at least to me). It happened a few times throughout the day. It hasn't happened before or since. I wonder if it was my mom near me that day

That's not uncommon to hear.  Some people hear sounds or smell smells and believe that to mean they are nearby.  Who knows?  If it brings you comfort, it doesn't hurt to feel think that way.

It's hard when people are pushing you to go through stuff sooner than you are ready, but I sure understand wanting to rescue stuff before they toss it out.  My brother got everything and us girls nothing...it's been two years Aug. 21 since we lost her.  It's kind of hard because we all wish we had something to remember her by.

[Rylee]

Hi Kayc,

I'm sorry to hear that your brother didn't share anything with you. My brother didn't want anything of my mom's. I am just glad that I found out in time what he was doing and went to get what he had left. I just can't understand why he would throw it all away rather than ask anyone if they wanted anything he had. She lived with him for five years taking care of his twin girls when their mother died. We weren't able to bring all of her things back with us when I went to pick her up in 2007. She did so much for him and for him to do that with her things just angers me to no end. I can imagine how angry that you were when your brother did what he did to your mom's stuff. I'm so sorry that happened. 

I've heard that as well, that scents and sounds can mean that the person is nearby. I did feel comfort with the scent and wanting to believe that she was there. I hear her voice in my head so often. The other day when my baby brother and his kids, my daughter and her kids and I were getting flowers for my mother's grave for her birthday, we could all feel her around and like she was happy we were remembering her birthday. It was kind of cool. Then when we were placing the flowers (and there were a lot) we could feel the happiness. It was so weird. This is the first birthday of hers we've celebrated without her. :'( We sang happy birthday to her and stuck around for awhile. My mom and dad are buried next to each other and my mom's birthday is Aug 19th and my dad's is Aug 21st and we wished him a happy birthday too but concentrated more on my mom's than my dad. He's been gone since November 30, 2001. 

Rylee

 

[Clematis]

19 hours ago, Rylee said:

In spite of my not wanting to go through my mom's stuff I did it anyway to get my family off my back. They wouldn't let up and the more that I had to hear from them, "When are you going to go through mom's stuff? I want to have some of it..." "when are you going to sell the van? when are you going to sell her chair? when when when???

Hi Rylee, it's good to hear from you. It's really hard to go through your parents' stuff. I started going through my dad's stuff right after he died in January, and was doing a LOT of it through the summer. I really wasn't ready but I had to do it because I was living at his condo at the time he died and I had to combine all of our stuff into one (mine) and then move back in. I am still going through his stuff that's left at his house. He left me all of his personal property and my sisters said they didn't want anything. They also weren't interested in helping either, of course. Well, I did give a few things to my younger sister when they came out to AZ for the service in March and my older sister insisted all she wanted was the banjo my dad had given me a decade earlier. Even though I ended up with the personal things our dad had at the end, my sisters were much closer to my mother and they lived in a town that was an hour away from my parents in PA for 30 years and were the recipients of tons of stuff over the years. Then, when my mother died 11 years ago and my dad moved to AZ, there was a huge downsizing from their large house to the small condo he moved into in Sedona. My sisters were both the recipients of lots more stuff over that year, and he said that the portion of out parents stuff he brought out west was much less than a third, but it was the part that he wanted; that would be my part. It might be the best part but I would have to wait to get it. Fine with me; the real treasure there was the ten years I got to spend with my dad!

I have had the same thing as you, Rylee - people want to know about when I am going to sell his car. I'm not. My car is not that old but has almost 300,000 miles on it. His is old, but has very few miles on it. His car makes a nice backup for mine and I can make both of them last longer by keeping both. People ask me about every day about selling his house and selling his car and there is a lot of pressure and it's none of their business. It's really amazing that people think it's ok to pressure someone who is grieving about stuff like that. In my case, it isn't even relatives, but nosy neighbors and friends who are sure they know better what is best for me than I do. So maybe I did have a head injury in that May car accident, but I'm not incompetent and I need less pressure and not more...

Hang in there, Rylee, and keep us posted.

Laura

 

[kayc]

Laura,

Your dad's car sounds like a good one to have should you need it!  I had a Mercury Grand Marquis LS, not unlike the Lincoln Town Car and I loved it!   Very roomy and comfortable, nice leather seats that adjusted the lumbar, huge roomy trunk, averaged 22 mpg in spite of 5.0 liter engine and V8, lots of power!  It even comes with a tow package!

[Rylee]

Laura, 

I'm sorry that you're having to deal with all those busybodies and also family who are doing all the things they are doing (or not doing).You definitely know how I feel about this situation.

The thing I resent most about my family is that they didn't help me with my mom while she was alive and are now bugging me constantly about what they want of her things and the money from the sale of her van and her wheelchair and bed and.... I still resent that  my sister decided in my mom's last moments that she wasn't coming down to be with her. She only lives 60 miles from us and we had a place set out for her if she wanted to spend the nights here while my mom was going through the end of her life. But she was angry with me because of an argument we had when hospice had wanted to stop my mom from eating and drinking anything. She still had a few weeks left and I promised my mom I would never allow her to starve or thirst to death. Although at the very end of her life she couldn't eat or drink anything (which pained me greatly to see) it was her decision or her body stopping it and not me. My sister thought I was selfish not to just let her be denied food and water. Then she got mad about the fact that my mom gave me her house (I'd had it for several years already when she signed a quit claim to me) and decided if my mom would do that then "to heck with her" and wouldn't come see her at the last moments and be with her and the rest of us who could be there. She almost didn't go to the funeral but we did set our differences aside as I mentioned in one of my posts. But since the funeral she and I haven't really spoken and her daughter who has spent a week with us every year since she was two (she's about to turn 14) suddenly "couldn't make it this year". It's been really frustrating and upsetting the way things have gone. I just hope that I can eventually get everything done and not have to deal with any of the family who is only hanging around "waiting for their chunk of change". I don't need the stress either. 

Rylee

[Clematis]

Rylee, I really feel for you...it sounds like our families are doing much of the same things. When my mother became ill, went downhill, and died everyone was very involved. My sisters visited her frequently, along with my dad, and my older sister did a lot of cooking - she is a great cook and would make something, divide it up into smaller containers and bring it down frozen so that it could be heated up a meal at a time. I think she intended it for my mother, but she would hardly ever eat anything, so it ended up being a really nice bonus for my dad that he had all that fabulous food he could just heat up.

But it was a totally different story with my dad, I coaxed him out to AZ, took care of him for ten years and they just left me to it. They wouldn't do anything, and what I was asking them was very little. I had a week of vacation every year or two and I would ask if between the two of them work it out so that one of them would be calling him on the phone every day, and I could really have a vacation, knowing that someone was checking on him and I would hear about it only if something was wrong. This would mean that each of them would have three or four phone calls in a year - but not every year, because sometimes I went somewhere, like a cruise, where I could take my dad with me. They always said yes, but I ended up calling him anyway, which was kind of fun to tell him about what I was doing and share that with him. I'd ask him if he heard from them and he would say that he got one call the entire week. They never denied this, just said they were busy. Everybody's busy, but they don't have jobs aside from parenting teenagers, and while teens keep you hopping, it's not like they are sitting on your lap 24/7.

My sisters didn't care about him and they don't care about me. I suppose that it's good they They are both just waiting for the money, and are not wanting to have anything to do with me in the meanwhile. Unfortunately, that may end up boing a problem for them because my dad stipulated that his ashes be buried with my mother's remains. That will require my coordinating a trip back there with them. Therefore the estate will not close until they get to a point when they can work that out with me. I may disburse some of the money in the trust later this year, but my financial advised me to make sure to leave enough in there to motivate them to do what they need to do in order for it to close.

I can understand that people get upset with each other and things can be dicey in families, but why can't people be decent and do what's right, even if it's just marginally so?

[kayc]

I had the opposite in my family...there's five girls and a boy and my mom left everything to the boy, we weren't named in her will.  I was there for my mom, dealing with the dementia care facility, visiting her, taking her out when she could still go, but I wasn't so much as allowed a memento of her.  Everything went to the boy, like us girls were valueless.  It's how my mom said her parents treated her, yet her parents divided their will evenly, so they didn't do that to her, and yet she treated us girls like that?  It doesn't make sense.  STILL us girls have reached out to our brother and he gives no response.  Oh well! You can only do what you can do, yet none of us have wanted "stuff" to come between us, and I think we can all be proud of ourselves for that.

[Rylee]

Kayc, 

That is sad that your mom did that to you. My mom set me as her P.O.A. and the executor of her Will. She put into the Will that we were all to get equal portions of her property. The only thing that really upsets my siblings is that my mom gave me her house free and clear for taking care of her for so long and not getting any help whatsoever from my them. The rest of her stuff (money and other stuff) is to be split. I'm having a lot of trouble selling her van and her wheelchair and everything else that she had and my siblings are just going whack job over that. They think that I am doing this on purpose but I am really trying to get everything sold so they can get their chunk of change. There won't be that much but they still are nagging me constantly about everything. My brother wasn't obligated to keep anything of my mom's at his house. Her Will didn't cover him, it just covered what I had here with me. At least that is my understanding because what he was throwing away were journals and genealogy. That stuff isn't of any monetary value only sentimental value. We can't get back what he threw away. What's done is done but at least I got some of her journals (some date back to the early 70s) when I got news he was throwing everything away. As I said, I had to rush down there and get it. I had only a short time to get down there.

My brother must be angry with my mom or something I'm not sure. To throw everything away like he was doing and not wanting anything but what money he can get from her possessions seems an angry thing to do. She took the time to record messages for each of us kids but this brother doesn't want anything to do with it. I'm wondering if he is angry with her because she didn't try harder to get healthy. She was paralyzed due to a surgery to remove a tumor from her spine in 2008. She never tried to really work on getting herself to be able to do things for herself. She laid in bed for almost 9 years and only doing as little as she could to do anything. It was because of her choice not to work on things that caused me to physically break down and end up having to put her into a home. I had to lift her in and out of bed, in and out of the shower, in and out of her chair and do everything for her and my body just couldn't deal with it. I still did a lot of caregiving even when she was in the AFH (Adult Family Home) I took her to all her appointments and up in the middle of the night to the ER or trying to get her out and about to do things. My daughter and I worked together taking care of her both when she was at home and after she was put into the AFH. The family watched as she just deteriorated and died. We're all a bit angry with her about that part but I think my brother D is taking that anger to extremes. I don't know. 

Sorry... I'm rambling here. I tend to do that sometimes. 

Rylee

[kayc]

It's hard telling, grief affects people differently and some people do just get very angry.  He may regret his actions someday.  Your mom was fortunate to have had you take care of her, of course she wanted to compensate you in some way.  
We all know it doesn't do any good to be angry with people about things but we all do it at some time to some level.  We set boundaries for what we will and won't take and we live with those boundaries/choices.  Nevertheless, we're human. 

I have a sister that has done nothing to take care of herself all of her life.  She is a heavy smoker, is quite obese, has never gotten any exercise.  She is Diabetic and eats candy bars regularly.  Now she's beginning dementia and refuses to see a doctor for it.  I love her very dearly and when she dies prematurely I can imagine I'll feel anger at her taking herself away from us way too soon. I'll have to deal with it and forgive her because those are her choices and not mine to make.

It's just not simple, is it?

[Rylee]

Kayc,

No it definitely isn't easy. I love my mom and I know she had issues, I guess when I get my moments of anger I start to resent what she put me through and put the rest of the family through in no doing more. I do understand how you might be angry with your sister with what she's doing. 

Rylee

[Rylee]

Laura, 

I'm glad that you had the help with your mom from your siblings. If I had had to take care of my dad before he died, not one person would have been in support of me doing so because everyone else in the family shared the opinion that he was going to hell for all he did and didn't deserve anyone's love or care. But I being the oldest child have always felt that it was my responsibility to take care of everyone in the family and would have taken care of my dad had he not died of a heart attack. I could have understood no one wanting to help me care for him if he had needed it but everyone loved my mom (or so they said) but still they didn't help with her care either. I just don't understand that.

I like that you're going to make your siblings work for the things they are going to get from your dad's death. That is smart.