Where To Begin

[aaronkatie1]

I just found this site and wish I'd thought about trying to find it when my Dad was sick.

My Dad died 8/31/08, still hard to believe. Worst part is that we had not spoken in 3 years, as he was an abusive man I did spend his last few days with him and am very glad I did. Since my Mom died when I was 12, he really was the only parent I ever knew (good or bad). I'm 45 now with a 13 and 15 year old of my own.

My brother lives across the country and hadn't talked to my Dad in 13 years, would not call him nor come in to help me with his Estate, or clearing his apartment which has been a nightmare.

First, I am ill, my children and I have Chronic Lyme Disease and are very ill, so energy is hard to come by, second I suppose since he was not the nicest man, I had no help at all.

So, now going through all of his stuff, and having good memories, etc, I am missing him and my Mom and thinking I have no relationship with my brother. And nobody seems to understand or maybe care.

Wow, what a first post

If you've read down this far, thanks for listening to me ramble on.

[mlg]

Dear Aaronkatie,

I am sorry you had to find our group because you had a loss but glad you did. Don't think that it is too late to get help and a lot of support here. The people are WONDERFUL.

I'm not quite sure if you are now done cleaning out your fathers apartment but if not do you have friends that could help you? Do you need to sell the furniture? If not and none of your family needs or wants it what about hiring some nice high school boys that need community service for one of their school projects to pick up anything worthwhile and take it to a shelter, habitat for humanity RESTORE or even a consignment store (that way you'd get some money for it). That way you and your family won't tire yourselves so much. I know in our small town the football team did a lot of that kind of work when we had a tornado and then with an ice storm. They just loaded up their trucks and took stuff where it needed to go.

I am glad you are finding some good memories and sorry that your brother opted not to come. As a nurse I have seen this so often and then down the road they wish they had a least said good-bye even if it was with hesitation. You can't undo it once it's over. I always encourage families to try to have a least some peace between them so there will not be regrets later.

I hope you and your brother can make some peace also. Is he mad at you because you helped your dad or was your relationship strained before? Let him know that there is nothing in this world more important than family and if he doesn't accept that then it is his loss.

By the way, your first post was fine and as you can see others of us ramble also. Another thing you might want to do is journal so that your thoughts are down and you can let your feelings out and noone has to know what they are.

[leeann]

AaronKatie

As posted on Deb's thread.. I am so very sorry for the loss of both of your parents.

And I am heart sorry your brother couldn't bring himself to come to some place of healing with your Dad before he passed. But I know.. loving an abuser is not an easy thing at all. And forgiveness can be very hard to come by. I can understand his feelings.. but I sure wish he could be there for you right now.

Especially since you & your dear children are ill! This is very serious business this chronic Lyme's Disease so I hope you are getting as much rest as you can in between all you have to do.

Have you been able to finish emptying out your Dad's apartment yet?

I think it is great that you do indeed have some good memories of your Dad. Hold on to those. My Dad wasn't perfect either... and he was abusive when I was young... but.. I know without doubt he did the best he could with what he knew at the time. We were blessed to come full circle while he was alive and well and ended up with a fairly close relationship by the time he passed. Took work on both of our parts to accomplish that but I know that isn't always possible in all cases.

But the fact that you have some warm memories is a blessing for sure. And I can understand how ambivalent feelings may crop here and there.. but.. at those times I try to hold on to and recall mostly the the good times we had.

But there is no need to explain the missing of someone who once abused you.. I *so* get that. He was still your Dad and he did what he could.

And your Mom... so hard to be without her right now I bet. Especially when you are sick AND going through all of this with your Dad's passing.

Also please try not to worry about "rambling"... nope.. around here that is just called posting. So you will fit right in.

Try to get some rest and watch your kids too for that. This is such a tough time for all of you.

By all means keep us posted on how you are doing. (((hugs)))

leeann

[aaronkatie1]

Mary Linda and Lee Ann,

Thank you both so much for your sweet replies. I had not bookmarked this site so I had a hard time finding it. Am so glad I did and to see the replies to my post are so heart warming.

I did actually clear out the apartment all by myself - but I had a charity pick up the big items, I felt very lucky that they would take them all and that they would do it so quickly.

I very much like the idea about the high school kids needing their credits, my daughter is in 8th grade and needs Community Service credits and I was thinking about this kind of thing for her.

My brother really is not mad at me, that is what is so odd. He just has an odd or 'warped' view of our childhood. He says that we were never close so why would we be close now. This is not true though, we were extremely close, we really were all that each other had. I idolized him.

He loved my Dad but could not have a relationship with him. But he wanted me to have one so that he could know how he was and such. So over the last few years when I had no relationship with my Dad, I felt like my brother had very little use for me (he couldn't get any information about my Dad).

When I got the phone call about my Dad being in the hospital, I called my brother, said I was going to go see him, he said that I was a good person to do that. When I told him that he was dying he told me to tell Dad that he loved him. I almost did not do that, I did not want to bring him up but my dad mentioned my brother so I told him that my brother loved him. My Dad then said that my brother had called him and told him that. (he had not called him).

My brother said that he would have been a hypocrite if he called him, this made no sense to me. I truly think one day he will regret it, I just hope it does not eat him up.

Thank you again, it is so nice to have a place to come to where people do understand.

[mlg]

You're welcome and I hope you bookmarked us now. This really is a wonderful place with very caring people.