2 hard days in a row.

[Clematis]

It sounds like you did very well on your show-that's great!

[Patty65]

3 minutes ago, AloneAndLost said:

Patty, I thought this was really interesting what you said here about your friend not being "able to hold your sorrow". I think I have been having the same problem with a few people in my life, one in particular. We have been friends for thirty years, but it's been off and on because she is very limited in what she can "hold" and she copes via alcohol...

The way PJ (therapist) put it... it makes it easier to not feel so rejected by her.  She's not doing that to me, she has her own pain, triggers and limitations.  We so don't need rejection in the middle of this pain.  

[kayc]

Patty,

So proud of you, and I'm sure Ron is bursting his buttons!

 

[Clematis]

You're right-we don't. It's painful to have my friend of thirty years tell me that she can't handle talking to me and we need to take an indefinite break. This has happened for thirty years and she always comes beck, but it's bad timing. I have another friend, A, that I think maybe I should stop trying to contact. A has this thing where she listens for a little bit and comes up with something that she thinks I've done wrong. She figures that if I could just apologize, that it would magically fix anything. I was able to get enough money to my older sister to keep her house from foreclosing, between my own money, my dad when he was alive, and pushing hard on his life insurance policies after he died. During these two years that I was helping her and getting my father to help her, she got increasingly nasty to me. I don't get it-if someone was trying that hard to help me, I would be really happy, but not her...

When she heard he had died, her immediate response was to demand that I give her the family banjo, which my dad had given me eight years ago. Both of my parents gave both of my sisters TONS of stuff over the decades that they all lived near each other and I was out west. When my mother died 11 years ago my two sisters got about 80% of what was in the house, and it was with the understanding that my father would eventually give me the 20% that  he picked out to take with him out west, and he left it to me in his will. But the banjo he had given to me eight years earlier. And my sister, upon hearing that he had died-all she cared about was the banjo, which is not even playable. I have put it in the hands of a friend, Paul, who is an engineer and banjo aficionado who has friends who are machinists. It has already been to a luthier and to others who tried to fix it but couldn't. When I told my sister that the banjo was not playable and it would take some money to fix it up, she kind of lost interest in it. I think she thought she could just take it out of the case and it would be like it was when we were children. She didn't really care about my dad and she doesn't care about me. I want that banjo because not only can I actually play it, but it has my father's DNA from the dirt and skin of his hands-and that of his father-and eventually mine, all on that leather skin head. Paul tole me that the first thing I should do is get rid of the old leather skinhead and replace it with a synthetic one. I told him no-never-we've gotta save the head-just fix the tuning! That banjo-and its dirty skinhead- means a LOT to me and I'm not giving it to my sister, who didn't care about him no matter hat he did for her.

And my "friend" A of 20 years thinks I can fix generations of family issues if I would just give my sister the banjo. Sounds like magical thinking to me...and someone to stay away from for awhile. I actually think that where A is coming from is that if I could give away the banjo, which means nothing to A, it would fix all the problems, I would stop kvetching, and she would feel relieved. A and my sister will just have to get over it. I have a huge load aside from that...

[Patty65]

That sounds like you are taking care of yourself -- ok here I go again, PJ (therapist) nearly 20 years ago when I was 30 (haven't been in therapy 20 yrs, didn't need it when married to Ron), gave me a paper that said "What other people think about me is none of my business!"  I still have it.  It's so sad when inheritance gets so combative it tears families apart.  It sounds like that went on long before it was an inheritance issue, though too. That banjo is yours!

In order to save my home (or even talk to them), I have to prove to the mortgage company that I am executor of Ron's estate. But to do that, I have to have his children served, one in the grips of the money-focused ex, and there could be demands/fights/issues.  I have not started.  I don't want to.  I'm an ostrich with my head in the sand on that one. I can't handle it. My dad was executor of his father's will, and the most important thing to him was not letting "stuff" get in the way of family, to the point where his own family got virtually nothing, but with his influence, we accepted that family is more important.  And yet, he still lost one of his two sisters over it.  It's so sad your sister is choosing "stuff" over family.

PS - one of my chefs got pulled over today for a safety sticker issue.  The cop asked him where he worked, he said Maui Pasta Co.  The cop said, I just heard the owner on the radio -- go back to work, and save that place.  And let him go. This chef is new to Maui and is a typical, hard-nosed NYC chef with mad Italian food cooking skills, teaching me so much.  But his attitude about other people's mistakes or whatever made one employee just quit.  Now the chef today is different, less abrasive (I had to confront him about the girl who quit too, though).  He's learning Aloha. He went to the big grocery store near here to buy beer on his way home.  The Cashier asked where he worked, then asked if he knew Ron, and told him that is what Ron would always do, buy his beer on the way home. Ron's legacy and what we went through these last months is teaching from afar, all the ramifications, all these things. There's still people who care and remember out there, it seems.  In the middle of this devastation.

Patty

[Clematis]

Thanks, Patty! You are right-there is a long family history, and it's my banjo-my daddy gave it to me. He knew my sister wanted it, but he also knew that my sisters had no interest in him. He had Parkinson's disease and it was obvious after my mother died (11 years ago) that he could not stay in the split-level house where they had lived together. he had to go somewhere and thought he'd just move an hour away to the town where my two sisters and the five grandchildren lived. They said no-if you move here you will never see us.

So, my narcissistic mother died, and for the first time I was able to see him alone and not as her little satellite. I was amazed at the really nice man I found-who is this guy and where has he been my whole life! Things had not been good with either parent before, and I can't really fault my sisters for fearing that he was the same old guy and they didn't want him near them or their children. But I was sure I saw something new, and ever the humanistic optimist, I coaxed him out west and told him that if he came out I would take care of him as long as he lived and no matter how bad it got. I also told him that we would start over with a clean slate and be friends in the now; all I expected was mutual kindness between the two of us. My sisters thought I was crazy and that he hadn't changed. I wasn't going to move across the country, but I didn't want to be responsible for abandoning an elderly parent with failing health, so I coaxed him out west. It was a risk, but I took it and I was right. Of course I earned the banjo and some other stuff, but what I really earned was the friendship and unconditional love of my father during his last ten years. I also sacrificed a lot taking care of him rather than pursuing other things. I was cooking him dinner, getting him to exercise, tracking his medical treatments, entertaining him, sharing my life with him. I never regretted any of it and I got the jackpot, which was not the banjo, but a really great relationship with my father...and do I ever miss him!

My grief counselor has advised me that people very frequently focus on some item and/or money as a way to let themselves go into anger rather than feeling the real feelings of grief, loss, guilt, and so on. My sisters are both narcissistic like my mother and functionally like adolescents. I left the crazy family almost 40 years ago and did a lot of therapy. I was so lucky to end up with a ten year close friendship with my father at the end of his life. I miss him horribly, but I have no guilt or regrets. I did everything possible for him. I suppose it is possible this will make it better for me in the end as I grieve, but at the moment it really seems that all I invested in him is just making the loss greater.

by the way, I just got a very sweet text from my friend A, who seems to have moved on past the banjo issue. Meanwhile, the banjo is, more or less, in the hospital dreaming of a future life of jolly tunes...Paul the engineer is pretty busy and it could be awhile... -Laura

 

[Polly]

Patty,

I know how you feel about the thought of losing your home. I was worried about that too. Rich didn't have a will so by law his son, my step-son is entitled to a small portion of the estate. Thank goodness my step-son is just like his dad. I was nervous to have the talk about it. He didn't hesitate, he looked at me and told me that he would never take this house away from me or anything that was in Rich's name only. He signed off so that I wouldn't lose anything. I told him he could have anything of his dads that he wanted. He is going to help me go through his dads things. He looks out for me. He makes sure the driveway gets plowed when it snows. He told me he will make sure the grass gets cut. If I need help with anything, all I have to do is call him and he will be right over. I feel so blessed to have him.

[Clematis]

Polly, that is wonderful to have such support from your stepson, and it will be very helpful to have assistance in going through his dad's things! I will have help going through my dad's things, but it has been and will be people I pay that didn't know him. I get more questions than answers. Going through his things together may prove to be a chance to process things about your dad, and you may learn things about Rich and his earlier life that touch your heart. I think you are lucky to have him as family!

[kayc]

Polly,

It sounds like you have a wonderful stepson!

Laura,

I'm glad you're standing up for yourself and keeping the banjo.  And I hope it can be fixed so you can play it!  I think you have the right idea.

[Clematis]

KayC, Thanks for your comment about the banjo, which is mine (I was writing to Patty about it, which can be confusing)...I think it would be wrong to give up the banjo. He clearly wanted me to have it and I do. And it definitely can be fixed. It's just a tuning problem...worst case scenario is replacing the tuners with modern ones rather than working with the older ones. Paul is just a busy guy so it will take awhile. Meanwhile, I have other fish to fry...

[kayc]

Sorry, corrected it.   And for the record, I think it's great that you took such good care of your father.  I lived 60 miles from my mom before she went into the dementia care center, further afterwards, but my brother and I are the ones that kept in closest contact with her, and I don't regret one second I spent with her or listened to her on the phone.  We wish we could have them back to spend more time with them!  (there were six of us kids but some lived further away and a couple were estranged)

[Patty65]

9 hours ago, Polly said:

Rich didn't have a will so by law his son, my step-son is entitled to a small portion of the estate. 

Hi Polly,

Our house has no equity, in fact we were trying to refinance it through HUD and HAMP before it got foreclosed on --  it was already a HUD loan.  I was not involved with that, Ron was, but it never got done.  Ron will not have anything in his estate but his clothes and some toolsnot sure how the business stuff will work out but we never issued shares to either of us, but I guess I'll have to prove all of that.  The only thing is his truck that was paid off and that was in both our names.  I will have to speak with a lawyer that I cannot pay for, so for now, I'm turning into the ostrich again.  I at least have to make it through the 2-month mark looming this Saturday, mother's day, and our store's one-year anniversary May 11.  Probably as long after that as I can get away with.  I don't want to deal with any of it. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

[Clematis]

KayC, I know what you mean about wishing we could have them back and spend even more time with them. Nevertheless, since I lived 1-1/2 minutes from my dad and saw him about ten times a week, I might have made him nuts had he spent any more time with me...he was getting more and more tired and I (in my non-grief state) generally have as much energy as a group of people. I really believe that I did absolutely everything I could for him and I think everyone who knew us believed the same. Ultimately I think that will make it easier to know there is nothing more I could have done, but right now it's too painful to actually feel that. 

I have thought a lot about what I wish could have been different. In the beginning I wished fervently that we had had about five more years together. Not long before he died he told me he thought he could live another five years and I was ready to take it to the bank! But he really was very near the end from Parkinson's-although neither of us knew it-and he had "moderate" dementia. He had some memory problems and he had trouble working his way things. I think he really couldn't figure out how to handle a lot of things, and he was not able to admit this to me. This was a guy with about a one in a thousand IQ-really stellar- and he had trouble with rather basic problem solving. Had he lived for another five years, he would not have known who I was.

As it is, I have been hearing talking to me since late in the day that he died. I had this idea that if I just had a Bose radio in his house, it would not be so painfully silent there and that the lovely sound would wash over me like a balm. I heard him telling me over and over, "Just get it. If you think it will help you, do it. Just get it." Over and over...and I have found the radio to be comforting. But aside from the radio, I have been hearing him tell me to be careful. "You need to be careful with your money. I'm not there to help you anymore. Be careful with your money; I can't help you now." Eventually I got it in my head and the messages went on to things like, "I'm so sorry-I just couldn't do it any longer. I'm so sorry-I tried so hard for so long. I never wanted to leave you." Also, at the end, he went into a rehab hospital (and off hospice). His doctor told me, "This place is tremendous-he's going to be stronger than he's been in years!" I was ready to take that one to the bank too! But he got weaker instead, and in spite of the efforts of the fabulous staff at the rehab hospital, he went downhill instead, and was dead a week later. The hospital was an hour and a half from where we lived, but I spent a good part of every day with him, and he died shortly after what turned out to be my last visit with him. I drove over to get his possessions from the hospital, came home and collapsed in his favorite chair, sobbing. I heard him tell me, "Go get that blue blanket." I had given him a navy plush throw for Christmas and it was irresistibly soft. He had it with him everywhere during his last weeks. I sat in the car crying and he kept telling me, "Go get it. It's still in the car. Really. Go get that blue blanket." I went out and got it, and he was right; it was like wrapping his love around me... He still talks to me, and sometimes he says funny things. But mostly it's my telling him I want him back and him saying, "I'm so sorry-I just couldn't do it any longer"...

[kayc]

My mom had Lewy Bodies which is like Alzheimers and Parkinsons rolled into one, lots of falls the last year.  Most of the time she knew me, sometimes she thought I was my little sister, although we don't look a thing alike, things just get scrambled in their brains.  She wouldn't let me pay her bills, would have taken me five minutes a month, and she didn't know the bank from the insurance company by then.  It took a court order to get my brother made conservator, he was the only one living in the same town as her, although I worked in the next city.  

I'm glad you have his blue blanket.  My brother got everything, that's what she put in her will, she wasn't in her right mind,but then she never was, none of us contested it, it wouldn't change anything, besides I just appreciate everything he did for her.  Him and his wife had five kids that she enjoyed being grandma to and every Sunday they took her out to eat after church, did that for over 20 years, so he can have everything, he's earned it.  There's a couple things I would have liked, never did find out what happened to them, like the hand tooled purse my dad had made for her...it had deer on it, and it was special to me, I was born on a deer hunting trip shorting after they got married, to me it seemed like a symbol of their love.  But I digress, funny how things come to you.

[Clematis]

My father left me all of his personal property in his will, but my sisters had already acquired TONS of family things over the years and then when he moved out west, because he moved from a big house to a small condo (891 sq ft). My dad brought with him the things that were precious to him, which didn't even include much furniture. A few old pieces, and then he bought new things-like bedroom furniture and a couch  We really picked it out together...because he knew it would someday be mine and he wanted to make sure I liked it? Probably, although he didn't say so...

Anyway, my younger sister said, "I don't want anything that was his", but when my sisters came out for the memorial, I noticed her fondling a few little things and I asked her if she wanted them. She said, "yeah" and so I gave them to her. My older sister said, "I don't want any of his stuff except the banjo", which youall have heard probably more than enough about. But she really didn't want anything-just because it was his. I guess she actually had some already because she had stuff that belonged to both of my parents.

I think it's nice to have things you can touch and hold that feel like family, even if it's not exactly the same item. I think my sister will go get her own Gibson tenor banjo (she has already been looking at them on e-bay). The six of us cousins loved canoeing on the Greenbrier River as much as anything in life when we were kids, and three of the six of us ended up with a canoe. My older sister had "the" canoe-the family one-and somehow managed to lose it. (How do you lose a canoe?), my cousin bought one and taught her kids to love it, and when I acquired a condo with a garage, one of my first thoughts was how to acquire a canoe and hang it in the garage. My dad-over the phone from PA-helped me figure out how to use multiple pulleys so that I could get it up and down by myself. My canoe is red and a plastic laminate that glides over rocks in the little nearby river, and the original was aluminum. But in my heart of hearts, it is the same canoe...

I think my sister will end up being happy with a banjo that is much like the one we watched my dad play when we were kids, and she is not obsessed with his skin cells on the skinhead, like I am. She doesn't care about the dirt from his hands being on the banjo head and I do. I think my sister's ultimate banjo will work for her just like my canoe works for me. There was only one family banjo and only one family canoe, but we both loved the canoe and the banjo... 

Do you see what I am saying...I think you can transfer meaning to things that aren't exactly the same one, but you give meaning to it from your heart... My great aunt used to love flowered cloth hankies and I ended up with her collection, which I used but didn't want to lose. I began acquiring new ones that were similar and mixing them together because I was afraid the fabric in the originals would be worn out from age and they would all be gone. Now it has been many years and I'm not really sure which ones were hers and which came later. In my heart, every time I use any of those flowered hankies, they are totally from her..

 

 

[MartyT]

Your thinking about mementos makes total sense to me, Laura. Whether it was used by a departed loved one or not, an object becomes a keepsake because of the meaning we attach to it, and the memories we associate with it.

You might enjoy reading a piece my son Ben sent to me a while ago, which I posted on my blog: The Power of Remembering: Grandfather's Pipe  ♥

[KATPILOT]

Absolutely love that story Marty. It explains so much why certain things have a deep meaning and can be maintained as a memorial to the one who traveled before and was so meaningful to our lives.  All my good thoughts go out to your son and his continued safety. How cool it is that he thinks about your work to find that. 

[MartyT]

Thank you, Stephen. It breaks my heart that my father never got to know his grandson as the man he has grown to be ~ I know he would be as proud of Ben as I am . . .

[KATPILOT]

[Clematis]

KayC, I had another thought for you...is it possible to ask your brother for something that belonged to your mom? Maybe the purse with the deer has already gone to someone who is treasuring it, but he might be willing to give you something...

My aunt died a month ago; her 3 kids and my sisters & I-the six cousins all went to West Virginia, where we were all born but the only one remaining there was my aunt. It was very emotional being there with my cousins, their spouses, and kids (some of whom I'd never met) in that house we loved so much as kids and would never see again. I asked one of my cousins if I might have something that had belonged to my aunt, Nancy, who had loved bunnies just like her sister-my mother. But Nancy collected them and had a large collection of them on a shelf. My cousin said, "How about a bunny?" and explained that some of them were particularly precious because they had been given at some particular time. I pointed to one and she told me that, while very pretty, my selected bunny was not one of the ones special to the family. And so it was mine. It made me very happy, and it warms my heart every time I see it at my house.

Maybe there is a way for you to have something that was hers...I hope so!

[Clematis]

You are right, Marty- I loved the piece from Ben. It's very moving. I think that sometimes the essence from the heart and memory continues and that meaning can continue to hold its symbolic value by your deliberately placing the sentiment into a new physical item, like the pipe. I suppose that happens in religious ceremonies all the time-things with no inherent meaning are assigned meaning...why not for a family remembrance...even if you don't have the actual item? I think about all those people on the Gulf Coast who lost all of their mementos, photos, and family treasures...

[kayc]

Everything I mentioned to him he had either gotten rid of or said he had use for or ignored my request so I gave up.  It's okay, I've gone my whole life without that stuff and no one can take the memories I do have in my heart.

[Polly]

Really having a hard time right now. These next 2 days are going to be really hard to get through. Tomorrow will be 2 years since my dad passed. Thursday will be 6 months for Richard. I miss them both so much. I'm also really worried about my 16 year old daughter. Yesterday a friend of hers passed away. She used to sit with this girl on the bus. She was so upset today that she didn't go to school. Thankfully tomorrow is her group grief support group day. Hopefully that will help her get through the day. I actually am taking a personal day on Thursday. I know there is no way I'm going to be able to function at work that day. Not sure how I'm going to get through work tomorrow.

[Guest]

I will be thinking about you and your daughter Polly; such a load to bear. 

[KATPILOT]

I am so sorry for your daughter Polly and I know Thursday will be hard. Our thoughts will be with you. Hang in there tomorrow. One day at a time.