Me

I am spending the day with family and smoking a rib roast for Christmas dinner. You should, too.

As all of you know, my mother passed away recently. There are many details that need to be handled:

• Does she want to be buried or cremated?
• Where to place her remains?
• Who gets her belongings? Her money?
• Who is to take care of her demented husband?
• Where are my uncle’s ashes?

All of this could have been handled through a will, but she didn’t leave one. That leaves all of us to handle the mess that she left behind. Here is the mess:

We don’t know how much money she had, how many debts that she had, or where all of her belongings are located. I’m doing my best to honor her wishes while at the same time being fair to all involved, but it is a minefield.

First, all three of us siblings, as well as my brother’s wife (my SIL) remember her saying that she wanted to be cremated. Done. But what to do with the ashes?

• Mom’s husband wants her ashes to be placed somewhere that they can be interred together.
• My brother wants her ashes to be placed in the burial plot next to dad because mom paid for it, and even has her name and photo on the headstone.
• My sister wants some of the ashes to be placed in lockets that she and her kids can wear.
• My SIL says that mom told her that she didn’t want to be buried next to dad.
• My response to all of this, is that if mom had strong feelings one way or the other, she should have had a will made up that would tell us what she wanted. In the absence of a will, we are left to do what we think is best.

Financially, we have found a credit card with her name on it that has an outstanding balance of $350, and a checking account that has less than $1,000. We don’t know where the rest of her money is, or even if there IS any more money. So how that gets distributed is a mystery. The three of us kids decided to just give the husband the money.

Then there is the fact that my brother and I are paying for the funeral arrangements because the husband can’t. The daughter won’t be able to take care of him. She doesn’t believe this, even though I tried to explain to her how much care is required for a person in their 80s who has dementia. She thinks that they are going to move in together so she can keep an eye on him. That isn’t going to work.

That means he will wind up in a nursing home or memory care center. The way that those work is that they are so expensive, the home takes every asset that the patient has- their home, social security benefits, savings, all of it. The only way to save those assets from being taken by the nursing home is to put any assets that they have in a trust. The daughter wants all of mom’s assets to be put in a trust to pay for the long term care of her widower, but the daughter wants us to name her as the trustee.

I don’t mind the husband getting most of that stuff, but in those scenarios, the nursing home or his daughter are the ones who get everything. None of it will actually benefit mom’s husband.

Mom also owned a car. The husband wants that car because the car he owns has a Blue Book value of $7500, but he still owes $10,000. The problem there is that he isn’t supposed to be driving because just a month ago, he was the subject of a search when he went to the store and was missing for hours because of his dementia.

Complicating all of this is the fact that Mom’s husband is obviously deep in the grips of dementia. He hasn’t yet been diagnosed with it because he refuses to go to the doctor, but he is worse than Joe Biden in the mental faculties department. What this means is that normally the husband would be the one to make these decisions as her next of kin, but he is in no position to pay for any of this, or to make any informed decisions. His daughter has stepped forward and claimed that, since he can’t make the decisions, it all falls on her because she is HIS next of kin.

As to who will take care of my mother’s husband, I was in my 50’s when my Mom married this guy. I don’t know him, nor do I owe him anything. Taking care of him is his daughter’s responsibility.

Even more complicated is that my aunt (mom’s younger sister) died back in March. My uncle (the aunt’s husband) died about a year ago. Mom wound up with the ashes of both of them. We found my aunt’s ashes. We haven’t found my uncle’s. My mom couldn’t stand his ass- she downright hated him. Mom had mentioned to my sister that she was planning on flushing “that no-good sonuvabitch’s” ashes down the toilet in the nastiest, dirtiest gas station bathroom that she could find. (Yes, Mom could hold a grudge) The issue there is that his family wants his ashes returned to them. We can’t find them, and well, I think I know where they went.

It’s a mess, and the three of us (me, my brother, and my sister) are left to try and navigate this mess. I’m trying to be as fair and objective as possible, but this is far more difficult than I thought it would be.

Sorry that this post will be long, but this post is from a grieving son who is mourning his mother. I got a call from my brother in law, who is the manager of a restaurant. It seems that my mother’s husband came by to see him during the lunch rush. He thought that they had come by for lunch, as the frequently did, and thought it was odd that just one of them was there, so he asked. The conversation went like this:

NH: I just came by to tell you that my wife is dead. She died in her sleep last night.

BIL: What did the cops say?

NH: I haven’t called them. I couldn’t remember the number.

BIL called his wife, then he called me. I live more than an hour away, so I called the cops to go by and check on her as I rushed to get over there…

I don’t blame the new husband. Mom married him about 4 years ago, and it’s been increasingly obvious to all of us that he has dementia. He can’t be trusted to drive alone, and the police had to go looking for him the last time he tried, because he was missing for hours.

I went over there, and I had to go into the house to identify the body. My sister couldn’t do it. I have seen plenty of dead bodies in my years in the medical field, but seeing my mother’s face on a corpse was pretty rough. I did OK and held it together until I went to leave the room, when I said “Goodbye, Mom.” That was when it hit me. My mother is gone, and I am now an orphan. A wall of grief that was unbearable overcame me.

My mother wasn’t perfect. Like all of us, she was a flawed human. When I was a child, she used to burn my fingers with matches when we touched something that we weren’t supposed to. When we said something objectional, she would put hot peppers in our mouths. She used to tell me things like “I have to love you because I am your mother, but I don’t have to like you.” Later as an adult, I was homeless for a time. That’s when I called my parents for help, because even though we hadn’t been speaking for a couple of years, I had nowhere else to turn. They hung up on me. There were plenty of reasons for me to resent her. All of those reasons are probably why I have had so many failed relationships. It made me into a person that isn’t good at being vulnerable or sharing my feelings.

The good memories of my parents far outnumber the bad. She was my mother, and I love her. After dad died, we lived together in my house for almost two years because she had nowhere else to turn. As the eldest son, it was my duty.

My earliest memories are from when I was three years old or so. I remember chasing dad and throwing snow at him as you laughed in joy. I remember the time I fell in that ant mound, and how you were brushing the ants from me as I cried. I remember the time I fell from the swing set and broke my arm, how you came running to help me. My fondest memory from my childhood is feeling the cool fall air blow through the house as you put up the fall decorations.

Every boy seeks the advice and approval of his father, but seeks the comfort and love of his mother. Now that I am the eldest remaining in my family, I no longer have either. It’s been many decades since I sat in your lap and was comforted by my mother’s embrace, I still remember and cherish those memories. Still, life goes on, and I am comforted by the love and support of my wife. Mom, when we spoke last week, you told me that you were happy that I had finally found a wife who is as good for me as she is, and how you were comforted knowing that I finally had the happiness that had eluded me for so long. Our dinner together for Thanksgiving was lovely, and I will cherish our time together for the rest of my life. You taught me so much.

My mother. I won’t be able to give her the Christmas gift I bought her. She won’t be able to call me on my birthday at the exact time I was born, just as she used to do every year. No more dinners with my mother. No more phone calls. I will never see or speak again to the woman that I have known longer than anyone else.

It seems to me that life is now a burden that must be borne without the guidance of the generation that came before. My parents and all but one of their siblings are now gone, along with their parents before them. Three of my five cousins are dead, as are five of my seven aunts and uncles, and one of my nephews.

My Father went into cardiac arrest on my Mother’s birthday, spent a couple of weeks in the ICU, and passed away on my Brother’s birthday. It was a decade before my Mother would celebrate her birthday again. Now, 19 years later, the circle is complete. Even though she remarried, she passed away on my Father’s birthday.

Goodbye Mom. I love and miss both you and Dad. My life is diminished without you, and my heart is breaking. Because I have always felt that funerals held in Latin were a beautiful way to say goodbye, and the Latin prayer Requiem Aeterna is a particlarly beautiful prayer:

Requiem aeternam dona ei. Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.

As far as the blog goes, I have some posts that I wrote these past few days, and they will be posting while I am absent. I need some time to make funeral arrangements and to grieve with my family.

The new house is getting closer to completion. It looks like it will be finished and we will be closing in about 4 to 5 weeks.

I posted this a few years ago. It’s time to repeat it.

Growing up, my father insisted on a family tradition. Every year, my siblings and I were forced to watch “Miracle on 34th Street” on Christmas day. Not just any version, the old black and white version with Natalie Wood. Every Christmas. By the time I was 18 years old, my brother and I would roll our eyes and make a face every time we were forced to watch it.

Then, I had children of my own. The tradition lived on with my own kids.

The day eventually came when dad passed away. My kids are grown and have lives and families of their own. I still watch that movie every Christmas, and it brings back memories of childhood days spent with my family: the one I had as a child, and the one I had as a young parent.

Suddenly, that tradition didn’t seem so senseless. Dad would have been 82 years old this week had he not passed away 19 years ago. I still miss him, but he still gives me a Christmas gift every year when I watch that movie.

Cherish the senseless traditions. They become some of the best memories you will ever have. 

I have been at my new job for 5 months now. I just got a 5% raise. Cool beans. That is more of a raise than I got after 3 years at my last job, and more than I got in 7 years as a teacher.

The best part is that I am also in line for a 7 percent raise in May. So that will be a 12% increase in pay in one year. At this rate, I might be able to keep pace with inflation.

Because of a major data breach, I get free credit monitoring for the next 5 years. This morning, I got multiple alerts from the monitoring service that multiple banks are reporting that someone is using my identity to try and open bank accounts using my name and address. One of those banks is Bank of America. I tried calling them, but their automated systems won’t let you speak with a representative unless you enter your account number.

How am I supposed to know a fraudulent account number? So I am trying a number listed for their fraud department. As of the time of this post, I have been on hold for 12 minutes.