Clematis

I've had to have someone with me all the time, and I started way too soon. I wasn't even close to being ready. They pushed me a lot on getting rid of his clothes and at some point after getting rid of his underwear, pants, long-sleeved shirt, and most of his sweaters and coats, I skidded to a stop because it felt totally out of control. This left me with about half a closet full of short-sleeved woven shirts with a collar and a pocket, which he wore almost all the time upon moving to sunny Arizona. Like you, I push myself too hard, and last summer was the last thing I needed to be doing with a head injury. I am really glad to be back in my house - not so much to be here, but to have the work done. Much as I would like to have just dug in at his house and stayed there, I couldn't afford to keep both of these places indefinitely. Now, I have stopped most of my work on his stuff, and am trying to focus on my temporary work. Maybe if I do a good job of it, it will lead to more work.

We did too - well at least one meal and sometimes two. In the beginning eating by myself was staggering. I wasn't sure how much I should eat or when or what. Sometimes I would eat too much for no particular reason and other times I would be falling apart and realize that my last meal was barely a snack and a long time ago...

Since we lived in separate condos, I wasn't walking him to the bathroom and he figured out that he could use a disposable urinal in bed so he didn't have to get up in the middle of the night. It didn't save me from living in fear for ten years, though. I was always worried that I would come over and he'd be lying in a pool of blood on his persian rug or crumbled up in a heap next to his bed or in the kitchen or something. Like you said, it was heartbreaking to watch but I miss him so much. That is very sad about your cat. I'm glad you have your dog - can you post pictures of them both so we can see them?

Thanks, Marty - that's kind of what I was thinking, but I don't know. I think about Jill surrounded with Tim's friends, and it's overwhelming. I know she felt really conflicted about him when he was alive, and frustrated with his friends, who would offer him alcohol and drugs when he had finally gotten clean. But I think you're right Marty - I'll take my cues from her and do my best to just be there for her and go with whatever she needs.

Thanks, Anne - it's perfect! I printed it out and will take it with me. I know Jill is devastated, and from talking to her in the past I think she is likely to have a long weekend of continual triggers. I really hope I can help her.

That's really great, Cheryl, that he was hanging out with you in the yard. Does he talk to you, or do you just feel his presence. I hear my dad talking to me - I think he has to speak up to get my attention. I think he is around other times, and Lena the cat is certainly aware when he is around, but she is more sensitive to that than I am.

My mother died 11 years ago. We weren't very close, which is hard because I then lost all hope that she would ever be a good parent to me and able to show that she loved me. But she had beautiful clothes and most of them fit me. A lot of them I never wore and 11 years later reluctantly got rid of them. But I have loved snuggling up in her coats in the winter or when it is raining. My sisters had no interest in any of her clothes. My dad told me he thought she would like to have me enjoying her clothes. I got another shot at having some parenting with my dad after my mother died. I coaxed him out to AZ and he lived a couple of blocks away from me. I lived alone, but like you, we spent so much time together I never felt alone. He was always there to talk to about everything and anything, share meals with, go places with, etc. The only thing that makes me think he's in a better place is that I believe that he still has contact with me, but he also has contact with the people who have passed before him. So he kind of has the best of both worlds, and he doesn't have to worry about getting to a bathroom on time, walking with out falling, or any of the other things that plagued him. I have found it terribly hard living alone without him. If it weren't for Lena my cat, I don't see how I would have survived the past 8 months, struggling through a car accident and all that. I wouldn't have wanted to survive it - I think it would have been too horrible. Awful enough anyway... One would think that getting rid of my dad's clothes would be easy since I don't wear men's clothes. I got rid of a lot of them early on, but then I slowed down and became paralyzed by getting rid of his stuff. It was way too soon when I started plowing through all of this combining his stuff and mine into one condo.

I am going camping for a long weekend at a music festival; I've been doing this for about ten years. In the beginning, I didn't know anybody in the campground, but I kept parking my tent and whatnot in the same part of the campground and gradually the group in that corner of the campground became an interwoven group made up of smaller groups, but at festival time we were all one. Tim, the guy who really held it all together and roped everyone else in, died last November. He was 46. Tim was an extremely talented, gregarious, bright guy who did absolutely everything to the hilt, whether it was eating drinking, drugging, playing music, cavorting around, bonding together a group or former strangers, fixing stuff, staying up all night, cooking, or anything else. And he looked like you might think he might - big and loud, laughing all the time, but he clearly was struggling. He died of his lifestyle. He really used music to connect people, and he would stop at nothing to pull people together. I have never seen anything like him. One of the funny things he used to do was to assign familial relationships between people who weren't related. There is a younger guy that he started referring to as his son, always in some humorous and outlandish way. Two years he started referring to me as his wife Jill's cousin, asking her where her cousin was and not telling her that he was talking about me until a year later. He was really really funny. Jill was a sweet tolerant person who adored Tim and kind of stayed in the background, while trying to keep him from killing himself from excess. She is not a musician, but became friends with his friends, who are almost all musicians. A few years ago I realized that even though it had been Tim who roped me into the group, it was really Jill who was my friend and I began focusing on her at festival time when the group got together and came alive. She talked to me a lot about how difficult and frustrating it was to be married to, essentially a shooting star. A lot of anger and frustration, tempered by love and devotion. He drove her crazy and she always pulled him back in after yelling at him a bit. He was always trying to get away from the drinking and drugging, but his friends always lured him back in. She called me a couple of hours after he died, sobbing and saying, "I don't know what to do - I don't know what to do". She asked me to go to his memorial and I did, even though I avoid driving to the PHX area like the plague. It was only two months later that my dad died and we had one really long conversation on the phone shortly afterwards. I have reached out to her by phone or text periodically over the last eight months but never heard back from her until last week, when I texted her to ask if she was going. She texted me back right away saying that she is going, she was sorry about not responding, and that she's had a really difficult time communicating with people outside of work. She also said she was looking forward to seeing me. I responded that it was ok, I understand, I'm looking forward to seeing her too, and commenting that grief is total hell. So, I'm packing to go to this festival and am just overwhelmed thinking about Tim. Thinking about Jill. It's hard to imagine this festival without him. I can't imagine her being there at this event that was the high point of his year without him. Jill camping with Tim's friends. The drinking and drugging that killed him all around. It's hard to imagine that it wouldn't be really hard for her to be there. Any suggestions about how I can be helpful to her, other than just being there for her? Anything that might make a difference?

Thanks! I don't worry nearly as much what they think, but I still feel hurt by them cutting me out of their lives. I feel their loss almost if they had died, but it's not as clean as that since they are alive. Hard to explain. I guess I also feel angry and betrayed, since they know that I have been devastated by our father's death and then injured in a car accident, and they have deliberately left me alone in that. I know in my head that they are functionally like adolescents more than adults, but that does't make me feel any better. I guess I still have a lot of feelings that will take time to sort out.

Hi Athos - somehow I missed this when you posted. It does sound like our situations are similar, with siblings in similar roles. Neither of them helped with anything, one of them would be happy to advise but never calls, and the other can barely handle her own affairs and now we aren't speaking - her desire, not mine. Yesterday, the later one, my older sister, phoned me by mistake. It rang, I saw it was her, said hello several times and waited. Eventually she said hello and "Did you call me?" I said, "No, you called me". She apologized several times and I told her "You don't need to apologize - I'm your sister", to which she apologized again. Then she said she'd just gotten somewhere and couldn't talk and said, "Good night". It was in the middle of the afternoon. I am sorry you are going through this same kind of thing. It's really awful and painful in a way that doesn't seem to stop. It's like a festering wound. I don't understand people treating family like this and prioritizing money over family. The sister that called me is the same one that my dad and I both gave a lot of money to because she "didn't want to work", as my father described it. I also rescued her from her house foreclosing by really pushing on the life insurance going through as soon as possible. I barely got it to her in time - less than two weeks. And her response was that I just wasn't nice to her and she didn't want to talk to me. She has gotten very aggressive and nasty, but still talks about how she is a "beta" personality and people push her around - especially me. The grief/bereavement counselor from hospice has been really helpful; he told me more than once that this is a shame response and that the fact that she can't make it through life without help from her little sister makes her feel inadequate, which has to be my fault. It would take more insight than she has to figure out that two professional degrees and licensing would be more practical than a Masters in Fine Art (painting). I'm with you on the incentive to cooperate, and my dad's attorney and my financial advisor pointed out that to me not long ago. I need to stop thinking that they will suddenly decide to to the right thing.

Hi Cheryl - I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. My dad died in January and it's been really hard. We were really close and I took care of him during his last ten years with Parkinson's. I know what you mean by the triggers. Sometimes it can seem very mysterious as to what will set off a big reaction - and why. I have felt the same sensations I did in the beginning - like my chest was crushed, I couldn't breathe or swallow, and the bottom had dropped out from my stomach and my world - every time I went in Walmart. I wasn't sure why. And then one day I was talking to someone about the trigger and realized that more and more toward the end of his life, every time I was in Walmart I would be looking around to find something that would help him, make his life easier, make him safer, make him smile or laugh, or ultimately to save him. But once he had died, it was too late to do any of those things, no matter how enormous the store is. Grief does suck, and the deeper your love was, the more painful the grief. It does get better to some degree. I am able to cope with my days a lot better than I did in the beginning, but I am still really struggling with his loss. Also, I talk to people all the time who tell that they lost their dad so many years ago, "and I still miss him every day". Stay in touch with us, ok? Laura

Hi Jeff. I am so sorry to hear about your sweet little dog, but glad that you have found us here. I think all you can really do is enjoy all the time you have left with her and take it one step at a time. I'm glad you found our forum here - we are all stumbling along in our grief and supporting each other as we do so. Every loss is unique and not comparable to any other. No one can tell you what to do - nor should they try - but we can listen and share our experiences with you. Probably the best thing to do with what you see here or anywhere is to embrace what touches or helps you and disregard anything that doesn't feel right to you. Grief is a hellish path and unfortunately the depth of your love correlates to the depth of your grief after the loss. A lot of people minimize the loss of a pet or may try to say it should be less than for a person. I think it's best to disregard all that as much as you can. People grieve differently and for each person their grief is what it is. My dad died in January and I have been devastated by his loss, but my sisters weren't all that upset about it. But they had seen very little of him towards the end of his life and I took care him for his last ten years of his coping with Parkinson's disease. The other thing is to remember to take good care of yourself. Get enough rest, try to eat a reasonable diet, and all that. Be careful as you walk, drive, and do anything that could result in an injury. And keep coming back here. We care about you. Laura

I talked to Maureen and she said I should be patient - the property management company is working with an attorney on the eviction so that everything is done exactly as it should be done. Apparently there was already some history already and they are wary of these people and want to make sure there are no problems.

Another thought about "lies" is that everyone's "truth" is different. Since my dad died and I've gone through his stuff, I have found some big inconsistencies between documents and the family lore. Also, there is this - two posts up is some stuff about my dad. My sisters have a totally different viewpoint, even though we all grew up in the same family and were very close in age. After my mother died they had no use for or interest in him, and both told him they did not want him to move to their town - an hour away from where he lived. With Parkinson's in a split-level house, he had to go somewhere, and I was trying very hard to coax him out west. So out he came. My sisters thought it was bizarre that I was even upset about this man's death. I went to great efforts for many years to work things out with him, which in the beginning involved my working through a lot of anger. Then I tried to make friends with him - for a long time! Then my mother died and I was able to see who he really was underneath and not being a satellite around his extremely narcissistic wife. My sisters never gave him a chance, never tried to work out anything or have anything to do with him other than extracting money, which they probably have a continuing need to justify. No one who listened to my sisters and me now talk about our father would believe we were talking about the same person. I can understand why they are angry with him how they came to see things as they did because I have seen the same thing in other families. But I am the one who reaped the big bonus, which was having a close and loving relationship with him for a decade. My sisters don't see it like that. They may think I am out of my mind, but as time goes by, I care less and less what they think.

Yeah, pretty amazing. My mother had a laundry list of their misdeeds, which my dad overcame by being who he was, brilliant and persevering. That's why he was always my hero - and still is! He could do anything. After a brutal childhood, he was working as a chemist in a lab in Baltimore and going to law school while supporting his wife and three little kids. They yanked him out of school and the lab and sent him to work in Atlanta to work as a traveling salesman, selling the same chemicals he had been working with. Bye bye law school? No, he transferred to Emory university and finished there. In law school they had to prepare cases and he was traveling all over the southeast, taking his books with him so he could work up cases in his hotel room in the evenings. When he'd get back to class he always had plenty of work done. The professor would eventually say, "Does anyone have any other cases to present? I mean, other than Charlie?" When he graduated from Emory, someone came down from Princeton and offered him a job as a patent attorney. After moving there, they told him they would show him how to write a patent application but if he wasn't successful in six months they would fire him. He was in over his head, but worked night and day, and got on top of things. Five years later, they transferred him to the foreign division but due to a mixup he found himself covering two positions in a new area. It took them two years to figure that out and hire another attorney to cover the other position. It's hard to tell if it was malice or just a lack of thought. He was pushed into retirement - it wasn't really early but he wanted to keep working. Right after he retired, they realized that no one else could do his job, and they hired him back as a consultant for two years while he trained a replacement. So he double-dipped on his pension and consultant pay and was able to put off claiming on social security for two years, which upped the payments. One of the things that breaks my heart about him is that it seems likely that he developed Parkinsons due to his exposure to chemicals, between the lab and the farms, while securing a future for his family. His company wasn't trying to do him a favor when they took him out of the lab - he just knew how to take the ball and run with it. His early stress was probably related to his drinking heavily at times and all of the stuff that went along with that. In the early 1980's I was very angry with him over things that had happened when I was young. He wrote me a long letter of apology, detailing what he had been through as a child, youth, and young adult. He made it clear that he wasn't telling me any of that as an excuse, but he loved me and hoped that if he explained things I would understand him better. I have read that letter over and over; it's very well worn, and I keep it in a drawer next to my bed. He really is my hero.

I know what you mean, Kay, and I think you're absolutely right. Saturday night and Sunday I was feeling relieved, but this morning I woke up feeling afraid and not sure why. Heck-it's been three whole days since any open aggression like trying to spray their hose into my house or run me down in their car. What kind of goofy thinking is that? I'm not sure if I'm more afraid of what they will do next or afraid they won't be evicted. Maureen the property manager works a four-day week and won't be back until Tuesday. I'll have a chat with her. For now I'm enjoying the quiet - three days of quiet has done wonders for my headaches!

That sounds very scary, Gin. I hope he's ok

I remember when I was a young adult telling my mother a story about the father of a close friend. He worked for Frito-Lay, driving a delivery truck and developed an aggressive cancer, which took his life a month before he was fully vested in his retirement benefits for himself and his beneficiary. My mother caught her breath at this point in the story and held it, bracing herself for the tragic ending. I continued...and they gave him all of it anyway. My mother let out her breath and exclaimed, "My g-d! That's inspiring enough to get you to eat Frito-Lay for the rest of your life!" I was young and had no idea just how unusual that story was. It's just horrible that companies treat people the way they do. My father's company was good to him in many ways, but when I called them to stop his pension checks they told me to hold the line, went and checked and told me that he had no life insurance. A week or two later I found a piece of paper in his handwriting with some life insurance policy numbers, the amounts and the percentages that went to each beneficiary. I called them back with the policy number and amazingly enough they rather quickly found that indeed he did have a policy paying out $51,000! My older sister's part was enough to keep her house from foreclosing - at least for this year - and I was barely able to get it to her in time.

Thank you Steve - for all of your message, but especially this part, "Listen to your dad". It's crazy because I hear him and talk to him, but then will turn around and say that he's gone. He's not really gone. Sure, he's no longer living down there in that condo less than two minutes from mine, but he's not really gone. He can't help me with a lot of the things that he used to and I can't see him or cook dinner for him. Having him talking to me and checking on me is so far from his actually being alive here it's all I could think about was his absence - I wouldn't have said that it was reassuring because he died. But given what I actually do have with him, saying he's gone is a "glass half empty" statement. Huh. Thanks again, Steve! Laura

Gosh Kay - that is horrible! What kind of work did he do there? Supplying him with drugs? Stealing his tools after he had died? It's really unspeakable. I am so sorry to hear that - it is really dreadful. I didn't know George, but I know you well enough to know you wouldn't marry someone who wasn't an amazing person. Not that it wouldn't be dreadful to do that to anyone, but still...

I have had the same experience of people behaving dreadfully (my greedy sisters) after my dad died. Our dad. They were there for the money but didn't really care about my dad. Or about me. My mother died a decade before my dad did, and her sister - my beloved aunt - died a few months after my dad died, and them my sisters stopped talking to me. Essentially I lost my entire family. There are some cousins, nieces, and nephews, but no one I am close to. It was like I had this great little family that was me, my dad and my cat Lena. Now it is just me and Lena. It's terrible the things that families can do after a death, and it seems like anybody you can find on the planet to talk to has some story of dreadful behavior by people they are related to. I don't get it, but I sure have seen a lot of it. My dad has been rather talkative since his death and there have been several times when I was ruminating about my sisters' cruel desertion of me after our dad died. They did nothing for him or me while he was alive and nothing afterwards either. So there I would be, ruminating and becoming upset and I hear my father's voice, clear as a bell, "Ah - the hell with em!" A favorite expression of his...

That's really neat, Patty! Say, I hear you're coming to Scottsdale for the event in October. That's really great - I can't wait to meet you! I would be interested to hear what you have done with art therapy. I have had some involvement with it, but not too much.

Yeah, Steve - it looks great! Those are really clever sculptures!

In the beginning, I felt paralyzed a lot of the time and like I couldn't breathe and couldn't swallow, even though I was breathing and swallowing. It's important to take one step at a time and don't be too hard on yourself - like don't worry about what people think. Usually they will understand what you are going through more than you would ever dream. You may feel totally alone, but you aren't. You really can find a lot of support and comfort here. No one will judge you and people really want to help because we all are on the same path in some way or another and we all have been tremendously helped by the love and support we have found here. Keep coming back and let us know how you are doing, ok? And remember to take care of yourself and be careful as you drive, walk, or do anything else that could be dangerous. In the beginning it is amazing how easy it is to fall, forget to eat/drink/sleep, and so on

My neighbors were gone for part of the weekend and they came back as quietly and unobtrusively as little mice. They frequently go stay with family nearby on weekends. Maybe someone talked some sense into them - like it's not worth starting a war and being evicted just because they got annoyed about being asked to turn down their music. I'm hopeful...