Dec 22, late in the morning, prior to her release against medical advice to the contrary, my mom died of respiratory failure at the age of 94. I am her only son so must assume the executor responsibilities for her final service, as well as taking over her mortgage and other necessary bills in order to stay living where I am.

Mortuary expenses have been paid, but death certificates and the actual final services may be 6-8 weeks off with the local overburdened death services state of affairs in my area. This will certainly extend to possibly into Summer the final business of taking care of loose ends always caused by death.

I had lived with her for decades, and was her chief caregiver at the end, so this is a very troubling time, and a cheerless holiday season for me. This was not unexpected, but honestly nobody can ever be fully prepared ahead of time for events such as this.

Art commissions will cease, some new content will appear as already arranged work will be carried out as agreed. Just a heads-up that until I understand what new budget I have to work and live with will be, I need to be fully conservative on expenses such as art commissions. I was a dependent on mom's considerably greater pension income above and beyond my paltry social security benefits, so at this juncture it's a genuine worry whether the plans she made with life insurance will actually give me enough to pay off the mortgage in full. Even if it does, the expenses of property tax, utilities and homeowner's/car insurances may still be too dear for me to afford.

I will attempt to keep ends meeting best I can during this transition period.