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Update on the latest situation.
a month ago
It's been a week since my dad passed and I am so worn out. He hasn't even been cremated yet and my family wasted no time in renting a dumpster to throw out all the stuff he's hoarded over the years. I thought I was bad with my model kits and figurines, but my dad was another thing. I could understand the book collection that I've never seen him read but he had so many magazines such as National Geographics and Readers Digest just stockpiled so much that it was a fire hazard just waiting to happen. Relatives took various items such as clothes, dvds and cds, and other things. Got a bit awkward when we discovered his porn stash. We're keeping a bunch of photos of him as well as his Navy memorabilia. The only thing I kept for myself was a small toy R2 unit I put together for him when I went to Disney that he kept next to his computer, not to mention his computer we bought for him for father's day that barely got used by the time he got diagnosed with lung cancer and he was too weak to move to use it. Now I gotta figure out how to use a Mac now.
Been sore from moving lots of trash bags full of stuff that needed to be disposed of as well as dealing with allergies from so much dust from cleaning out his man cave, which I will be converting into my model kit hangar eventually. Donating what books we find to the library after trying to see if we can get any money from this bookmine nearby. Mom is notorious for just throwing out crap she doesn't think is worth anything but luckily we prevented her from throwing out a perfectly good record collection that one of my sisters sold online for over a grand. Don't know who is worse, mom throwing away perfectly good stuff, or dad and his hoarding. I know I got my hoarding habit from dad, that's for sure.
Still waiting for the death certificates to come to us so we can eventually cremate him. Gonna keep a bit of him at home while the rest we are going to dump at sea. Kinda strange, I only wept on the day he died and haven't given him much of a thought afterwards. Probably because of keeping busy. Poor mom was a wreck for the first few days, not eating or sleeping but she's back to her old self now. I'm honestly relieved that I don't have to take care of him anymore, been doing so for nearly the last 20 years. Hopefully I don't have to take care of mom anytime soon but she's taken better are of herself more than dad did for his self. I'm certain she'd outlive me. The last 3 years were hard on us since dad had his stroke, I guess I feel this way because I knew it was gonna happen sooner than later, or maybe I thought my dad was already dead. It's funny though that the doc said he had 6 months to live and yet he stuck around for 3 years.
It feels weird to be free of the burden of being a caretaker. Though there goes a major source of income. Hopefully we get something back for the life insurance at least. Still gonna be busy with paperwork and the last of cleaning up but doing okay otherwise. Think me and the sisters will treat mom to a cruise for Xmas at least. Neither of us has been able to go do anything since his stroke but now we got lots of free time.
Edit: Many thanks to those that shared their condolences in my previous journal. I'm grateful for your support.
Been sore from moving lots of trash bags full of stuff that needed to be disposed of as well as dealing with allergies from so much dust from cleaning out his man cave, which I will be converting into my model kit hangar eventually. Donating what books we find to the library after trying to see if we can get any money from this bookmine nearby. Mom is notorious for just throwing out crap she doesn't think is worth anything but luckily we prevented her from throwing out a perfectly good record collection that one of my sisters sold online for over a grand. Don't know who is worse, mom throwing away perfectly good stuff, or dad and his hoarding. I know I got my hoarding habit from dad, that's for sure.
Still waiting for the death certificates to come to us so we can eventually cremate him. Gonna keep a bit of him at home while the rest we are going to dump at sea. Kinda strange, I only wept on the day he died and haven't given him much of a thought afterwards. Probably because of keeping busy. Poor mom was a wreck for the first few days, not eating or sleeping but she's back to her old self now. I'm honestly relieved that I don't have to take care of him anymore, been doing so for nearly the last 20 years. Hopefully I don't have to take care of mom anytime soon but she's taken better are of herself more than dad did for his self. I'm certain she'd outlive me. The last 3 years were hard on us since dad had his stroke, I guess I feel this way because I knew it was gonna happen sooner than later, or maybe I thought my dad was already dead. It's funny though that the doc said he had 6 months to live and yet he stuck around for 3 years.
It feels weird to be free of the burden of being a caretaker. Though there goes a major source of income. Hopefully we get something back for the life insurance at least. Still gonna be busy with paperwork and the last of cleaning up but doing okay otherwise. Think me and the sisters will treat mom to a cruise for Xmas at least. Neither of us has been able to go do anything since his stroke but now we got lots of free time.
Edit: Many thanks to those that shared their condolences in my previous journal. I'm grateful for your support.
Continue to offer condolences and prayers for your family.
-- Stephen
My father had a stroke in June 2022 and...though I don't know the context of your family and all that, I felt like reaching out...A lot of what you wrote here resonates with me and my own experiences of the past years...my father passed away last halloween, though, its like you wrote...it felt to me as if he had already died years ago...(even before the stroke, really...)
We've yet to clear out the house, but....it's going to happen before too long, since mom is now also in a nursing home, after she fractured her pelvis in june...
At least she is doing well there, we would not have the capacity to take care of her ourselves...
This may sound cold, but to me, all the bureaucracy was the worst of it...
Dealing with taxes and insurance and healthcare and city hall and.....mountains, mountains of paperwork and mail, endless phone queues, barely functional websites and apps, and service staff having no clue about how their internal affairs work, sending you on wild goose chases, passing on responsibility, giving you wrong or incomplete information...
It felt like insult to injury, after having gone through that harrowing time and loss, to be burdened with this, pardon my french, -fucking bullshit- on top of it all...but I'm ranting, sorry...
I hope you've been spared some of this, at least, and wish you and yours all the best and that you can return to some semblance of normality after this lengthy ordeal, even with the world in the state that it is. 🙏
My only problem was they wouldn't take in his status before because he wasn't handicapped enough, but after the stroke left him bedridden it still took them a year to get us on the Caregiver list. Mostly because it turns out Florida is an elephant graveyard for old folks and that alot of people they supported before took advantage of them after their person died but the caretakers were still collecting funds. They were pretty much pulling a Weekend at Bernies move. It explained why they sent a doc every month to check up to make sure dad was still alive and not a vegetable. Still wished they sent a nurse more than once a week but with so few employees and so many old people to visit we were lucky to get one to visit a week. One didn't visit because her car got shot up visiting one of her clients in the downtown area. Sucks to live in Florida.
I wanted enough, but thanks for your message. Hope things work out for you as well.
And now my last living grandparent, my stepmom's mom, lives with us.