Replying to comments

Perhaps the best way to get caught up is to just reply to comments.  Yes....2 1/2 months and I'm still busy with grief, paperwork, banks, finances, research, cables.....

calvinnme wrote:

Both of my parents died earlier this year within two weeks of one another. They were past 90, so I can't say it was a complete surprise, yet it was a shock and it was very sudden. Yes, the sluggish rate that the system moves at as far as insurance, settling estates, etc. was quite a shock. My dad died last, and the first issue we hit was his death certificate. Nobody at the hospital wanted to sign off on it. He died alone in his room in the middle of the night, but it was obvious natural causes - heart failure due to congestive heart disease. We had to finally get the family physician to sign it, and then it was another month struggle to get hold of their checking account so we could pay their bills. Now, in spite of their finances being well organized, in spite of most of the financial institutions involved knowing both of my sisters (the executors) because they often took dad to deal with his finances when he was alive, it took FIVE MONTHS before we saw any name change on any accounts. Things I never heard of - medallion signatures, having to go to court to probate my aunt's will because she died the year before and dad was too sick to deal with wrapping up her finances properly - she doesn't even have a headstone yet! Now mind you, my aunt never married and had no children - who would possibly legitimately contest her will??? Yet the system demands it. I can only imagine how rocky this would have been had my parents not sold their home of 44 years six months before they died. Oh, and the funeral home and cemetery - the biggest in my home city where EVERYBODY is buried - put one plaque with the wrong name on it across my parents tombs in the mausoleum, as if just one morbidly obese person was buried there rather than my parents in adjoining compartments. I do feel for you as you wrap things up. It's good that you have family nearby.

I have started telling everyone to put $5K cash in a lock box at home.  Simply because nothing can be done for 10 days or without a death certificate....whichever is the later.  Then get a LIVING beneficiary on everything!  My biggest shock was that while in grief, I had to change the beneficiary on everything of mine because he had been my beneficiary.  A will means very little when it comes to a bank.  A financial power of attorney is null after death.  You think you have it all figured out.....and then you find out that you don't!  And honestly - you don't need any of it when you are recovering from the shock of losing someone you love.

Managing wrote:  

Are you starting to feel life on your own terms is taking place yet? Your days are filled with things of your own and no more the degenerative and heart-wrenching daily events of watching the man you love draw closer and closer to death?I know you are caught up in lots of "admisistrative tasks" as well as the surreal aspect of life without him, but if you take a moment to yourself, can you feel a little bit of "freedom" in this new existence on your own terms? Sorry if this sounds voyeuristic. I just imagine that there wil be some "release" of some sort when it is all over. 

Yes and no.  That is a hard one to explain.  Sunday, I started cleaning and painting his bathroom.  Two full days later and I'm almost done.  But it's been 2 days of yelling and screaming.  The end result of gastroparentesis is a whole lot of explosive diarrhea and now matter how much you clean at the time of the incidents, there is residual left over.  I put on a face mask, plastic gloves, very old clothes and was armed with about 20 different cleaning chemicals.  After gutting the bathroom of everything, I scrubbed, sanded, puttied, patched, cleaned, painted, caulked.....and it almost looks good.  But in my head, I know that I merely painted over whatever it is that would not sand off.

And during those 2 days I certainly said enough bad words about diabetes, about him, about the entire situation.  But the relief is in knowing that I will never do this again in my life.  So in a way, it was healing.  And also healing in knowing that he will never do this again.  His stomach pain is gone.  His inability to digest food, the vomiting, the diarrhea, the smoking marijuana daily....it's all over.  

I did not know that when you smoke marijuana, there is a film that gets on the walls, cabinets, floors.  And when you get into a hot, steamy shower, the steam turns that film into a liquid that looks like a bottle of caramel syrup exploded on the walls.  And that when that "syrup" dries, it hardens like brick an you literally have to sand it off the walls.  Oh!  The things you learn that you don't want to know!  It was a lot of very hard work getting those walls clean and I am NOT that young!

Managing also posted:

Your honest and helpful blog is a saving grace to me. Now too, knowing how much trouble everything is to deal with and then in the future, will you be able to just focus your memory on the good times and the great husband that you had before Diabetes wrecked him. Those things coming from you in your honest and loving way mean the world to me in my similar struggle. It is still True Love even when the person you love is so difficult that you can't even be around them. You honestly portrayed that in your blog. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Life is a strange thing with horrible and wonderful all mixed in together. I wish you an abundance of wonderful as you move forward. Don't choose anything but that as you begin allowing new things into your life. Funny thing is I think these blogs last forever so this and what you put down in the future will help people for long afterwards too. You are a Godsend to all those searching for help in this horrible thing - Diabetes. With prayers for your peace and clarity to follow the path ahead as well as thanks to God for you sharing with us, 

Thank you for your kind words.   Obviously, I'm not focusing on the good times just yet.  But I am getting there.  It is still one step at a time, one minute, one hour, one day.  I'd equate it to childbirth.  In time, you forget the pain and only remember the joy of the new baby.  I'm hoping to enjoy my new life.....once I get there.  And I know that will happen.  I also know that it just takes time.

I've sold the travel trailer to a wonderful couple who live just north of me.  New lifetime friends.  I've had a garage sale and the "first layer" is gone.  I've finished sorting out cables and trust me, what's left has been labeled!  I'm the only house in the world that has a p-touch label printed on every cable inside!  But I know what they all go to!

I'm still working on the computers.  I'm still working on his out-of-state bank accounts.  About $4K that I literally have no access to.  He made his son the beneficiary.  They were estranges.  The son is refusing to contact the bank.  All I can do is wait.  On the other hand, if $4K is the price I have to pay to be done forever with his very ungrateful children....I'm fine with that.  Financially, I am good.  Not necessarily because of him, but because I worked my entire life and made some good solid decisions in that arena.

I am still in the process of downsizing and on the wait list to get into an apartment in a complex about 2 blocks from me where my youngest sister lives.  (She pops in twice a day and my other sister is here every day).  When I get an apartment, I can start the next phase of my life.  The second bathroom is up for painting this week, but that will be a much easier task!  Then I will take a room at a time, pack it up, patch and touch up paint and hopefully get down to apartment sized living.  In the meantime, it's October, and there is so much yard work to be done.  All of the gardens have to be cut back in the next 2 weeks and the outside winterized.  We have a gazebo and a pergola with other outdoor living spaces.  It all gets packed into the garden shed.  The small greenhouse has to be winterized.  Today, I'm digging up Iris and Day Lilly bulbs as they need to be thinned out this year.

So life does go on.  Gardening is wonderful therapy.  I still love it more than anything.  It's a time to talk with God and to meditate and to be amazed that in October you can still have fresh new blooms.  Sort of a metaphor for life.  Something can bloom at any time!

DW