These past years, as I faced more and more personal challenges and saw more and more people leave my life because I was “no longer fun”, I became more worried about the tone of my blog. Along with a lack of physical endurance, it was one of the reasons it was so hard for me to post anything for a long while.
What I was living made me so angry and sad, two emotions people tend to avoid like the plague, that I thought it best to protect my audience from myself. Now I say: “screw that”.
Life is sadly not a beer commercial, where you are always enjoying yourself, surrounded by good people, food and drink.
Self-censorship was the reason why I cut out a good chunk my last text, discussing my mom getting an official Alzheimer’s diagnosis (she’s been slipping away for 5 years now and no longer recognizes me as her daughter), as well as the foreseen death of her last sibling, my aunt of 91.
Because I have been unable to travel since 2019, I was only in touch with my aunt through phone conversations. Despite refusing to access social services and many of the residence’s supports, she had someone who until her last few months, provided her with mani-pedis, accompanied her to run errands, and grocery shopped for her. In the end, she wasn’t in pain and died quietly in her apartment, accompanied by a nurse. She had also told me a few weeks earlier that she was ready to go.
The bureaucratic and financial burden stemming from the death of a close relative, is huge. Even the most basic estate liquidations, where very little money is involved, can be costly, trying, and last for years.
This is why I spent many conversations over years, trying to convince my dad and aunt to arrange their affairs. It didn’t work.
My dad can’t fathom dying and still has my now legally incompetent mother as his executor. I don’t even know if my aunt had a will. If there is one, it hopefully doesn’t also name my ill mother as an executor.
Neither had set up Power of Attorneys for their care or financial needs if they became incapacitated. They also hadn’t provided me with important financial information. I even tried to get my aunt and my dad to talk more and share information with each other, to no avail.
For decades before, my aunt refused to learn anything about the internet and my dad, although he did learn how to send emails at the community centre, refused to pay to have access at home. It was not due to financial constraints, but a stubbornness that was beyond my understanding and capacity to break through.
This is why, my first reaction in getting the sad news was one of annoyance at how much effort it would take to settle her affairs. My second reaction was to refuse to be involved in any way. I know you can refuse to be an executor, but apparently not when you are the last remaining relative and there is no will. We shall see.
I also told my nearly 90-year-old dad not to get involved before a will was found, but he chose to take on the task of organizing the funeral and meeting with a notary.
I’m torn between guilt, happiness watching him feel important and capable in taking over, and deep worry that he’ll die trying.
Be good to the people you love folks, and plan for debilitating illness and your death. You might avoid the former, but you will not avoid the latter.
My aunt was kind enough to at least set up a pre-arranged funeral package, but the funeral home still coaxed my dad into paying an additional $800. Some of it was warranted, I’m sure (copies of death certificates, notifications to financial and government entities). But there were repeated errors in the death announcement, the posting came a day before the 1-hour visitation and its date and time disappeared after the posting was up for only a few hours.
This meant that it was extremely unlikely that people would show up to it, yet 30 chairs were set up for the event (and probably charged to my dad who had already told me he might be the only person there and for all I know, wanted it that way).
How much this was due to my dad lacking proper understanding under the stress or the funeral home being vultures, I’ll never know. What I do know, is that my dad sat there with 29 empty chairs, until a family friend I had contacted the day before, was generous enough to show up on a very cold day.
This image broke my heart in a thousand pieces.
I cried for my aunt, for my dad, for my mom, and for me.
Everyone keeps asking: “she didn’t have any children?”. As if everyone had children and never outlived them.
My aunt lost her husband, a brother, a sister to death, and my mom to an illness that made herself and everyone else, disappear. Both my parents have lost all their siblings.
How many family members do you have? How likely are they to outlive you? Do you have kids? How many live near you?
My aunt had friends for many years at the residence, but she developed difficulties in speaking and was apparently made fun of enough that the friendships ended. The same thing happened to my mother when she first started showing signs of dementia. Old people are just as cruel as the young, really.
How many close friends do you have? How likely are they to remain as such in your older years?
Do not have a stroke or any debilitating illness in old age folks, or you’ll be left out in the cold.
I speak from experience.
Or…
…maybe, just maybe, as my grandmother used to say, “have a heart” towards others in need in your lifetime and hopefully, others will too.
Expériences by Jay 