Welcome to the Grieving Room, whether you are new or a long-time denizen, whether you are a weekly regular or just an occasional visitor. Feel free to share your hopes and fears, your sorrows and joys, your questions and insights...whatever inspired you to join us this evening. And feel free to share your own stories, whether in comments or a diary of your own.
I'm stuck.
Stuck in the limbo of grieving, of needing to move forward.
Stuck in the morass of paperwork and duties.
Stuck on this diary.
There's much ephemera that surrounds a death; meeting with lawyers, settling estate matters, trying to get a handle on the things left undone by the deceased. Much of it can keep one from dealing with the actual grieving process. Three months after my father-in-law's death, we're just now getting into it; now that my mother-in-law is settled into a facility that actually works for her (though she's considering getting a powered wheelchair so she doesn't have to rely on people pushing her everywhere), our attention has turned from that to the bigger picture.
When a person has lived nearly fourscore years, a lot of detritus gathers, that needs to be sorted through -- my father-in-law was one that rarely disposed of anything that he thought might be useful later, including paperwork. There is a 2-high filing cabinet in his "office" (one of the bedrooms left after my spouse moved out of the house and his brother moved into a trailer in the side yard), and two additional 4-high cabinets in the garage that need to be gone through, to determine what is important (titles, financial information, and the like), and what can be easily disposed of. In addition, there are important files on his computers that I need to track down...not just vital information like financials and such, but also things like photos and poetry that would mean nothing to anyone else, but are worth a fortune to his survivors. We still haven't even cleared much of the clothes out of the closets and drawers, and that needs to be done if we can find a place other than Goodwill to take it (I'd especially like to send his suits and ties to someplace that helps men get ready for job hunting, but I've had trouble finding local organizations.) And then there are the books, both his and my mom-in-law's; the church will be having a book sale in August, so it's important we go through those, determine what's unsellable (old textbooks and computer books and the like) and dispose of them, and decide what we want to keep (there's a beautiful set of photography books that I really want though I have no business keeping, my apartment being stuffed full of my own crap as well as the spouse's).
Then there are the other details, the things the lawyers and the accountants and the government needs to know. The number crunching: how much is the house worth? (We had the appraiser in last week.) How much are the contents inside worth? (There are some antiques, plus a baby grand piano, that need to be appraised.) How much is in the assorted investments and accounts? (The financial advisor is working on that.) And so on, and so on...
Much of this seeming fluff tends to get in the way of the actual grieving process -- I found last weekend when the spouse and I got away for a much-needed getaway (Mom-in-law practically chased us out of town) that I'm still having trouble processing Dad-in-law's death, more than with any other death I've been through...probably because I'm so much in the middle of all the details for the first time. When my father died 40 years ago this year, I was only 11 and thus sheltered from much of the inner workings, and when my mother died it was my oldest sister that shouldered much of the burden as she was the trustee for Mom's living trust. I envy my brother-in-law to a certain extent -- because of his distance (physical and emotional) from the situation he's been able to come to terms with things far better than I have, even with his dealing with his own mental health issues (he's in the process of preparing for independent living).
Eventually I know I'll have to come to terms with his death...but right now there's too damn much to do. And I'm tired...