He is on his way by ambulance to the ER after hours of continuous vomiting. He has been weak and struggling with neuropathy again over the past several weeks after several months of small improvements. As you pray for him please remember Nan as well. She has been carrying this burden for several years and medical answers with effective treatments for Cee have been slow in coming. The root of his most recent problems is still a mystery.
Thank you from both of them for praying.
As the visit with our son progresses we are becoming aware of how ill he actually is. He is constantly tired, is pale, not able to sleep well for the first time in his life, and we are becoming more concerned. We have many friends who have lost adult children to various medical issues and to be honest we are beginning to wonder if we will be next. After our Vietnamese meal last evening he could barely manage to drag himself out of his chair to return to his accommodation for the night. He was ready to pack it in at 8:30pm. Wow.....
The emails and phone calls of encouragement we have received since my post upon hearing our son’s news have not only encouraged him, they have encouraged us as well that it is not just “us and God” dealing with this situation, but our spiritual community is also there praying, even many of more recent acquaintance who do not even know our son. Thank you all so much.
Of course in the midst of this new stress, a problem has arisen with the bank we have been trying to open an account with to receive cheques made out to my mom’s estate while awaiting the completion of probate. It infuriates me that the advisor we were assigned doesn’t really know much about estates, so has been mostly a third party go between carrying messages between myself and the bank’s legal department that does deal with estates. I feel like there is some breakdown of communication there and I am trying desperately to understand what is happening. All day yesterday I was writing and responding to emails instead of being able to enjoy visiting our kids! Grrrrrr!!!!!!
So of course I couldn’t get to sleep until after midnight and have been awake since shortly after 3am. hahaha Thanking God I had so many good nights of sleep for the week prior to this visit!!! Yay! My husband is also awake and trying to read himself back to sleep after we had a prayer time together. We feel like our family has been under siege for the past two years and we are not alone in this. We know many families these days facing huge medical issues among multiple family members.
The ups and downs of life seem to become more noticeable as we age. Perhaps as we get older our experiences cause us to better understand the brevity of earthly life. As inevitable health issues crop up we become aware of places in our lives where we need to be more trusting in God’s ability to effect outcomes, to be ultimately in charge of the bigger picture of our lives. He is worthy of our trust in all areas of life. My husband and I have decades of experience with God’s ability to provide materially for us. Now we are learning about trusting him with our family health issues and the loss of loved ones.
I am so grateful for God’s comfort and the way it is expressed through family and friends. Thank you.
The kids arrived not only safely, but on time this afternoon! WOW! On time from Pearson International Airport at mid day....incredible! That tell us there is still a much lower volume of travellers than pre-Covid19.
We helped them pick up their rental car, then led them to their air b'n'b, which is VERY NICE indeed! They have the entire upstairs of a tall, narrow landfill house and downstairs is a lovely group of older women visiting from Vancouver. I think our kids will be very happy there.
Unfortunately the edge came slightly off our joy, joy, JOY today as we began our visit with our son. He had some medical news for us that has me concerned. He is about to turn the same age as my father was when he had his first, most serious heart attack. Over the past couple of months our son has been experiencing tightness in his chest and the occasional shortage of breath so he went for help from his doctor last week. The doctor is not yet drawing any conclusions, but he has set our son up for a stress test next week after he gets home. Fortunately the doctor felt he would still be okay to come here for our visit, but we are going to have a much quieter, more restful time than originally planned. We are so grateful for his calm, sensible girlfriend who has helped him not to be as worried as he would be without her steadying influence each day. I know he would be panicking if it wasn't for her serenity of spirit. Now I need someone to help ME not to panic.....actually I am not panicking as he has good medical insurance stateside and will receive very good care there, likely even better than here. I also have been through this before with my father and so I know how many things can be done to help our son if he has blocked arteries or other heart issues to deal with. What threw me is his age being the same as my dad's when the serious heart issues came to light. Our son's doctor said it is even possible he has had a minor heart attack already due to his severely high cholesterol, although a concerted effort over the past year has certainly lowered that number substantially.
Anyway, I am still adjusting to the news, but I am very happy not to be panicking. My husband has not expressed his feelings yet, which tells me he is likely far more shocked and upset than I am! Do I know this man or what?? hahaha
Apart from this shocking news, we are VERY GRATEFUL that our kids are here, we have had a wonderful first meeting with the girlfriend and she made us a cup of tea at their accommodation before we left to allow them to setting into their place. They will come over in awhile to have some of my husband's delicious chili for dinner.
I am so happy to see them both!
A few hours from now our son and his girlfriend will be arriving for a few days of visiting, feasting, grieving, feasting.....and did I say feasting?? We may be few in number but we can ingest a lot of food in a few days!! I am making bison chili for this evening, the next night the kids are going to prepare a newly learned Szechuan meal, we are having dinner with friends one evening and a couple of favourite restaurants will round out our mealtimes. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy a few art gallery visits between meals......
My husband has been awake since 4am as he is too excited to sleep. He has had short sleeps every night for the past week due to said excitement! As for me, I have slept better this past week than I ever have prior to previous visits from our son! Now that he has a serious relationship with the lovely woman he is travelling with, I do not have the usual stresses of visits past! Other than giving our suite its weekly thorough cleaning as per usual, I don’t have to prepare extra bedding and towels, or turn my basement into a temporary art studio because the kids have made their own arrangements for accommodation. I don’t have to share our one and only bathroom with a son who likes to soak in the bathtub for hours at a time. If I have trouble sleeping I can still roam the house during the early morning hours without worrying that I am waking someone else. The kids have a rental car and can drive themselves around the city. I don’t have to take on the task of keeping our son’s artist brain on track for catching his flights on time and making sure he packs every item he arrived with, leaving nothing behind accidentally. His girlfriend seems to be quite marvellous at keeping him conscious of such details. I am REALLY looking forward to this visit!!
Unfortunately they are arriving on a snowy, cold day, but the weather will improve slightly each day of their visit. The girlfriend is not seeing our little town at its best, but at its muddiest, sloppiest, soggiest, filthiest, ugliest worst! Sigh....hopefully it won’t turn her off the idea of returning sometime during a much prettier time of year.
I am hoping and praying their connecting flight out of Toronto is not seriously delayed! I don’t think my husband would be able to stand it! hahaha
My mother died four weeks ago today. It seems both like yesterday and a year ago....wow....so much has happened for settling the estate, so many more duties to perform.....what an emotional time for our dwindling family.
Our 45th anniversary went well, a very happy day! In around some preparation for the upcoming visit with our family, we exchanged cards and my husband decided we should go to the Knotted Thistle for their yummy Saturday brunch, so that was a lot of unexpected fun! In the evening my husband produced a large box of birthday and anniversary cards he has been saving since the 1990’s! We read each card and enjoyed many happy memories, lots of laughter and just a bit of sorrow over the cards received over the years from now departed family members. It was a lovely day, just perfect for us this anniversary.
Thanks to those of you who have been praying about my ability to sleep at nights. This past week has, for the most part gone very well, with 6-8 hours of sleep each night. Hallelujah!! Bless you!
Today is my husband’s 70th birthday, but things are different this year. For the first time in over four decades there will not be an early morning phone call from either of my parents singing Happy Birthday to him, (the 7:15am call from a scammer does not count), nor a call from his sister wishing him the best for his special day. We made no plans, not even a lunch date. He requested no fuss and ado for today, only the chance to sleep in, which he is doing right now. Tomorrow is our 45th anniversary and again, no plans and no family phone calls to anticipate. We are saving our celebrations for our son’s visit. He has a birthday as well in a couple of weeks, so the four of us will have a big blowout next week. Our son will also miss the goofy calls from his grandparents this year.
Life is filled with changes as it marches unrelentingly along.
Thinking I had today off all executor duties, I was a bit emotionally overamped late last evening, so I ended up cleaning out the stationery drawer in my desk at about 11pm! Good thing I did: what a terrible mess of mismatched cards and envelopes, old writing paper, business envelopes, fun stickers, address labels....an absolute rat's nest in that drawer!! I spent the better part of an hour matching up cards to envelopes, separating the writing paper from the greeting cards, sorting the cards into types and then repacking the drawer properly! WOW....I couldn't believe I had such a mess and left it like that for months! This morning when I opened the drawer it was so tidy! YES!!
Although I got that big drawer cleaned out and resorted, my idea that today was a day off from my duties was misguided!! hahaha I got a phone call at 10am from the tenant insurance company letting me know an email had just been sent with some forms attached that needed to be signed and dated, pen to paper and then scanned, reattached to the email and sent on back to the company. My husband helped me with that and everything was dutifully returned as directed.
Then another email arrived from the lawyer that required a response, followed a couple of hours later from a bank requiring some more legal information as part of their "due diligence" in establishing once and for all my identity as executor. hahaha Will it EVER end??? hahaha I am praying the final necessary bank appointment can take place sooner rather than later, so that I can submit the last of the required information to the lawyer by the middle of the first week of April so he can file the probate application.
We had fairly typical weather today for this time of year. In the early morning it was sunny and a tad cool, by noon it was overcast and pouring rain, then we had a few snow flurries and a bitterly cold wind before the sun came out again in the late afternoon. I can live with that kind of weather for awhile. It is not -40C outside, so what is not to live with? Right?
My minister came over for a pastoral visit this morning. It was really great. My husband and my minister: two ordained fellows talking....and talking.....and talking. The minister was here for two relaxed hours. It was fabulous and we talked about many topics from church life to world views to world events, to holidays, to family....my goodness it was a lovely visit.
After lunch I realized it was time to get myself to the grocery store for some food for our friend who was coming for dinner this evening. It was fun bebopping around the store, making up the menu based on whatever I happened to see as I went through the deli department. We ended up with a roasted chicken, some pasta covered in my home made tomato, onion, pepper, garlic sauce and grated cheese, green olives, a mixed green salad with cucumber pickle dressing, black olive bread and for dessert a slice of my husband's delicious home made pound cake covered in whipping cream, strawberries and topped with an almond, caramel, sea salt KIND bar that I battered into bits with the mortar and pestle. YUM!
Our friend certainly enjoyed his dinner and his big glass of Chateau Canada merlot/cab sav. Good French wine makes any meal, even tonight's simple fare, taste spectacular. We had a wonderful visit with our friend. His wife is coming home tomorrow and he will be so happy to have her back. I am so glad we were able to get him over here first so that she knows her husband was able to have at least one home cooked meal in her absence.
Tomorrow morning we have some errands to run, then after lunch I am heading over to a friend's place. We usually see each other at least once a week, plus at church, but it has been over a month now since we have had the chance to visit together. I am so excited!
It has been a productive week and a fulfilling one in many ways. Despite feeling physically drained, mentally I am feeling sharper than I have for awhile due to all the business I have been forced to conduct in the past month. That seems to have been good for my fuzzy old brain.
The "kids" are coming next week. I am trying to digest the fact that I need to give our place a thorough cleaning AND pick up groceries before they arrive. My head is wrapped up in the all encompassing "executor's bubble" and the rest of the world has ceased to exist it seems. Time to get back into real life!
Today was so productive as far as Mom's estate business. We had two bank appointments today, the last two banks to deal with at this point in time and we will have one more important appointment at one of them again next week or shortly thereafter. As each step in the process is accomplished, I feel a bit more of the weight of the responsibility lifting from my shoulders. Barring some disaster that crops up unexpectedly in the next week, I should be able to "hang up my briefcase" for awhile. Hallelujah!! I am grateful that each task is being accomplished, although with the one main bank it has been far slower going than expected, hence the scramble to have that final important appointment as soon as possible. Well, all I can do is continue to trust God to work things out in His way and time and to protect me from making some kind of idiotic error as my brain begins to unscramble from the stress of loss and grief and executor duties!
The weather has been so lovely the past couple of days. It hasn't been warm like spring yet, but the daytime temperatures have been sufficiently above zero to melt some of the snow piled up everywhere. That of course has increased the size and depth of the lake our back yard has become due to the large amount of snowfall this winter, but if we can avoid too many more days of flurries and scattered showers and have a few days of prairie winds, it won't take long to get rid of the water.
My husband is getting a lot done on his course material and Powerpoint for the next class he is teaching. I am so thankful he has the summer off and will complete the course in September. I am tied up several days in August doing some work in the church office, but apart from that our summer is looking pretty free...either to do as we choose to stay relaxed, or go to care for Ray. Another parish out of town is wanting my husband to come and do their services occasionally over the rest of this year, but so far he is resisting that temptation. I am praying he remains strong in his decision to truly be COMPLETELY retired SOON!!
To keep myself from becoming overly depressed about the state of the world at present, I am concentrating on the upcoming visit with our son and his girlfriend. YAY! It will be short but very sweet indeed. I am also looking forward to a visit from our pastor tomorrow morning, then some grocery shopping for a meal I am cooking for a friend who is coming to dinner. His wife is away caring for her ailing sister and he is quite alone and tired of trying to cook for himself. He is lots of fun to talk to and he just loves my husband, so it will be a good evening.
I am very grateful that I have managed to avoid reactivating the shingles virus that made itself evident just after Dad died in 2020. The other night I noticed a pressure point starting up on the same side of my head where shingles symptoms developed at that time, so I had a stern talk to myself about giving my stresses to God, prayed my way into a few nights of excellent sleep, and so far it seems I may not be having a relapse after all. So grateful for that. Hopefully I can stay healthy. If I can level out the stress over the next few days then I won't collapse as soon as the "kids" return home after our visit.
So much has happened just in the past week that I can hardly believe we only came home a week ago today! So many appointments were set up and accomplished, legal letters, government "stuff", done AND it appears the post office is doing a far better job of forwarding Mom's mail here than they were able to do after Dad died in the height of the first terrifying Covid outbreak. Again, I am very grateful.
The setting up of the treatment process for Ray continues to drag on. He was hoping to start his chemotherapy this week, but it has been delayed again. He lost a kidney to cancer a couple of years ago, so he will have to be more carefully assessed in order for the medical team to figure out the best chemo cocktail for his remaining kidney to handle during the months it will be eliminating all those toxins from his body during the treatments.
He is currently awaiting a full body scan so that the best decisions can be made. It is no wonder his anxiety disorder is at its peak. He is being very brave about his situation, but we are grateful for the excellent psychologist who is guiding him through his miserable health crisis.
Praying and encouraging him are the only things we can do for him so far.
It has been a happily busy couple of days around here. I am so happy to be at home again, living my own life, mostly, enjoying my church and church family yesterday morning, having lunch with another couple after church (home made clam chowder soup and muffins and a jar of home made grape jelly as well, made from grapes grown in our friends' back yard), relaxing at home watching tv in between washing the packing towels and blankets we used to bring home a few things from Mom's suite, watching the sun shining and the lake forming in what WILL be our pathway to the car once everything dries up post snow melt. It really is crazy to be looking out at a pair of geese SWIMMING ON THE LAWN because the water is so deep! Yikes!
Today was personal laundry day and it was great to get the exercise going up and down two flights of stairs, lugging heavy baskets of clothes. Tomorrow afternoon I will iron AFTER a fun morning visit with my walking partner on the back deck. HOPEFULLY the rest of the ice will soon be gone from the sidewalks so she and I can get a move on once again and enjoy our walks out of doors.
Slowly but surely my husband and I are getting recorded television programmes watched and erased! We had no clue we would be gone for three weeks and so left a bunch of recording requests on our tv for shows that we likely wouldn't have seen as many episodes of if we had been here in person weeding out new shows after a week or two of initial episodes. Oh well, at least it meant we could erase several hours of programming without watching every episode....another bunch of dud new shows, but at least we did try watching them.
This week is going to fly past rather quickly I think. We have plans for most every day of the week, mornings, afternoons and evenings. My husband is turning 70 this week and I have had time to do absolutely nothing special for him yet....oh please dear GOD give me a couple of hours alone out shopping to find him a nice treat. He loves to come with me every time there is anywhere at all to go, any errand to run, every dozen eggs needed to be purchased. We spent so much of our married lives living in different cities and travelling to different places without each other that he is making the most of what togetherness retirement offers. hahaha It is lovely, but occasionally I need a bit of time to do things like find him a nice birthday surprise!! By the weekend we will be ready to receive our kids for their visit. YAY!!! That in itself is treat enough for my husband and for me for our anniversary. With the cost of airfares about to double and triple it is a mercy the kids had their fares booked a couple of months ago and paid for very inexpensive tickets. There won't be much travelling now until the world oil and gas production and shipping situations are back under control and that could take a long time.
My husband is working hard today on his course presentation for the day after the kids leave. He thought he had all week this week to do it, but now we have the two bank appointments in the same day and a dear friend has a serious home renovation issue he desperately needs my husband to help him with this week. And yes, it IS necessary. It is just one of "those" things.
Well, time to make dinner and then get my briefcase cleaned out and ready for the next round of banking appointments. So glad it is sunny so much this week. It makes me feel more cheerful!!
Oooh my goodness, it is SO GREAT to be home at last! Although the piles of dirty snow are going to take at least a week or more to melt completely, even the mucky streets and crazy, newly returned geese (gaak) are looking good to me~just being home and sleeping in my own comfortable bed is worth the boring, extra long drive home we had the other day.
It is above zero and the sun has been shining brightly all day. The car of course is filthy once again from being splashed by passing vehicles on the soaking wet streets, but it will be easy enough to wash off the present layer of mud and start the next layer in a few more days.
This morning we ran errands and even that was fun because this is such a small city in area and it isn't difficult or particularly time consuming to go from one end to the city to the other and back again. As much as I love Calgary, one of the joys of this recent trip there was that everything we needed for shopping and restaurant meals was available within easy walking distance from the hotel. We took a main connector to Mom's facility, to the hospital while she was still there and to all the legal appointments. The wonderful, WONDERFUL spring weather also helped us enjoy the time there as much as was possible under the circumstances.
I am very happy with some little items I inherited from my Mom, pieces of jewellery that have little monetary value, but are filled with wonderful memories both for myself and for the other people who wore them for many years. I now have and am happily wearing: my own engagement and wedding rings, plus: both my maternal and paternal grandmothers' engagement and wedding rings, my mother's engagement and wedding rings and my father's wedding band. Every time my hand flashes in front of my face I see all those narrow banded rings, some with the tiniest possible diamond chips set in, and I remember each person who wore them with great fondness and joy. They bring lifelong memories as vivid as photographs. I am blessed to have them. I admit I was a bit rattled yesterday as I cleared old phone calls from my telephone call display screen and the last four calls were from Mom the day we decided she must go to the hospital. That was a hard thing to do. That has been our family phone number since I was born and Mom and Dad got their first telephone. Now I will never dial it ever again.
We are going to go to in person church tomorrow I think. We are both in desperate need of some personal contact, even from a masked distance, after three full weeks mostly alone in Alberta. The comfort of our church family will be sweet even if there isn't much chance for personal visiting afterward. At this point simply being around a few loving people will be sufficiently edifying. Kat and Val came over for awhile last evening and due to some medical issues for them we distanced and kept our masks on even in our suite, but it was still wonderful to see them in person. This week my first walking partner is coming over for a porch visit one morning and that will be just wonderful. To the best of my knowledge the estate business here doesn't start again until mid-week, so I have time to sort out the paperwork in my briefcase and organize myself for those upcoming meetings. Today I feel like I can breathe again.
My husband decided we should spend a recent gift from friends on having lunch at DarBar, so we both enjoyed the coconut pepper chicken platter. We each brought half of our meal home for dinner this evening. It is amazing to think that today we will have eaten two restaurant meals each for a total cost of twenty five dollars and ninety eight cents. DarBar has not thus far had to join in the trend toward very much higher prices in restaurants. Bless their hearts!!
In the coming week my husband will turn 70 yeas old and we will celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary! Unbelievable!! We never dreamed that one day we would actually be this old. Thank the Lord that most young people do not project this far into the future when they think about life. It would discourage them completely. hahaha We have never been ones to think too far ahead as we prefer to look at each phase of life as the best one. Of course now that we are older we must spend more time contemplating our options for senior living, available medical care, streamlining our finances for the sake of our executor when the time comes....all those things we have been able to avoid considering until recently. I am glad we haven't overthought old age before getting to it. We have thoroughly enjoyed life in all its glory and tragedy. Now we are older and hopefully wiser and ready to set things up for ourselves going forward and for our son once we are departed.
In another few days our son and his girlfriend will be here. We are so grateful for that. Grandma's death is still recent enough for our son, who has not been faced with the details of everyday legalities involved, that he will at last be able to grieve with us. Oh my....I am praying for his girlfriend that she isn't completely put off of us by the circumstances surrounding her first visit with us in person. Zoom and Facetime are one thing, but in person....in Regina....prior to REAL spring weather....as the poopy geese are starting to arrive.....oh dear....praying already she will be okay with all of the craziness here in Saskatchewan at this time of year. I am nervous as anything about her arrival and PRAYING I can just keep calm and not make a fool of my stressed out self. THIS girlfriend is THE girlfriend, THE ONE as some people say and it is very important to relax and just BE when she is here.
Since we have many many many hours of recorded tv programmes to wade through due to our prolonged absence, I think I will go now and watch a couple of things to get them cleared off the recording space. I have 14 episodes of "Dr. Pol" alone!! Surely some of them are repeats that I can delete immediately....SURELY!!!
We arrived home late yesterday afternoon. After the warm air and dry streets in Calgary the return to several feet of still melting snow and flooding intersections in our area was an unpleasant experience!! However, the highway was bare all the way home, the sun shone brilliantly and our dear friend here had shovelled not only a pathway from our parking spot to the back door, but also a pathway along the side and front of our building and dug out the window wells to keep our basement from flooding as the snow melts!!! Who DOES that without ever being asked????? Our friend swore to us that she found it therapeutic after working all day in her super stressful office.
Another friend offered to use her own online access to the bank I have been struggling with to sneakily get me the appointment I need. Who DOES that????? Fortunately I won’t have to take her up on that offer as at 5am I started doing some deeper online digging and located a phone number in Toronto neither my husband nor I had ever seen before. Certainly none of their financial advisors I spoke with at my Calgary appointment mentioned it to me. Since their office opens at 6am my time I just stayed awake until 6am and called then. Bingo Bango! I also discovered a couple of magic words to get me past the telephone virtual assistant and so I was connected to a live person immediately. The helpful gentleman had everything I need set up for me in less than ten minutes!!!! He was able to explain a few more things I needed to know as well. Thank you Jesus and prayer warriors!! Now I do not have to awaken my exhausted husband to drag him around the city to local bank branches to beg for help.
We came home to a pile of lovely sympathy cards filled with heartfelt messages of condolence, more caring emails, telephone messages and even gifts from family and friends!! Losing Mom so soon after Dad has left me feeling like an orphan...a 60+ year old orphan!! This, despite the incredible support from my husband. God bless him, he has been my rock. Grief is such an odd experience. The outpouring of concern has started to settle my emotions and give me strength.
I am happy to report that Raymond has suffered only minor side effects after his Gamma radiation treatment. The worst side effect was blurred vision that could have been permanent, but cleared up after a couple of days. How wonderful. He starts chemo very soon. He isn’t feeling fantastic, but he is coping despite high levels of anxiety. We are on standby to go to help if needed after our son’s upcoming visit. Raymond’s neighbours have all been an incredible help to him. Besides helping him with rides to appointments they have been shopping for him and taking him to concerts and lectures. Again, the support of others becomes extra special during the most trying times of life. He is thrilled that all of you are praying for him.
It is nearly 8am and I have been awake since 4:45 am. I desperately need my breakfast and to get some legal papers into the mail before grocery shopping.
God bless you all! Thank you for everything.
While I am still going to have to make a fool of myself at the one bank back at home, storming into every branch in the city in person and demanding to talk to someone in person who can make me an appointment with an estate financial advisor, tonight I had success with the other bank who did not return any of the calls I have been making since last week. I am so grateful. I realized their customer support centre was open until 8pm, so at 6pm I decided to try calling just one more time. So glad I did. I was on hold for less than ten minutes before a most helpful woman answered!!! It wasn’t long before she had an appointment set up for me in Regina on the day and at the time I wanted. She sent a confirmation email with the name of the estate advisor and along with my email reminder next week she will attach the documentation requiring my signature so all the advisor has to do is print off a copy for me to sign!!
Prayer and perseverance together make a powerful combination at times.
Of course my OCD reaction has settled down for the time being. Sigh....how predictable I am. Solve a problem, become calm again. I have to get back to being calm even before the problem is solved. My husband says it is my grief causing the OCD reaction to rise up again and I suspect he is right.
I was hoping that my days of having to “storm the castle” to get what I need, as I will have to do with the remaining and most uncooperative bank, were permanently over after my husband left the carpentry/building maintenance trades and I was able to cease being the collections officer, fighting with other contractors, lumber yards and what have you to get payments on time for completed projects, but hopefully I won’t have to stoop as low this time as I had to do then in order for our company to get paid. This APPEARS to be the last major hurdle to have to leap over, at least for awhile.
The appointment with the chartered account went very well. He has years of experience and not only agreed to complete this year’s taxes for Mom’s estate but insisted he wants to complete everything for next year’s final filing as well. I am so glad!!! Yes, he is expensive. Do I care? No!! The work will be done properly and legally and that is what matters to me. So thankful he came highly recommended.
Well, that is the end of my daily download. Soon my son and his girlfriend will be with us. I am living for that day! There is a light at the end of this crazy dark tunnel.
I am at the end of my emotional tether this afternoon. I have been attempting to get appointments made at two banks at home next week in order to complete some paperwork that must be done before the end of the month for Mom’s estate. Grrrrrrrrr.....
One bank has been taking my voice mails all morning at every possible place and estate department line on their list of many numbers I have to punch as I attempt to connect with somebody....anybody. I have been leaving all the necessary information on every suggested voice mail for the past four hours and no call back.
The other bank does not have one single way to connect with any person or appointment making voice mail. The recorded spiel is all about making appointments on their website which you cannot do without having an online bank account. Since I don’t need or want an online account there I have no way of making the appointment. I finally found a phone number to call for people who are either not clients or do not have online banking so I thought I was saved. Nope! When I called it I got the same old recording followed by more numbers to punch according to how I wanted to set up online banking!!! Aaaaaargh!!!!! In frustration I called the financial advisor I worked with at the meeting here in Calgary. Her response to me was to forget calling the customer support centre, get myself home forthwith and march into my nearest branch back home to demand an appointment as soon as possible!!! Sigh....
I know God will continue helping me get things in place in time, but there are days like today when I feel too exhausted to fully appreciate his Down To The Wire methods. I WILL bless the Lord at all times, but some days I admit to not enjoying these frustrating details along the journey.
Despite that, underneath the frustration I AM at peace about the end result. I am still working on the OCD that makes it difficult to relax during times of limbo. I want everything in place NOW!! The OCD creates surface agitation that sometimes pulls my emotions away from the sure knowledge that all will be well.
Mom’s death has opened the door to new spiritual lessons to be learned and old lessons about trust to be reminded of. Life is never boring.
Today we completed all but one of the local appointments. Even though the federal government has not yet mailed out the CPP/OAS tax forms for last year, the chartered accountant has agreed to see us tomorrow to receive the rest of the collected tax information and when the pension info arrives all I have to do is courier it to him. Yay!!!!
As I suspected it was absolutely weird driving away from Mom’s facility today for the last time. It isn’t sinking in yet that we do not have to go back there any more. Since 1977 we have never gone anywhere in Alberta, even if just driving through AB on our way elsewhere, without swinging through Calgary to see Mom and Dad....not even once. It was both a pleasure and a bondage, and now life has changed.
My husband is frying chicken and boiling veggies for dinner....must go and eat!!!!
I slept for 7 hours last night. SEVEN!!!!! It’s a miracle!! hahaha I realized last evening that I have started dreading going to bed at night because my mind refuses to shut off as it rehearses over and over the remaining details I have to take care for the estate by the end of this month. So, I decided it was time to return to saying a nightly mantra as soon as I retired to bed, just as I did thirty years ago when there were far deeper problems to deal with in life than my Mom’s little estate! As I crawled into bed I repeated, “In Thee O Lord do I put my trust!”. I mumbled it a few times to myself and to God and my husband said I was asleep in about thirty seconds. I woke up briefly at 4am, repeated the same scripture a few times and drifted off to sleep very quickly for another three hours.
I was inspired by our church class yesterday morning. We were talking again about Jesus and the disciples and him telling them that he is the way and the truth and the life. He told them be was leaving them and of course they wanted to know where he was going. He didn’t give them the exact destination, apart from saying he was going to be with the Father, but he did tell them he is the way to the Father. In other words, if they would just place themselves into his hands, he would get them where they needed to go. The same holds true for his followers today. God often does not reveal the details of his will for each of us ahead of time, he simply asks us to follow his way of love, forgiveness and compassion and believe Jesus, the embodiment of his truth, place our hand in his and he will lead us into the way we need to go. It gave me great peace yesterday and got my spirit back on the track of trusting God to work out the details. I kind of came off the rails when Mom died. Hopefully a few more nights of better sleeping will keep me on the right path again!!
We completed the cleaning out and cleaning up of Mom’s suite today. It only took a few hours to clean all the cupboards and fixtures, magic eraser the black marks from bumping furniture and metal blinds off the walls and window frames, wash the Venetian blinds, appliances and floors. Done!!! Finis!!!! Yay!!!! Tomorrow we will return for the move out inspection, check Mom’s mail for the last time, (please pray with me that her last outstanding piece of tax info from the government will be there so we can call the accountant, THANKS), and turn in all her keys. It is going to feel absolutely weird to be then driving out of the parking lot for the last time. Then the change of address will go into the post office and I can only pray they manage not to lose any important pieces of outstanding mail after that. From my mouth to God’s ears! I have a much stronger feeling of assurance about that since yesterday’s church class than I have had over the past two weeks. Amen!!
Now my husband and I are exhausted. It is going to be sandwiches and salad for dinner tonight. Cooking the carrots, baby potatoes and chicken will have to wait until tomorrow when our backs and feet stop aching from today’s strenuous work!
Yes, as I approached the elevator doors in the hotel lobby, the ones with the mirrored fronts, the explanation for my treatment on my shopping journey became embarrassingly clear!! Sigh...
As I looked in the mirror while awaiting the elevator I saw a white haired old woman and my white hair was tangled on one side around the strap on my face mask so it was sticking out around my ear in a great fuzzy wad. There was a previously undetected schmear of lunchtime hummus across the front of my white mask that must have been secretly stuck to a finger after I ate and that I somehow managed to miss when I washed my hands after lunch. There was a tomato sauce stain on my shoe and a second schmear of dried hummus on one pant leg. There were a couple of good sized dots of mud on one corner of the bottom of my coat, I had no makeup on and my eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. My coat wasn’t done up properly so the bottom of the inner zipper, which broke two days ago, was flapping carelessly around my knees. Oh dear Lord, no wonder everyone I saw thought I was ancient, homeless, incapable of caring for myself and totally befuddled!!!! No wonder the homeless man thought better of asking me for a handout. No wonder the hotel staff questioned my presence in their hotel. Cringe worthy!!! I am so tired I didn’t even bother to check my own appearance before I went outside!!! After a lunch hour that saw me drop a full teaspoon of flax seeds on the kitchen floor, followed in quick succession by three crackers and some shredded cheese and then getting a bad bump on the head when I stood up too quickly from getting something off the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, I suppose it is not that surprising that the rest of the afternoon has been unfolding the way it has thus far.
I stepped quickly onto the elevator as soon as the doors opened and said a quick prayer that no other guests would arrive before the doors closed, hiding my hideous self from any more public viewings. Prayer answered I got quickly inside my suite to begin a massive cleanup of my filthy, ragged self!!!
At first I wasn’t sure if I should laugh at the whole ludicrous situation or cry from the public humiliation. I opted to laugh and laugh heartily, as well as give praise to God for the many caring young people in this city who wanted to help an apparently homeless, mentally incapacitated old woman who looked like she had barfed on her own clothes. God bless them every one!!
Dearest Father God....I need sleep! If I don’t get some soon the assessment of myself by the people around me today IS going to become my reality! Hayseed is too kind a term for the woman I saw mirrored on the elevator doors today!!!
I have just returned to the hotel after a walk to the grocery store for a few items, and it was a most interesting walk!!!! Less than a block away from the hotel a homeless fellow pushing his cart full of plastic bags and raggedy blankets appeared to be about to stop me. “Hey lady, could you spare...uh...”. He stopped just as I was walking up to him, looked me up and down, then said, “Uh, never mind,”, and walked on past. Hmmmm......it seemed an odd encounter, but I continued on to the store relishing the dry streets and sunny +2C temperature.
Inside the grocery store the odd encounters continued. As I picked out only the few required items, I for some unfathomable reason attracted a steady steam of younger shoppers all stopping to ask if they could help me make my selection, began searching the shelves to see if they could find me less expensive brands, asking me if I realized there were bananas less expensive than the organic ones in my hand, offering to carry either my basket of items or the four litre water jug dangling from my fingers to the cashier for me. I managed to be polite as I declined their concerned offers, but it was a very strange experience. When I did find the cashiers and put my items on the conveyor belt to await my turn, the woman ahead of me in line told me that a four pack of one litre water bottles was less expensive than the one large single bottle I put on the conveyor. The cashier looked up from the transaction she was processing for a couple already getting their groceries scanned to agree with Helpful Hilda’s idea. I thanked them for the information but explained that it was easier for me to carry the one four litre jug than the four pack. Helpful Hilda assured me she would be happy to assist me in carrying my groceries outside for me, a very very sweet woman, but I explained that I was actually walking to my hotel several blocks away. She and the cashier gave me concerned, pitying looks and one of them said, “Oh...SURE dear...”. Wha???
I left the store unhindered and hauled my groceries and water bottle to the hotel with no further incidents, shaking my head at what had gone on in my travels. I walked in the front door of the hotel and set my groceries down on a chair in the lounge by the front desk to dig my room key out of my purse. Immediately one of the two desk clerks swooped down on me asking if a was a hotel guest and seemed extremely surprised when I waved my key at him and told him my suite number. By this time I was completely confused.
Then as I approached the elevator a glimmer of understanding began.....
To be continued as I cannot do long posts on the iPad screen.
The feeling that I am living in an alternate universe with my tiny deceased mom at the centre of that universe is slowly ebbing as other family and friends are beginning to send emails detailing their own lives once again. Their communications are tethering me at least tentatively to the real world.
I am beginning to understand that I am going to have to book at least three bank appointments for the first two days of my son’s upcoming five day visit. As a link down the chain of executor command, I do not trust any of Mom’s financial institutions who say they “likely” will not require his signature to move the probate application forward. That same “likely” applied to my signature after Dad died, but lo and behold, long after the paperwork was completed for his estate my signature was needed after all. Just living in another province added layers of extra hassle to that process. My son lives in the USA....talk about layers of extra hassle if the same thing happens now. So, I will give my son and his girlfriend that jolly news this morning!
We accomplished a lot at Mom’s suite yesterday. My husband took measurements of the back storage space in our car and all the items HE wants to bring home with us, while I sat back envisioning us driving home for eight hours with car seats pulled forward as far as they will go, then dragging everything through the over two feet of snow presently covering the distance from our parking space to the back door, then deciding where all this crap....oops, I mean these things....will go once we get everything inside. I am insisting that for every furniture related article going in, one of our present articles must come out! I’ll see how far my insistence gets me when the time actually arrives! We had just started downsizing our own things a few weeks before Mom died. Sigh.... Thanking God my husband was able to negotiate a reasonable new lease for us until the end of May in 2023. There is no way we could add a move into our lives this spring.
We were able to make a sizeable donation of food and household products to the Food Bank yesterday. Now Mom’s cupboards are bare. The box of small items for the thrift store is nearly full and we will deliver those things next week. Then will come the packing of our vehicle and the final cleaning of the suite. Lord willing, we will be home in a week.
On Sunday some relatives are meeting with us. It will be good to see them as we have not been able to grieve together yet. We have not been together since Ruth’s funeral last year.
Raymond contacted us last night. Thus far his main side effect from the Gamma radiation has been blurred vision that should clear as the brain swelling goes down. If it doesn’t clear soon he will be given a steroid to reduce that swelling. When the tumour was treated the radiation margin was about 2cm wider than the 6cm tumour, so the hope is that no cells related to vision or cognitive function were damaged. He is receiving a lot of help with his anxiety as well.
Time for breakfast. I am grateful that my nightly hours of sleep have finally progressed from 2-3 to 5-6. Thank you for praying, as I don’t want the stress and exhaustion to bring on another case of shingles!
I was reading the local CTV newsfeed a few minutes ago and discovered that Daylight Saving Time begins here Sunday morning! So grateful I noticed!! Living in Saskatchewan I don’t pay that much attention to DST because we don’t make the switch to DST in most of our province. All it means to me is that the handful of tv shows I watch will now be broadcast locally one hour earlier than before and my son’s time zone will now be two hours ahead of mine instead of one. If Mom was still alive there would be the joy of having our two provinces sharing the same time and thus making telephone times less confusing for her. This Sunday it will be nice for us to be able to Zoom into our SK church service at the usual time of 9:30am instead of having to be Zoomed in an hour earlier like we had to do last week. So, the only effect DST has in my life now is keeping track of the change in time difference between me and my son.
Yesterday was a deliberate day off from all things estate related. I slept so little the previous night that I was a red eyed, flush faced, droopy lidded zombie the entire day. We met our friends at a scuzzy Vietnamese/Thai restaurant that, while not serving the best food on the planet, was a quiet, slow paced location that was perfect for a two hour visit. All four of us were equally exhausted and feeling our age yesterday, so the visit went very well. No one minded that we were all feeling less than inspired. It was a peaceful, laid back afternoon. So appreciated.
Afterward we were supposed to go grocery shopping at the store near the hotel, but my husband decided I was too tired, dropped me off at the hotel so I could have a much needed nap, and did the shopping himself. How lovely for ME! Then he returned to gave his own nap. When he woke up it was nearly 7pm and he decided we were going to eat dinner at the restaurant next door so we wouldn’t have to fuss with dish washing etc. I had a nice Caesar salad with chicken and a glass of relatively decent Argentinian Malbec, followed by six consecutive hours of sleep. Yay!
When we got back to our room I washed some clothes in the kitchen sink and hung them over the shower door to dry. As my hands are not strong enough to wring the water out very well, the clothes will likely not be dry until tomorrow, but at least we will have a few clean items to wear during our unexpected third week’s stay.
Today we will return to Mom’s suite to take a better look at ALL the items my husband set aside before the movers arrived....items he MAY want to take home with us. There are more items than we have room for, so next week there will be a trek to both the Salvation Army thrift store and the food bank. Let’s just say that even at that, our car will be well weighted down with ballast for the trip home. 100km winds will have a difficult time blowing our vehicle off the road! Hahaha!
This morning Raymond underwent the same type of Gamma radiation treatment that Ruth had a year ago. We can only pray it was more successful for him than it was for her. His cancer is less aggressive than hers was and he only has the one brain tumour whereas she had three. Tonight he is resting at home after having 192 beams of radiation focused on that tumour in hopes it has destroyed the tumour itself and also the ability of its cells to regenerate. Hopefully he will not experience any serious side effects in the days to come. There will be some brain swelling around that site for awhile, but hopefully the radiation did not destroy any healthy cells responsible for speech or vision or cognitive function.
It was easy to be up and praying for him at his scheduled treatment time of 6:15am because we hardly slept all night for worrying about him, as he is so alone as he goes through his cancer journey. I cannot imagine!!
We had another successful day at another bank and were able to have Mom’s phone and tv account closed with a surprising minimum of fuss and confusion. That has not been our previous experience with this particular communications company, so we felt blessed indeed!! Hallelujah!
We extended our hotel reservation by one more week. The SK weather pushed the issue. The weather and highways are not going to be good again this weekend, so our direction to remain here seems clear at last. Several friends have sent us photos and road reports and have strongly urged us to wait this extra week before returning home. We are under far less pressure now to clean the remaining items out of Mom’s suite and have the move out inspection. There is still a chance if we stay that the rest of Mom’s government tax info will arrive in time to meet with the tax accountant before we leave....our strong hope and prayer!
Tomorrow we are taking a break for a couple of hours to have lunch with lifelong friends, second family type friends we haven’t seen in years in person. We got together when we were barely 20 years old, and our kids all grew up together. It will be a fun time of catching up. We are thankful for the break. We are hoping for a bit more social interaction next week when Mom related duties are less intense. We do have friends near the city we would love to see if there is time.
Raymond will have his Gamma radiation “hot knife” treatment for his brain tumour early tomorrow morning. Praying so much for him.
Right now my husband is over at Mom’s deserted suite, HOPEFULLY properly connected to Zoom on the WiFi connection there, about to teach his class.
Bank #2 got things set up for me today to complete its estate paperwork when I get home.
I went for a short walk this afternoon in bitterly cold wind to the nearest Asian market to pick out a few veggies to add to the pasta sauce I will create tomorrow afternoon for our dinner. Brrrr...but wonderful to get outside walking even for a short time. Yay!!! The pots and pans in our hotel suite are very new and excellent quality. My husband made veggie and lentil soup the other day that was fabulous! The remainder of the veggies we brought from home went into it. Yum!!
Last night we were too exhausted to cook, so splurged on a fantastically delicious and equally fantastically expensive Japanese meal at Kinjiro Market. Worth every dollar!!
Our plans may be changing again for the next two week’s timeline!!! Highway closures due to high winds creating white out blizzard conditions, along with an icy coating on the road for two thirds of our route home, with more fresh snow and blowing snow forecast for Thursday are making the idea of driving home the following day less than appealing. The photos we were sent today by friends at home are terrifying to behold! SO, tomorrow morning we will likely decide to try to stay here one more week to complete the remaining tasks related to the Calgary estate requirements instead of going home for a week, then coming back the following week. Praying this wonderful kitchen suite can still be ours for another extension of our stay. I wished we could have booked it today already, but my husband had to keep focused on his class, and I need to learn to relax! God has provided for every need and detail thus far.
This past ten days are indeed some of the strangest in my life thus far.
On a very happy note, dear friends our son adores have scheduled a dinner at their place one evening during his upcoming visit!!! He is delighted and so are we! Something very special to look forward to!
Don’t say there is no escape
And that your troubles wear you out.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars.
The deeper the sorrow, the closer to God.
— from an untitled poem by Apollon Maykov, 1878
Raymond is having Gamma knife radiation on his brain tumour later this week, likely followed immediately by chemo. Sigh....here we go again. My husband cannot go there to assist Raymond until after April 5th because of the work he is doing with me for Mom’s estate, then our son js coming to visit and right after that is my husband’s monthly online course April 5th. Then he will likely be on his way to Edmonton to help Raymond. Our prayer is that God will protect Raymond from the effects of the chemotherapy until my husband can get there to help him. We feel overwhelmed....completely overwhelmed by this new family disaster. Please pray for Raymond. Thank you.
I was up early this morning and on the go to cancel Mom’s various memberships and seniors’ pass cards. Although it was a bit of a time consuming process, there were no hassles and I was able to cone back to the hotel before lunch. The first banking appointment is not until late this afternoon, so I have had a glorious few hours since lunch to nap, read and catch up with my own personal correspondence. Today has been like an oasis in the desert in a way. Now I feel ready to face the banking institutions that will take up several hours of time this week.
While I was out this morning my husband was able to answer an email from our property management company regarding our next lease agreement. Rents are rising again at home, but we were still offered a rent credit. It is much less that the past several years’ credits, BUT we are still paying only seventy dollars a month more than we were when we moved in seven years ago. As we watch the complex become more run down each year, we are intensely grateful for the annual credits we have received the past few years. The amount of work we have put into maintaining and improving our part of the building, the money spent from our own pockets, has not gone unnoticed by the maintenance crew, who have duly reported our attempts to the owners. Lots of trials to deal with in the complex as you blog readers know, but there aren’t many other options available to us for what we can afford and with the living/storage space we have where we are. With the coming months of paperwork due to Mom dying, the stresses coming with my husband’s brother in law and my husband not yet having had much of a chance to just relax and enjoy his retirement, adding in a rental search, downsizing and a move in a couple of months is too much to take on!! So, we are very, very happy with this present offer of another annual rent credit. Thank you Lord for this answer to prayer! We feel now like we can really settle into our volunteer church work, continue building current friendships and enjoy deepening relationships with some of the acquaintances we have made recently.
Thus far, a good day!
I think we have made a decision that will make this week less frantic and stressful! Yay!! The most important appointments that must be dealt with immediately after someone dies are all set up for this week. While there are also a few less important details to attend to that we will start on as well, we realize it is too time consuming and stressful to try to do them all this week. My husband will also be under too much pressure about how to load everything into the car that has to come home with us, there is an income tax issue we can in no way deal with this week, etc., etc., etc.
So, we will return home at the end of this week as planned, remain at home for one week to take care of our own lives for that time, then return here for a few more days the following week. By then we will be able to meet with tax accountant, get some final bills paid, deal with the oatenazy phone company, clean the suite properly before the move out inspection, arrange mail forwarding and get the second load of stuff into our vehicle to bring home.
This plan will still allow us to get home in time to get ready to host our son and his girlfriend at the end of the month.
This seems like just the right plan. We didn’t want to have to come out here twice, but then we realized that once we have completed the work we need to do for Mom’s estate, it is highly likely we will never come here again. There will no longer be much of a reason. We have few friends in Calgary any more. We have several good friends living closer to Red Deer we will finally be free to visit now that there is no family left in Calgary, but we can take other, more scenic routes to visit them and avoid Calgary all together. No more Calgary! What an incredible, mind boggling possibility. Wow!!
That pretty much describes the past two days. With the death of Mom’s shredder upon the entry of the very first sheet of paper I tried to put through the blades, I had little choice but to grab the scissors and get to work the past couple of afternoons. I was not going to haul 20 years worth of out of date files home with me to shred there. The back seat of our car will be full enough with all the past years of income tax returns for both Mom and Dad!!!
I am actually grateful for the two afternoons alone in Mom’s suite. Sitting in there with most of her furniture and belongings gone, spending hours doing a mindless task, gave me time to better process the loss. It has been a calming two days in which to prepare for this week’s onslaught of tasks. Sometimes there is a better scenario than what is quicker and more convenient.
We enjoyed Zoom church this morning. In the adult morning study on the Gospel of John we had a good discussion about what Jesus did and did not say as he shared what he knew would be his last meal with his disciples. We noted he did not leave them a list of doctrines they must believe in to please God, nor did he give them a lecture on the details of what would constitute a righteous life. He simply told them to love one another.
I suspect that if we Christians took seriously the tremendous challenge involved in truly loving one another as Jesus commands, we would be far too busy to spend time arguing about doctrines and poking our busybody noses into other peoples’ lifestyles.
Yesterday was interesting! I started the day well after a broken sleep but one that still added up to about seven hours. I headed out mid morning to the WalMart next door for a couple of items, then drove to Mom’s suite to shred a large box of outdated files. Well, much to my horror, the shredder is completely dead and wouldn’t shred one single paper! I tried plugging it in to every live outlet in the place. Nada! I made sure the actual shredder was aligned properly with the catch bin. I made sure the locking mechanism was turned off. I looked for a frayed or loose cord. I checked to be sure there was no paper from former use jammed in the shredder. I called my husband for additional advice. Nothing would start that machine!!
So, I heaved a deep sigh, found a pair of sharp scissors my husband previous retrieved from the “to the thrift store” bin, sat myself down with a garbage bag and started cutting!! Unfortunately I only completed 2/3 of my task. I was also doing two loads of laundry at the facility and had to run to the laundry room every whipstitch to check on the status of the washer and dryer cycles since these particular machines are a bit of a mystery to me. There were new phone messages on Mom’s voicemail that had to be returned. I received condolence calls on my own phone. Several of the residents stopped me in the hallway to chat about Mom and then proceeded to tell me their own tales of loss as well as....and also.....and then.... So sweet, so time consuming. I was at the suite for nearly six hours and spent just four of them actually dealing with old files of papers that needed shredding. hahaha Not quite the day I planned for. Instead of taking today off I will be going back to complete the project. My husband will come with me to see if he can solve the mysterious death of the shredder! He will also go through everything we set aside to possibly take home and decide what is realistic to pack into our vehicle and what can be disposed of elsewhere.
Last evening was very special. Old friends came to town to visit her mother who is also in hospital, so we were able to meet for a fabulous dinner at Bella Roma. It was wonderful to spend two hours talking about so many topics unrelated to my mother’s or anyone else’s death. The rest of the world, as brutal, scary and disorganized as it is, is still happening and it was good to get caught up on its activities!! So thankful for that mental break before plunging into this week’s round of legal appointments. Thank you Lord.
We are going to try to Zoom I To our church service from home this morning. Hopefully the hotel Wifi service will support our attempt.
My day was definitely characterized that way: four straight hours of phone calls and emailing this afternoon saw all the appointments required next week fall into place with perfect timing of appointments each day, one major appointment each day with time for the other less immediately necessary appointments tucked in between. They will be very busy days, but are well organized. God had to be helping me keep the days and times straight, because I managed not to double book myself or to schedule too many things in one day. The schedule is manageable. Hallelujah!!
So, since there are no more legalities that can be done over a weekend, I have tucked all Mom’s paperwork into my briefcase and will keep it closed until Monday!!!! Yay! I feel the need of a break!
In the morning I will return to Mom’s suite and shred paper for a couple of hours. There is dust on the floor from the moving out of her furniture and personal effects that I want to clean up before we prepare to pack the remainder of what we are keeping into our vehicle.
So excited that tomorrow evening friends are having dinner with us. Her mom is also in the hospital, the same one my mom was in. Her mother is not doing too well and I suspect this will be more of a pastoral counselling session than a social event. Well, it will be nice to see our friends here during my weekend break. My husband will be busy with his course, making sure he has all the Zoom technology set up properly for teaching it from here.
So happy things are coming together as it is keeping me more or less sane!
In other news, Raymond made it through his next set of tests and is waiting for results. We are hopeful things are not any worse with his cancer.
We have had many answers to prayer this week in terms of details working out “in the nick of time”. It gives us hope that we MAY be able to return home next week as planned! Yay! There is even a weather window open for a couple of days toward the end of that week where no storms are yet predicted!
A serendipitous situation arose yesterday in regard to who will do Mom’s income taxes for this year: this morning we had planned, originally, to turn Mom’s tax information over to the person who has done her taxes for several years. However, he has little experience or even proper knowledge as to how to file end of life taxes. Thanks to the lawyer’s explanation yesterday, we realized we cannot hire this fellow and I was able to call him last evening to cancel. Whew!!
The other incredible timing happened at the funeral home. Just as we were completing the paperwork with one director, another one came into the room to announce that the hospital had just contacted him to let him know they had the necessary release forms and could transport Mom’s body immediately. It would not have to wait until next week after all. She would be there and ready for viewing in twenty minutes! Wow!!! We were allowed to wait there while Mom was prepped and ready for viewing and confirmation of her identity. Oh my, it was so lovely to see her for the last time in the pretty funeral chapel. She was dressed in the beautiful outfit I had sent over earlier for her, her hair was combed out just the way she always wore it and her face was relaxed and peaceful looking. I touched her face and her skin was soft and smooth. We said prayers, said goodbye, signed the final papers and left feeling content that her remains had been treated with dignity. My “real” Mom, her essence, her spirit has gone to a better place.
After the furniture movers do their job this morning, I will spend the rest of the day on the phone setting up next week’s appointments. My husband can come back to the hotel for a much needed rest. His respiratory allergies are raging at the moment so I need to pick him up some Claritin and get him feeling better.
Onward we go, conscious of the prayer support and concern of family and friends. Thank you.
What a crazy week!!!! That is always how it is for executors when someone dies. So, no surprises, just exhaustion and the stresses that always accompany having only a limited time to accomplish the “must be done in person” meetings and paperwork because of living in a different province than the deceased. Next week will be The Whirlwind Part 2 as there are going to have to be SO MANY meetings. For such a small estate my mother managed to have it scattered around in banks all over the city!! Aiiii yiiii.... Then there are the little things like cancelling Co-op and other memberships, cancelling subscriptions, etc. SO MANY little things!! If you have ever had to be an executor for someone, you know whereof I speak!! I have learned how small an estate can be and yet still require probate!! Wow!!!
My advice to any of you who need to do so is to have a legal will drawn up by a properly certified lawyer and have the name of an accountant who has experience doing the filing of the final year (s) of income tax submissions for the newly deceased. I learned SO MUCH today about forms required for the final tax filings, forms I have never heard of before. As I felt the barrage of new information overwhelming me today at the meeting with the lawyer, I was so grateful for my husband’s calming presence and ability to think logically and the ability to ask the right questions. All I could seem to take in was garble! “You will need an experienced accountant who deals often with final end of life tax filings because....fuzz, fuzz....T1’s...garble, garble....expensive....drift, drift....T3’s....gobbledygook....by 2023.....huh, wha’....interest gained on investments after death while waiting for probate....yakkety yak....expensive....”
I would also advise that if possible you get yourself a prepaid funeral plan!!!!!!! Today it took us less than ten minutes at the funeral home to sign all the forms required to stop the receiving of government pensions and other government services. All the forms were filled out already by the funeral home staff, they photocopied the will to include where necessary and provided all required copies of the death certificate. They even faxxed everything to the appropriate agencies! It was amazing! Thank you Mom for tying in with a prepaid memorial society that does the work for us and does it properly! If my husband and I decide we are staying in Regina as our Rest of Life plan, we are going to do the same to help our executor!
Tomorrow morning the movers arrive for Mom’s furniture. They will donate it to Habitat For Humanity and they will donate all Mom’s clothes and knickknacks to other charities. We have dealt with them several times in the past and they are a wonderful organization! Thank you Five Star.
Saturday I will return to the suite to shred old files and other papers and give my exhausted husband the weekend off. On Monday he will rejoin me back in the whirlwind.
Yawn......
We barely slept the night after Mom’s death, but we managed to begin searching for pertinent information in her files to take to the funeral home yesterday afternoon. We are thanking God for her prepaid funeral plan and the access to assistance from the funeral home that it gives us for properly contacting all the government agencies that need to be informed of her passing. Another trip or two there and a trip to the lawyers are coming up later this week. We need to go home this weekend for our own appointments then head back here to complete some other legal events and finish cleaning out her suite.
The weather looks like it may turn a bit nasty for our trip home so we are already praying about our drive on Saturday! Here we go again....end of winter/start of spring weather on the prairies.
The most painful thing for my emotions since Mom died was packing a set of clothes to take to the funeral home that she will be dressed in for the cremation. One week before Mom went to hospital she purchased two lovely new outfits that of course she never got to wear. I picked out the prettiest one and felt my heart breaking.
Other than that I am holding up pretty well. I have to in order to help our distraught son get through his grief. He is a mess. He and his grandma were very close and now he will not see her again, plus he has lost the chance for her to meet the wonderful woman in his life. I feel terrible for him.
So, off to the suite again today to find the rest of the pertinent paper work. Thankfully my mother never lost her ability to be well organized. At her age of 94 I find that pretty amazing!
