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How does your family handle death?

Wenders said:
My mom passed a little over a week ago.
I'm still pretty numb about it all. I had to hold my father together because he was / is close to falling apart. They just celebrated 45 years of marriage.
I haven't accepted that I'll never hear her voice again, that she'll never text me a high five when K-State scores again. That she won't be at my wedding, or see her step-grandkids graduate from high school and be the awesome people that they're preparing to be.

We had the service at a church back in Kansas that we hadn't attended in 15 years, since my parents moved back to Texas. The pastor did not know her, and either he mixed up his notes for another funeral service, or he just got very confused. He spoke of her love of reading and how that translated to a degree in literature.
Mom hasn't read a book in 50 years and her degree was in HORTICULTURE.
He spoke of her love of her children and grandchildren.
I'm an only child and unless I missed something major, the only grandchildren to speak of are two cats.

I'm now trying to help Dad with tech things to wrap up. Verizon might be the worst company with the most god-awful customer service I've ever dealt with.

I also got good at the visitation at creeping right by the visitors book to see who this person is that I haven't spoken to in 20 years coming to pay their condolences.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry. My condolences.
 
Wenders said:
My mom passed a little over a week ago.
I'm still pretty numb about it all. I had to hold my father together because he was / is close to falling apart. They just celebrated 45 years of marriage.
I haven't accepted that I'll never hear her voice again, that she'll never text me a high five when K-State scores again. That she won't be at my wedding, or see her step-grandkids graduate from high school and be the awesome people that they're preparing to be.

We had the service at a church back in Kansas that we hadn't attended in 15 years, since my parents moved back to Texas. The pastor did not know her, and either he mixed up his notes for another funeral service, or he just got very confused. He spoke of her love of reading and how that translated to a degree in literature.
Mom hasn't read a book in 50 years and her degree was in HORTICULTURE.
He spoke of her love of her children and grandchildren.
I'm an only child and unless I missed something major, the only grandchildren to speak of are two cats.

I'm now trying to help Dad with tech things to wrap up. Verizon might be the worst company with the most god-awful customer service I've ever dealt with.

I also got good at the visitation at creeping right by the visitors book to see who this person is that I haven't spoken to in 20 years coming to pay their condolences.
Click to expand...

So sorry for your loss.
 
Wenders, you are a good egg and I feel very badly about this. Take it day by day and don't put a timetable on your grief.
 
All the best, @Wenders , so sorry to hear.

My wife's uncle passed at age 93 this week, she went to the funeral today while I went to the viewing last night (working today). We had a good laugh before I left, she said "you know all the names right?" and we worked through them. Batting .400 isn't so great in that area, though I'm really good with last names from years of addressing holiday cards.
 
To Starman, Wenders and playthrough, all the best.

Just got back from a funeral. A first cousin of my mother's died ... either MI or stroke in her own place. Was found there. One daughter roughly my age has lost her mother and sister in less than a year, and lost her father a little less than a decade ago. Grandsons - sons of the recently deceased's daughter lost - also lost their father as their parents died in a boat crash less than a year ago. Both guys in their 20s and one still in college.

Rough go at it for the family. This woman's parents made my mother and I feel like their direct family back in the day ... just truly kind people. Small wonder she was my mother's favorite aunt.
 
I've probably mentioned this, but do your family a favor, and weed out your own junk before you go. I'm not talking about things you use or something that has some sort of value. I'm talking about junk. Stuff you personally haven't looked at in 40 years. Nobody in the future will really care about your high school grade cards or a certificate from 4H or a picture of a random tree or that cool Members Only jacket in the back of the closet.
Maybe it's just a thing from my area. I don't know. But the crap people accumulate over a lifetime is insane, and somebody has to figure out what to do with it.
We had to do it when my dad died. Thankfully my mom is still alive, and I doubt he was even embalmed before she started tossing stuff or his and hers both that'd she'd wanted rid of for 20 years. My cousin has had to do it on his own with two places the last couple of years.
 
I just downsized my mom from a three-bedroom townhouse (with basement) to a one-bedroom apartment.

I talked to an auctioneer and he was a great help. He came in and put about 70 percent of my mom's crap in storage, and gives her a cut of whatever he makes selling it off.

It was hard getting rid of a lot of my dad's stuff, even though it's been eight years since he died, but my brothers and I took the stuff we're not ready to part with yet.
 
MisterCreosote said:
I just downsized my mom from a three-bedroom townhouse (with basement) to a one-bedroom apartment.

I talked to an auctioneer and he was a great help. He came in and put about 70 percent of my mom's crap in storage, and gives her a cut of whatever he makes selling it off.

It was hard getting rid of a lot of my dad's stuff, even though it's been eight years since he died, but my brothers and I took the stuff we're not ready to part with yet.
Click to expand...

My issue there is I am only child, and I don't have kids. I have plenty of cousins on my mom's side, so anything such as photos of my grandparents, etc. I've made sure have already been given to them.
Getting rid of my dad's clothes and stuff like that was no big deal. I have kept some keepsakes from him and my childhood. I limit myself to one storage tub. I have several nieces and nephews on my wife's side. I have already told my nephew who will be in charge of my arrangements: "See that tub. When I'm gone, throw it away. There is nothing of financial value or anything of any significance to anyone other than me in there. Don't even open it. Just throw it away."
 
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