writing obituaries :-(

It was around this time 4 years ago that my sister Linda asked me if I would write our father's obituary. It had become obvious that he did not have much longer and it needed to be done. While I was doing research on names and dates (when he got his degrees, married our mother, his parents' full names, etc.) I also came across a lot of information about our mother, so I wrote another obituary at the same time, plugging in her information as I found it. I figured why look it all up again sometime in the future.

Now mother is doing poorly and it's time once again to prepare for the inevitable. (This is not very upsetting to me, I guess it's the silver lining of having a violently abusive mother.)

The tough part is that I had to modify my mother's obituary to say that her daughter, my dear sister Linda  , preceded her in death (she passed away almost 2 years ago). When I wrote the obituary, that is not something I ever dreamed I would be adding. 

That sounds like a very tough task, and there are always going to be both big and little things that will remind you that you lost Linda. The good memories are always there, too.

SwampWitch said:

Now mother is doing poorly and it's time once again to prepare for the inevitable. (This is not very upsetting to me, I guess it's the silver lining of having a violently abusive mother.)

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My dad just passed away and there is no way I can write an obit for him right now.  I am so furious as to what he left me to do.  When my mom passed, he didn't take her off the deed to the house, he didn't change his paltry life insurance beneficiary from my mom, he filled out all the papers to be cremated but didn't put one dime down towards it.  So now I am stuck with paying $1500 for cremation, $500 to have him buried and $505 for probate court costs for TWO estates.

He was a verbally abusive man as well, not only to me but all the neighbors. 

zohdee said:

My dad just passed away and there is no way I can write an obit for him right now.  I am so furious as to what he left me to do.  When my mom passed, he didn't take her off the deed to the house, he didn't change his paltry life insurance beneficiary from my mom, he filled out all the papers to be cremated but didn't put one dime down towards it.  So now I am stuck with paying $1500 for cremation, $500 to have him buried and $505 for probate court costs for TWO estates.

He was a verbally abusive man as well, not only to me but all the neighbors. 

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I'm so sorry, that makes a difficult time incredibly more difficult.

We've had a rough time, too, with a crazy mean brother (cocaine addict, may be clean these days or not) who has nothing but greed and control in the parts of his brain that are still functioning. It's been a nightmare.

Make sure you take care of yourself because stress will trigger all kinds of previously-hidden health problems. I hope your father's estate will compensate you and more for what you are dealing with. 

p.s. My mother's obit is "just the facts, ma'am" no opinions and nothing personal in it.

I am sorry I vented in your thread.  For that past year I took care him.  I lived with him so there would always be someone there if he needed help. I did not have more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.  I made sure he had good meals.  When he was bed ridden I changed his diapers...and this is how it ends.  Eventually, I will get maybe $2000 out of the estate and the broken down house. 
 

Sorry SwampWitch and zohdee. Things like this remind me to get my legals rewritten soon (everyone should, actually) and it reminds me of how lucky I am to not have any contact with any of my family for any reason. I hope you both get through this tough situation and soon.

My dear Dad (rest his soul) wrote his own obituary several years before he died.  Everything my Mom needed to know was in a central location, making it so easy at a time that was so difficult.  That's just the kind of man he was.

When my FIL passed away, it was fairly quick and nothing had been done before hand.  I was named administrator of his estate (he had no will) and the only fly in the ointment was my BIL.  Like your brother, Swampwitch, he has a brain addled by drugs and thinks of no one but himself.  Having to work around his greed and stupidity was a nightmare; at one point he called my husband and threatened to kill him so that he could have everything that was their Dad's.  The poor man had a broken down house and a paltry life insurance policy, hardly worth fighting over, but a death brings out the worst in some people.

I've been telling my Mother for years to write down her final wishes, write her obit, make sure everything is where I can get it (I'm her executrix) and I know she hasn't done it.  She's 91, I really think she should get it done.

I plan to write my own obituary, too, someday soon.  I want specific songs played at my wake and plan to make a cd for that purpose. 

It's so difficult sometimes. There are times here at work when I think the phone is going to ring and it's going to be my mom. I know she's gone, but she used to call me 3-4 times a week at work in the mornings. It's almost a year now and I still think that phone should ring. There are times when I'll use something that was hers and I'll think about her. I miss her. Mom and I were never particularly close, but I miss her.

People need to get their affairs in order. It's important and they don't realize what that does to their children. They need wills, they need living wills, we need to know what they want and how they want it. None of us will live forever and it's very selfish to think otherwise. I don't know if people have their heads in the sand or what, but it's really frustrating to the people they leave behind.