Skip to main content

An emotional time (but I'll get over it)

Me & Dad at his care home
Dad has been gone for some time now and, despite that we didn't really get along I am missing him. 

Christmas was difficult as was New Year, both as he had been here the year before and the year before that and we had a good time.

Wednesday 15th is the day his flat is sold. It is the last tangible link to him. He never actually lived there, though that was the intention. His dementia suddenly got very bad and unmanageable at home just weeks before the completion of the sale so we instead got tenants in and used the rental income to part pay the care home fees.

It was a very nice care home, Dad wasn't happy there but then, Dad wouldn't have been happy anywhere, that was Dad. 

My feelings right now and all over the place and I have been feeling quite down, it's like the final goodbye.

I don't know if you feel like this but somehow I feel different now that both my parents have gone. Sure, part of it is my feeling that it's my turn next, that generational position in the family, I could do without that but mainly it is that my connection with a huge chunk of my past that perhaps even I don't remember properly has gone. Not that Dad, bless him, could have been much help on that front over the last years, he barely knew who anyone was. I think he knew he could trust me at the end (last July) but not really sure who he thought I was yet ... there were some days when he proudly introduced me as his son ... another sign that the dementia was in control as this is something he would never have done when he was healthy!

Dad's little memoriam area at our place

His mind managed to resurrect many long since dead relatives, I went along with him mostly except when it was obvious he knew that something wasn't right. It really isn't fair to remind someone that a person they cared about has gone. Pleasantly he had forgotten that my mum had gone and often used to ask how she was and if I could ask her to visit at some point. He said he thought that somehow he had upset her but couldn't remember what he had done. That's really quite sad.



I am confident we made the right choice not to have a traditional funeral. The family is so fractured with so many strong views that we didn't feel the need to go through that. Both Essex and Northampton did there own thing locally for what felt right for us. Thankfully me and my sister were and are in agreement on how things were handled. We had been through a complicated enough funeral when our mum died with two funeral receptions arranged by different factions of the family. This time we had to get it right as we were not going to get another try at it.

For both of us I feel that the sale of the flat was the final closure for us. It is 6 months after he passed but selling was a little trying!


I am very glad he got to meet Dennis a few times in his final years and they got along, that made me really happy. Of course, everyone gets along with Dennis!

End of an era and I guess 87 isn't too bad ... had he only not left mentally many years earlier.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Budget Day

So, we have the ‘Let’s buy a whole host of gullible voters day’ with George Osborne. No doubt we’ll be told how employment is rising, how the deficit is falling, how we’re all so much better off now than we were (compared to what?). We’ll be told that there are still tough times ahead but that only a Conservative government can steer us through them. It will be pointed out how inflation remains low, how not raising duty on fuel has helped everyone as is seen by the current lower prices at the pumps (it’s going up again George). In short, I should listen to this budget later and decide to vote Conservative in May but, I won’t. Labour certainly did nothing to avoid the mess the country got in but they didn’t cause it. They made the mistake of trying to be too conservative, allowing high finance the freedom to cause a catastrophic cock up for which they took zero responsibility. They made the mistake of allowing Gordon Brown to take the job of Prime Minister, one for which he is totally...
2 comments
Read more

Not a good day

Today is a very emotional one for me. I have no idea why that would be the case but apparently it is. For a day that had nothing pre-arranged this one has turned out quite busy. First, I agreed to take Matt for breakfast though I wasn't really hungry. He was being quite argumentative in the morning about some thing or other, I don't recall what exactly but some matter of politics where he was going to argue the toss whilst knowing little or nothing about it. But, even so, I was quite upbeat as Jermaine had gone to school on time ... no, scrub that, i was upbeat until I yet again had to tell Zoey to get her arse out of her room, downstairs, do her chores and get to school, that is when this day started to go downward. I spent way too much money on a new doorbell, true, we needed one but not one that cost nearly £50! This too has not helped. I went to see a garage that can fit parking sensors to my car, all well and good but they needed me to supply paint to match the circles up ...
Read more

You Bloody Idiot

I had a really enjoyable time in Meltham with Stan and Pete, even that walk against the wind up the pub on Saturday evening in a blizzard was fun. On the way there I thought it’d be fun to take some pictures of the car in the snow. I had not realised just how windy it was, I seriously thought my door was stuck when I tried to open it but it was just being pressurised by the forces outside. I am lucky really the wind had not been behind me else the door would have been ripped off. On the way back on Sunday I paid a visit to Sue in Sheffield. I like Sue and she is a great conversationalist. The journey was not without incident as the satnav kept failing and crashing and just became useless. I eventually tracked the problem down to the loudspeaker connection for the mount and once I’d removed that it was stable and guided me well to Sue’s door. I am really happy to report that the steroid injection I had last week as helped ease my pain. I still have the pain but it is not restricting me ...
Read more