After the funeral

The funeral was Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday went by in a blur of cleaning, eating, sorting, and a million tiny errands and repairs.

I took on the office and the task of sorting through all the papers and files and photos. There was a ton of old family photos stretching back four generations, from a 1890's photo of Betty's grandfather all the way through this year. Too many too keep. I sorted out the most interesting and highest quality old black and white photos and also pulled photos of Tay and I for dad since he doesn't have any albums from our childhood.

I was ruthless. I tossed marriage certificates, no longer valid deeds, high school diplomas. If I saved every scrap of paper, we would be counting family geneological data by the crate. None of the children wanted anything. Probably the only person interested in all that stuff was uncle Bill, who is pushing 85 in Florida, and I'll probably end up taking his geneological files too.

What I really want to do is get all this stuff scanned and organized into a coherant narrative, with photos and family trees and personal narratives. I think I have Ethleen Peacocks autobiography, and I also have the audio interview of Grandma Betty and what her childhood was like. At the very least, it will all be together,  and when I die, my grandchildren can pull out these old photos as they are sorting through my stuff.

The powder room toilet had a small leak, so Tracy and I made a run to Lowes for some parts and I took apart the toilet tank and reassembled it. I dealt with the painter who was trying to figure out who was actually in charge of this circus after David and Brenda left. The Jacuzzi tub switch was broken so an electrician came by who happened to have been an old high school classmate of Tracy.

We shredded about 40 pounds of various sensitive personal documents, including old income taxes, bank statements, insurance information, etc. The last night we were there, mom found an entire new box of income tax statements that they had to haul back to Phoenix.

Larry bought the car. Grandma had arranged everything so that when she died, control of the bank accounts and the house and actually most of her assets, would transfer immediately to Brenda's control as executer of the estate. The car was not- I called it the "probatemobile" and our two lawyers seemed to enjoy calling it that.

Everyone who went to the house took stuff. Tay sent back a big box, Brenda and David sent back several. Larry bought and filled the car, and Tracy filled his car and rented a SUV to take stuff back with him. Velma wanted the kitchen table and hutch so Tracy and I ran around disassembling and reassembling heavy wooden furnature from the back of Uncle Bob's borrowed pickup. The cleaning lady took the cuckoo clock. The house was still filled with stuff.

It was funny and a little sad, all the things that were saved, assumably because someone might need or want something someday. We kept uncovering staplers, and complete sets of china that nobody wanted. It's a reminder to only keep the things that give you frequent pleasure or near-future use.

We interviewed a local estate sale planner who laid it on a bit to thick at times the 'liquidation with dignity' tagline. Having been to many estate sales I can tell you, there is nothing dignified about strangers haggling over things priced to sell. The problem was the timing as they couldn't squeeze us in for several months. The auctioneer came by too and everyone liked him ok. They both gave about the same low price for the white living room sofa. It sounds like both the estate sale and the auctioneer expect to get about $5000 for the entire contents of the house. The estate people get 30% of the sales. The auctioneer, $500 up front for advertising and then 25% of the sales or the first $1000.

Either way, the estate is not going to make much money off of it. And thats totally fine with them since either will make sure the house is empty and clean and none of us have to be there to take care of things.

The longer I stayed in Ponca, the more my allergies kept ramping up. Friday night, I was so miserable I turned down Mexican food at Enrique's, probably the chance I will have to eat there. My head was pounding, aspirin had no effect, my nose and sinuses were throbbing, my eyes and nose ran, and my stomach hurt. I took some allergy medicine and texted mom to bring me a neti pot on her way back. Got some immediate relief with the neti pot as far as the congestion went, and I felt a world better the next day.

Finally, we left a check for the painter, made one last sweep through the house, and left for the last time in two cars. I still forgot the blazer, despite all of our sweeps. It felt so surreal, to leave in the early morning without grandma there in her nightgown sipping a cup of weak coffee. I rode with mom out of Ponca in the rental car as a beautiful red sunrise rose up behind us.