The Things that Can Go Wrong After You Die

This room used to be my mother's room, so I'm using it to "sort out her affairs." Affairs take quite a bit of sorting out after you're dead and you're not going to be the one doing it.

Things can go wrong in the sorting out of affairs. Checks can still arrive in the mailbox for the dead. If you have not already closed the dead person's account, you might be able to deposit them by endorsing the check as power of attorney (even though power of attorney expires at the moment of death) and just depositing the thing. If you're lucky.

You might assume that you proved everything that needed proving for your beloved dead person when they were still alive and got on Medicaid. You're wrong. You have to prove they have no money again when they're dead. This is harder when the person is dead if you've already closed their checking accounts and saved a million trees by not printing out statements. There is no online access for an account that's closed. That account is dead. Just like the dead person. And the bank might snub you when you ask for a bank statement. That account is closed, they might say. Your power of attorney is expired, they might add. We need a will with the seal of the court showing you as executor might be the last thing they say before you hang up the phone.

You might have some second thoughts about things you did when your person was still alive. Like that free online do-it-yourself will. It seemed great. Your beloved dead person loved free things. Free online wills do not have court seals.

You might assume that if you report the dead person as dead in order to collect her life insurance (an employee benefit) that the other arms of that benefit system will get the word. Push one for pensions, push two for life insurance does not mean these person's desks are next to each other. Things can look different inside your head than in the real world when you're taking care of business for someone who's dead. Because things are always different inside your head.

If your now dead loved one was in a nursing home, you might assume that "funds held in trust" for that person's miscellaneous expenses like hair cuts and pedicures with be returned to you if there is an unspent balance. Even if the state regulations stipulate that's what's to be done with these funds, good luck getting it. Don't trust the trust.

You might not realize that you need this paper and that paper regarding this or that for the dead person. You might think, well, that's done. She's dead. And you're dead wrong. Save everything. Print things. Kill all the trees. Stack up the papers. Spread them out. Photocopy them. File them. Look for them. Lose them. Find them.

They are what you have left.

Yesterday's Beach Report/What the Yoga Teacher Said (yesterday)/and Stuff I'm Avoiding

Beach Report: 

After two days of Santa Ana winds (they blow from the east) all the sand is back where it belongs. I missed my beach walk on Tuesday and when I arrived there yesterday, there was no dune to scale in the parking lot and the beach bathrooms were on level ground. The beach itself looked like a movie set. A smattering of driftwood, some rocks, and some beach glass amidst the pebbles. Like nothing  dramatic had ever happened. It seems that's the way some things in this life are. You spend years detesting someone while turmoil swirls and then you just can't work up the interest anymore. In fact, you don't even think of them, or IT, or anything much to do with the giant mess that once was.

What the Yoga Teacher Said: 

Find love in the pose, the yoga teacher is fond of saying. It's a job sometimes, finding love. It's there but you have to look for it, work at it. And during the struggle, it's the looking for love that makes the struggle easier. Just the other day as I logged on to check my mom's bank balance online, I discovered it was time to change her password. Without thinking I changed it to il0veyoumom! 

Stuff I'm Avoiding: 

I have three stacks of things on my kitchen island. The never-ending pile of paperwork for my mom. It took me months to get her on Medicaid (hooray!--she's on it!) and now there's a barrage of mail that I can't seem to comprehend on the first read through, so I stack it up. Stack #3 is the re-fi offers and my notes on how to negotiate a re-fi. I will have to gin up a certain mood to make those phone calls. Stack #3 is the alimony mediation stuff--those ducks are pretty much in a row.

And here's how I avoid the piles of stuff:

Rearranged Patio Stuff

It was warm and not windy today so I pulled up a couple of dead plants. I moved unhappy plants to places I think will make them happier. I swept. I weeded. And I decided to bring my big glass jar of beach glass inside and find a place for it since it's always misty with condensation and no one can see the beach glass.

My Entire Collection of Beach Glass--except for what we used to tile the fireplace

So I dumped all the beach glass out and washed it and laid it out on a towel to dry. Then I took the big glass jar into the laundry room to wash it. But I broke it. I had this beach ball sized jar for 20 years, and I've moved it to three different houses. It's funny how I always go into denial first when the bad thing happens. That just a bubble of dish soap, I said. I didn't break a big round piece out of that beautiful jar. But I did. Not salvageable. 

So the beach glass is now in a bowl that my mom gave me years ago. And it's very cool because the mirror let's you see the glass in the bottom of the bowl. So there you have it. The mess cleaned up. And the next time I move, I won't have to transport that huge jar. I'm finding love in that thought.

Monday Evening Beach Report

tonight's sunset 

Maybe the world works differently than you imagined.

Maybe your aged mother goes to live in a nursing home and you think Medicaid will throw itself into gear. Everyone is so nice. The social worker at the nursing home. The case worker at Human Services. Surely everyone wants what you want which is that your mother is cared for and that the expenses for that are covered since her money is as gone as the sun at midnight. But maybe not. Maybe the gears of the system move slowly for a reason. The nursing home gets more money from private pay clients than it does from Medicaid patients. Slow equals dough.

Maybe you have no idea how the world works. None at all.

What you know is this: That when the sun goes down, the sky turns red, turns gold, turns colors there are no words for and those colors fill your eyes, float over your skin, let your soul know that you are alive. And how can it be that while your mother lived here, you could not once, not ever, even with the lure of a martini in a travel mug, convince her to watch the sunset from the sand?

Secret Solstice Sunset

The sun refused to show itself at the close of the shortest day, sinking into the water behind a wall of clouds.

I haven't shown myself much lately either. I've been roaming the house in the dead of night with a throat so sore that I can't sleep, then making my way back to bed when the middle of the night House Hunters re-run lulls me into submission. In the morning I wake with half-a-dozen Ricola wrappers on the night stand, convinced that certainly this will be the day I feel better. And I do for a little while. But then. Crash. However, this being the longest night of the year, I may be up again watching Love It or List it, International House Hunters or god knows what. I should be reading through my stack of New Yorkers, brushing up on my French or something but it feels like there's a block of goo filling my brain. Okay, it might have been that last night I finally did sleep. If I sleep again tonight, I'm going to proclaim myself cured.

Meanwhile, I've been appropriately engaged during  these dark days.  I'm spinning around and around trying to get my mom on Medicaid. This morning I confirmed that state #1 has now faxed State #2 in order to confirm that the measly little life insurance policy of my mom's has no cash value and therefore cannot be counted as an asset prohibiting her from qualifying for Medicaid yet again. So if State #2 faxes back to State #1, all should be well. Riiiiight? How's this for a darkest day of the year fear: My mom will finally get that Medicaid acceptance letter the day she takes her final breath. I've been working on the Medicaid thing since the end of September.

Here's what I've been reading these short days and long nights:

It's Never Too Early to Start Thinking about Your Own Death

What Working in a Nursing Home Taught Me

Our Bodies, Ourselves

If You're 30% Through Your Life... (of course I know that I'm at least 60% through my life)

A Parting Lesson From My Parents

How Mindfulness Can Ease the Fear of Death and Dying

I might add that I've also been drinking some nice wine, eating rum balls and chocolate truffles, and lighting lots of candles.

One of the denizens of Hearst Castle

What have you been reading during these dark days, dear ones? Where are you finding the light?

Belated Wednesday Beach Report, News from Pillville, and a Brief Note from the Love Shack

Today, 10 a.m.

There was a little bit of everything at the beach today. A few surfers riding medium waves, almost visible islands, a modest variety of birds, a little drama. 

The drama: As I walked in the surf I saw a small child (I'd guess 4) trekking across the sand far ahead of his mother. The mother trudged about as slowly as a person can trudge, carrying a large beach bag and a beach chair while the kid headed straight for the water. Hi, I said. Hi, he or she said. It's pretty here, isn't it, I said, stepping between the kid and the water. I'd already gotten wet to the waist accidentally, having misjudged the waves twice. The mother was still only about half-way across the sand and the kid looked fearless, inching into the water. Aren't you going to go help your mom, I asked. The kid climbed up the sandy slope and headed her direction as she was closing the gap. I went on, looking back to keep an eye on the situation. On my return the mother was halfway back across the sand again. This time she was going away from the water towards an even smaller child who was now making the trek. The older kid splashed at the edge of the waves, the mom's back to him. Other beachgoers and a fisher woman seemed ill at ease with the situation too. We all hovered at the periphery, underneath it all a low menacing roar of some invisible something. Military aircraft, a dredger in the harbor, construction equipment, something. I couldn't see what.

Life in Pillville is mostly un-bloggable these days. My mom trudges through her days. Eats. Sleeps. Sits on the patio. Chats a bit--often with difficulty. Her body is failing, yet she does not seem to understand the significance of it. There are new physical ailments. Enough said.

Of late, I've found the situation harder than I ever imagined I would. The hospice is giving me a  caregiver respite. My mom will go to a skilled nursing facility. I will go to Indiana to go see the man who, last month, came to see me. I'll meet his family and some friends, spend time, and after a couple days, turn around and get back on a plane, ride the airport shuttle, get a ride to my house from the shuttle stop, and then get in my car to go pick up my mom. It all seems like a love shack fantasy right now, but the washer is spinning, and my suitcase is mostly packed. Tomorrow must go like clockwork if I'm going to catch my plane, but it feels possible. Easy even. Easier than any recent day in Pillville. I'll get up early. Do what I have to do, and ignore the low menacing roar that hums  beneath every day for my mom and me.

My kitchen island lined with documentation for my mom's medicaid application.