STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT
It's the fourth day of 2011 and I feel as if I am still wandering around the bombsite left by my mother's death from secondary breast cancer.
Today I found out from a good friend of my mother's that what I had suspected all along was true: my step-brother's partner took my mother's diaries and address books from her hospital room just after she had died, while she was still warm, while I wasn't looking, took them back to Ireland where they live, and had gone right the way through them phoning everyone telling them my mum was dead, her landlord, her charity work friends, really close friends whom they had had nothing to do with, absolutely everyone. When I asked for them back, my step-brother and his partner threatened me with legal action for libel for saying they had taken them. All I had done was ask for them back. My probate solicitor insisted I agree to apologise. I could not believe it. My mum's will categorically states that I was to have all my mum's possessions. He advised me that I had to apologise to avoid legal action. I went away but could not bring myself to write the letter of apology.
Now this friend of my mum's today inadvertently came right out and said, that my step-brother's partner told her by phone, she called her to tell her about the death and when my mum's friend asked her how she got her home number, my step-brother's partner told her she had taken the diaries from my mum's hospital room and taken them to Ireland, from where she phoned her. This is after weeks of my trying to find out where they were and being told it was this relative who had them and that relative who had them, and being threatened with legal action by these two on top of it. My step-brother's solicitor began harassing the probate solicitor's office demanding an immediate apology by fax and, saying how could the probate solicitor believe anything I said.
The loss of those diaries caused me real anguish, emotional, mental and physical pain, and when my mum's friend today told me I felt as if I had received a huge physical blow. I was left completely alone after the death. No one came to visit me and those diaries and address books were the key to our whole lives. I did narrowly avoid a real breakdown and because I was left alone by the entire so-called family, no one knows how close I came to the edge. I don't drink or smoke, so there was nothing, absolutely nothing to take the edge off the pain. Those diaries and address books meant the whole world to me. I have come through Christmas New Year and a New Year birthday more or less entirely alone. I just have the dog with me.
I think the real betrayal I feel is by the probate solicitor. He is supposed to represent the law, but he sided with them, telling me to apologise, when all along she had taken them. His family is Irish, so he sided with them. He wasn't interested in the truth. I really wonder about his impartiality in the handling of the estate. I am the co-executor of my mum's estate and she wanted me to have everything of hers, it's written down. I don't understand. The probate solicitor told me my sister must have taken them. She's no angel but it's a serious matter blaming her when all along these two in Ireland had them.
i feel I have been humiliated and discredited for no reason. I was abandoned after the death for no reason either. I know I have not deserved what has happened. The only people who came near me all Christmas were some neighbours who invited me for dinner once, before Christmas and then dropped me for the rest of the duration.
Isn't it hard enough when your mother has died suddenly from cancer, to have all this to contend with?
I have no idea what kind of person it is, who walks into a family and takes a dead woman's diaries away from her bereaved daughter. Those were family possessions and not for her to take. My dad is dead too and so I have no one. I cared for my Mum up until she died and so found myself with no close friends after the death either.
Today I had to insure the car my mum left behind and I was totally exhausted once I had done it. After that I just walked the dog in the park, taking my time, I kind of slowed down, even though there were a million and one things to do. After that I walked up to the cafe and sat there with the Guardian, just enjoying reading it. I hadn't bought it since before New Year's, but today I just sat there savouring the paper and a chicken burger with salad. There has to be something worthwhile in life, right?
I'm sorry to splurge like this but I have to say I have not had a chance to get my feelings out since the death. I have had to grit my teeth and act as if everything is all right. I have had to be strong. Only when I have got indoors and am alone have I cried. i have been to counsellors but they cannot begin to understand what I am going through. I am going to have to give up one counsellor because she is not helping me. I got into an anxiety state after the death and practically went into rigor mortis, I couldn't sort anything out, couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't get things done. People who were helping me gave up on me and left because I was too anxious to do anything. This counsellor I have been seeing, makes my anxiety state worse, so I think I am going to call it a day. It's not her fault, it's her approach, it's a sort of clinical psychological approach and it's not right for me at all. Besides, she is some sort of trainee. It's probably the price you pay for free counselling. Where's CRUSE when you need them?
Before Christmas I met someone who said it's a question of grieving as you go, grieving while you get things done. Well I've certainly been doing that. Sometimes i feel like a zombie who's half alive myself. Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Hey, you get to do great dancing anyway!
On that note, I think I'll turn in. Watch for the next saga.
Persephone.
