These last days have been a whirlwind. It seems that I have been here in Indiana with my family for a month instead of just under a week. So many things have happened, both good and bad, happy and sad, heartbreaking and healing…
Once I arrived in IN I was ready for the usual difficult time with family only intensified by the death of my Dad. I knew it would be a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I knew it would be extremely hard for my sister Sandy, who has been a part of Dad’s life every week for the last 30 years. I knew it would be awkward for my sister Pam, whom Dad hasn’t spoken to in almost 30 years. I knew it would be hard for me to reconcile my feelings hurt and emotional abandonment from my Dad for as long as I can remember. I knew it would be an issue to be around my Mom and Stepdad because of problems between them and my sister. I was dreading seeing people from my past at the visitation, because of the life I used to lead. So many things going through my little pea brain as the plane landed last Wed night.
My nephew and 2 great nephews picked me up at the airport and we stopped for dinner. It was nice to spend some time with them. We got to my sister Sandy’s house and I got settled in for my week’s stay.
We began our duties on Thursday with a trip to Dad’s house to work on cleaning out the junk and trash that this bachelor of 40 years had accumulated. Add to that his penchant for hoarding things, especially unnecessary things. Then add to that his hobby of 40+ years of collecting toy tractors, making replicas of tractors, trucks, engines and making various other items out of wood. His house was literally filled with display cases holding thousands of items. There were only a couple of chairs and an end table in the living room. The eat-in kitchen area was filled with shelving and displays. His bedroom held a fullsize bed and dresser and the rest was filled floor to ceiling with shelves of collectables. The 2nd bedroom was filled with display cases of collectables. The house had a small path from one room to the next and the carpet was worn through along that path. The funeral home people and paramedics had a terrible time trying to get the stretcher out of the house with him on it. There was so much dirt and dust that we worked with masks and gloves. Because there was so much stuff, there was no way to clean the place, so it was quite a mess. It’s an older house and the ceiling was falling in at places. Bless his heart for living in that house. But what was important to him wasn’t the house, but spending time with his grandkids and great-grandkids. He didn’t care about comfort for himself.
We spent a lot of time over the next couple of days working on the house and hauling stuff to the dump as well as Goodwill. Papers were stuffed everywhere and we had to go through everything to find documents that were needed to start tieing up his estate.
My sister Sandy was named as the person in charge of all of his affairs. I went along on some appointments with her for moral support and to help ask questions and remember details. There have been quite a few meetings over the last few days.
We met with the funeral home on Thursday and got the arrangements made for his funeral service. We started looking at family pictures at 5am that morning to take for the picture collage during visitation and funeral time. We went to the insurance office with 2 of the 3 grandkids for them to sign papers. Sandy made tons of phone calls and sorted mountains of papers. Her husband Terry went through this with his Mother’s estate, so he set up a long table in the living room of their house and it became office central of everything having to do with Jim Rogers.
In between the meetings and appointments and phone calls, we kept working on the house, trying to get out what we could so that we could find what was in there. Every wall was covered with floor to ceiling shelving and displays. He had made wooden display cabinets and they were in rows across each room, leaving just a little path to walk, if at all. Closets were dug out and emptied of items of clothing and other things dating back to the 70s. It was crazy.
Saturday, we met with the minister from the church that Dad was a member of since childhood. He didn’t attend church since his teenage years and didn’t have much use for church, except to send a check once a year. The minister didn’t know Dad and asked some questions to try to get an idea of what to say to honor his life. It was hard for me to try to find the right things to share. I wanted to be nice and paint a pretty picture, but I cannot hide my feelings and cannot shade the truth. I struggled very much with the rosy narrative being shared. It was a very hard few days.
Sunday was the visitation time from 2-5pm at the funeral home. We all met there at 1:30 for our personal time with Dad. Sandy was taking it the hardest, since she had the strongest relationship with him. I cried more for her loss than my own. I did struggle with feelings stemming from childhood and our relationship through adulthood. It was very difficult to sort out all of those feelings. I was also trying to be the link between my 2 sisters, who have not had a good relationship with each other most of their lives. But that kept me distracted from my own grief for part of the time. I saw family members that I hadn’t seen for 40+ years. It sure felt strange. Everyone is grown up and has families. All Dad’s siblings are gone except for his brother Bob. We had some laughs as we shared what few memories that we had in common.
We had made the appointment with the attorney as soon as I got here, but the only opening was Monday morning. As the date and time of the funeral service was set, our option was for Monday afternoon. I thought my sister remembered the attorney appointment for the same day. She had forgot, but it all worked out fine. It actually gave us something to concentrate on for the morning and didn’t have to sit around and think too much about the service coming up. The attorney appointment went well and was a relief for us, especially Sandy. That made the rest of the day a little easier to handle.
Dad had dated a few women over the years since his divorce in the 70s. One longtime special friend is Mary Lou. I was so happy to get to talk with her and hear stories about Dad. She is closer to him than me or Pam. She and Dad had a standing date once a week for the last 30+ years. She was good for him. She understood his difficulty with expressing his emotions. She was there to listen to him when he did actually want to talk about things. She was patient and kind to him. I’m so thankful for her being in his life. We brought Mary Lou with us to the visitation and funeral to be with the rest of the family. I’m glad that we got to be there for her, too.
The funeral was nice. We had picked out a nice casket in wood, in honor of Dad’s love of woodworking. The inset had an embroidered tractor. Dad wore his favorite “Grandpas are just antique little boys” sweatshirt that he wore all the time. It also had a tractor on it. He wore jeans and tennis shoes. He looked just like himself and I know that was comforting for the great-grandkids. He also had his constant companion of an old vinyl camera case in the casket with him. He always had his camera with him. He took millions of pictures of the kids and he often let them take pictures with the camera. He looked quite natural having the camera case with him.
Many people came to talk about their relationships with Dad. He had an easier time relating to other people than family members. Many people knew him from his woodworking projects, exhibits across the state, donations of replicas of old fire trucks that he would donate to fire stations around the state, his love of history and hundreds of hours documenting local history, being a ‘mall walker’, etc. So many people talked about how nice he was to them. Sometimes that was hard for me to reconcile in my mind with the way our relationship had been. But I’m so glad that he brought happiness into the lives of others.
The funeral was nice. It was a beautiful, sunny day. The graveside service was short and nice with a poem about the ‘woodworker’ read by the minister. I have to say that the minister did a pretty good job with his words considering that he didn’t know Dad at all. He did get a couple of things wrong, but no one but us girls would know the difference. He shared a message of faith, which I appreciated, especially since I didn’t think it would be a gospel message and that really bothered me. We were all through about 2:30pm and everyone went their own way. The funeral home gave Sandy a really nice collection of things in a lovely box to keep. We were very pleased with the way the funeral home handled everything. Sandy says they are getting her business when she goes. Might as well, since the rest of Dad’s family has always used them!
Anyway, it was a nice day and many good things came out of this time of difficult emotions. I’ll write more about that in the next post. Right now I’m going to go to bed and relax and feel thankful for the life that God has blessed me with and the wonderful Christian friends who have lifted me up in prayer these past days. I am blessed.
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