Getting Shit Done

...is the worst

It has been almost a month since my mom died. My mom died. Just writing it out still feels unreal so imagine how it feels to call 84,000 companies to tell them that my mom died. Died. Mom. Does not compute. The fact that I often have to say, “I am calling because both my parents died and I need to…” is just fucking unfathomable.

Two things happened the day I turned 18 - the first was that I started college and the second was that I became the executor of my parents estate. I became their legal representative and health care representative should anything happen to them. Okay, so maybe it was the actual day of my birthday but shortly there after. (It is important to include here that at this point what it actually meant was to call Barbara Hubbard, Executive Director of Unity Church who would then call the lawyer and that I would just sign things they told me to sign. We would have been lost without Barbara. Still true)

I said yes because saying yes to my parents was what I did. Saying yes to them was core to my personality. Except when it came to doing my homework - that was a hard pass but everything else was a yes. What was important to them became important to me. Except for bike riding - again, hard pass.

I said yes to this particular ask because I liked being thought of as responsible enough to carry out their final wishes. I said yes because the only context I had for this was my aunt and uncle, who were old(er), wise, financial stable. They were real grown ups. They handled my grandparents finances and managed things once they were gone. That is what I pictured when I thought about what it meant to say yes to this particularly unfortunate ask.

Would I have said yes if they had told me that they would die too soon, too young and too quickly? Would I have said yes if I knew it meant dealing with these details during my parental leave? Would I have said yes if I knew that many of these decisions would be made after my dad had died? That we were guessing on a lot of his final wishes, hoping that we got it right. That we would need to wait for a day in the hospital way back in 2022 when my mom was lucid enough to verbally agree to her will. Would I have agreed if it meant guiding her hand during the signing because we realized as the lawyers were on their way that she likely couldn’t hold a pen or write her own name anymore?

Of course I would have said yes. I would have said yes and I would have begged for more time. I would have asked more questions about home ownership and what it actually means. I would have learned how to use the grill. I am not adult enough for this. And here we are. And I am getting shit done. And it is the actual worst.

We keep getting mail for my mom. Her jury summons came the week after she died. She actually would have loved doing jury duty. But death = disqualified. Good to know.