34. Taking Care Of Business
My mom was always very healthy and took care of herself, ate right, and exercised her entire life. But then she got cancer and was told she likely only had a couple weeks to live. This was over Christmas, so every place was at least slightly understaffed, and anyone working was not fully focused on work, but we suddenly had to find an experienced, reputable lawyer to update her will.
They also had to get a trust set up for her recently disabled daughter, make sure a scheming relative was definitively excluded from inheriting or even interfering, have an accountant review everything, etc. We’re dealing with the shock of everything and having doctors and medical staff constantly coming in and wanting to discuss things and have decisions made, and we were just incredibly overwhelmed.
We had all this stuff that needed to be done, yet all we wanted was more time together. In desperation, I called my friend Ellen. I’ve always admired Ellen’s ability to efficiently handle bureaucracy, and we really needed help. I asked if she could come over for a couple of days to help with some of the more stressful stuff we were dealing with. She dropped her entire life and was up the next day, stayed in a nearby hotel for a couple of weeks, just doing whatever we needed. I never saw anything like it.
We’d meet up, tell her briefly what we needed done, and she just handled it. We’d spend 15 minutes explaining what we’d like to accomplish, then she’d spend hours wrangling with the lawyers or accountants to make it happen the way we wanted it to. Then the lawyers would come in and talk with my mom alone for half an hour to verify her wishes and go over provisions. Instead of exhausting ourselves wrestling for hours with lots of different bureaucracies and intricacies, we were able to hand that off, secure in the knowledge that it was being handled correctly and efficiently by Ellen.
It allowed us to focus more on my mom’s medical treatment, and to just have time together in each other’s company, doing other, smaller things that were really nice to be able to do. I still desperately miss my mom, but that time would’ve been so much harsher without all the support that Ellen and our other friends gave us. My mom was able to leave peacefully, on her own terms, without stress or distress, and was able to spend time with all of her friends, talking over the good times they had.
And by focusing on the good things, good times, good people, it helped keep my mom’s spirits up, and it made the entire atmosphere much less maudlin than it could’ve been otherwise. Because we had the time and space that Ellen gave us, the separation was a lot less painful than it would have been otherwise, for everyone involved. Thank you, Ellen.