It is easy to just do something when a person dies, because there is certainly enough to do. After Mother died I was tied up in financial paperwork from all her medical and credit card bills, eventually helping my father declare bankruptcy in the face of a quarter-million dollars worth of debt and a retired officer’s income. Yes, dying is expensive.

As I wrote earlier, after father died his small $10,000 life insurance policy barely got me out the door of the house before the bank took possession. The economy was sailing in the mid-90s so I was not particularly worried about a job, even though I had been de-facto a housewife for three years right out of college (it made for a very grim resume). I had my car, a few months worth of living expenses in the bank, and a garage-full worth of inheritance left from after the estate sale. Also two dogs and a cat, which I will talk about later.

I could not watch the estate sale, not productively. I had people helping me after Poppa died, good and kind people whom I let help me because I knew I could not do everything on my own, not because I felt that they were part of my life. It was selfish of me but I was past my last thread unraveling, and they were generous souls who offered their time and advice simply because they had liked my parents. They stood guard in the house while dozens of strangers traipsed through it, picking up my family’s belongings to decide if they were worth a dollar or five. I had tried to price things the week before but only got through one room before retreating to my safe space (more on that later) and refusing to do anything. So, most of the items were wagered for on the spot, and I know I let many precious things go at a steal because I refused to haggle. I stood out in front of the open garage door with my back to the house, the money box by me, and my heart and soul screaming in pain. The cash I made off that sale helped a lot, but felt like blood money.

I set myself up in an apartment I could not really afford, clueless to my financial realities and still riding on the optimism of being a sheltered only child and the economic high of the 90s. I was utterly derailed in my projected life track and floundering, thinking I could just “get back in the groove” if I tried hard enough.

The lesson that trying hard does not always ensure success had not sunk in, despite occurring over the course of three years as I watched the people I loved most in the world – and who loved me most in the world – die. I’m not entirely sure that lesson was supposed to take or if that was a failing on my part, but I think it is probably very ordinary for someone to try and bounce back using the same techniques they have always used. You know what you know, and even hard lessons are not enough to crack that nut sometimes.

There I was with an ugly apartment, a car, two dogs, a cat, a storage unit, and so much grief and rage that I could not even think about it without fear of shutting down completely. Sometimes I wonder how I even kept moving.

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