Unbelievable

Two days ago on Monday, July 28, it started out like any other day – until my mom got a confusing letter from Social Security. They extended their condolences for her ‘loss’ of the man she divorced more than 25 years ago and informed her that she may be entitled to some benefits and they were checking into it. What was strange was that neither she nor any of us 4 kids knew anything about my father’s passing!

My sister Kathy suggested calling the police and yes they had a report concerning his death back on June 26 or 27! Why on earth was no one notified an entire month later? It was too late to find out so she made the calls to all of us and I spent all of Tuesday making calls and following leads and this is what happened.

I guess it should be said that it is not unusual for us (especially me) to go months and even years with no contact from my father. We did not have the best of relationships. As my sister Patty said, he was not a happy person and I had issues with his ‘storytelling’ in which he got all kinds of facts wrong (or just made them up!) stemming from his undiagnosed mental illness among other problems.

Anyway, his case worker spent 3 years dealing with my father and he was a constant source of frustration to her since he would not follow doctor’s orders to take care of his diabetes or any of his other health problems. Evidently he had been showing up pretty regularly to the emergency room the last few months because of his congestive heart disease. On the evening of June 26 he showed up once again and was told that he also had pneumonia and needed to be checked in. Well, my father cussed them all out and refused to be admitted and left. The emergency room left a message on his case worker’s phone letting her know this and she in turn sent over his housekeeper to check on him as soon as she got the message in the morning. An hour later at 10AM on June 27 she got a phone call back that my father had passed away sometime during the night. 

This is where it all falls apart. It seems that they only had his application to go by for phone numbers and he had my brother’s name for a contact. One person at the funeral home did get in touch with a "Brian" but this person denied being related to my father. I said "Did you speak to Brian on the phone?" She said yes, so I said "I can tell you definitely right now that you got the wrong Brian because my brother is deaf and you would have had to use a TTY to call him." This amazed her because she got the name and number from the office of the apartment building where he lived. It was at that point that she got permission from the County Commissioner to have him cremated since no family member would take responsibility. That was on July 1st or 8th, not sure which. And there the ashes of my father sat until my mom got the letter on Monday and I found out where he was on Tuesday…one month later!

I called the case worker back and asked where my father’s belongings were at this point and she gave me a number of the government office that handles all that since he lived in an assisted living building. I got through pretty quickly and when I told the woman who I was enquiring about she was so relieved to hear from me! Once again I was asked if I had a brother to which I said yes, and she said there was something wrong with his phone, it would ring and ring then just disconnect. Obviously SHE had the correct number! Why the funeral parlor didn’t I have no idea. Once again I explained to her that she needed a TTY to call that number. All this confusion because my father never indicated anywhere on the application that his contact person (my brother) is deaf! Such a simple thing on his part would have avoided all this confusion and kept him from not being taken care of after his death! Now his apartment has needed to be cleaned out for over a month and no one except family is allowed to do this so this woman was more than happy to get us in there.

My father’s ashes have now been picked up by my brother and today he and my sister will go in and clean out his apartment. I am waiting for a call from the cemetery to see if perhaps our grandfather had put aside a lot for my father there since he always took care of everything concerning my father so it would not surprise me if he had done this. If not, I need to see if I can get permission to bury his ashes in the family plot. There are 6 of our family there already and it is full, but we are hoping that ashes can be added. 

And so begins Day 3 of this unbelievable turn of events.