It was a hard trip. It was a surreal trip. And I process by writing so I had nowhere to put everything I was dealing with in my head and everything that I was trying to help Brent deal with. Because that's the really hard part right now. I haven't dealt with my mother's death yet, not really. We are in the first year, the firsts are the worst, it takes time, all of that. But we have no time. Not for me to put everything away and move forward with my own mourning for Ann and to focus on being Brent's support. We are both walking wounded. And we did the best we could.
Flying in a pandemic was strange. Most everyone wore their masks. Even though it's supposed to be mandatory there are people who won't wear them. So far nobody is forcing them to so they don't. There were no direct flights, in fact the flight from Seattle to Albuquerque was a connecting flight to San Antonio. Remember those? Where you would land at an airport and some people would get off the plane and some new people would get on? I haven't been on a connecting flight in years.
There were a few shops open in the airports, but not most. The flight itself had bottles of water if you were thirsty, but that's it. No drink cart. They gave a snack box in first class but there wasn't an option for anything in coach. People seemed fairly quiet and reserved but that might have just been the mask muffling everyone. Wearing a mask constantly is uncomfortable. I've worn one for errands and such but it's only a half hour or so at a time, flying in to Albuquerque it was like 6 hours straight. And New Mexico is under mandatory mask orders so anytime you are in public you are in a mask. My ears are sore. Gives me a lot of sympathy for health care workers who are in them constantly.
We got the keys to the house from David and Steve and checked it out quickly Monday night. We were meeting a cleaning crew there on Tuesday and didn't want our first time seeing everything to be with a bunch of strangers. Then we tried to get to our hotel for the night. Tried. Because of the protests we knew downtown was going to be challenging but we also figured we'd be in our rooms each night before they really got going so it was no big deal. But what we didn't realize is that our hotel was in the middle of the cordoned off area. The police set up blockades and barriers around a few streets and our hotel was right in the middle. Literally no way to drive to the hotel. We got our reservation cancelled, much to the disappointment of the hotel manager who wasn't really understanding what was happening, I imagine he was going to have a nasty surprise trying to get home that night.
The new hotel was at maybe 20% capacity. Or at least set up for that much. The restaurants weren't open, there was no maid service, two out of three elevators were shut down, the convention areas were closed off, but it was a bed and a place to stay and had internet access. Good enough.
We spent the week we were there getting the house cleaned, meeting with a realtor, finding an Estate sales company, sorting all of the things in the house to make sure we had anything important, and Brent spent a lot of time on the phone calling people and companies saying over and over again that she had died. There is no other way to do that. You can't just send out a blast to everyone in the world and if they need to know they do. You have to call people. You have to call people you don't know, and call people you do. You have to listen to their grief while you are still seeping in your own.
It's a lot.
And it's not done. We will have to go back in a couple of weeks. Or at least Brent will. We haven't decided if I am going with him or not. But at least he will have to be there. New Mexico won't let him sign over the title of her car until she's been dead for 30 days and it has to be in person. We also found the keys to a safety deposit box but we can't open it until we have the death certificate and the letter of testamentary, which we probably could have gotten a lot easier with the official copy of the will that we believe she must have put in the safety deposit box, since we had a copy and couldn't find the original in the house anywhere. Don't keep your will in a safety deposit box. Keep it in a fireproof lock box in your house. I found something online that said we should have been able to pull the will and nothing else but the bank said no. So don't do that. Keep your will where your executor can have access to it easily.
I'll write more tomorrow about this, I just wanted to start dumping things out. Tomorrow's will be a little harder. Just as a warning.
But I need to start processing so I will start writing.
It's a lot.
But I need to start processing so I will start writing.
It's a lot.
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