Update & checking in with y'all Part One
I missed you guys so much last week, I wanted to come and tell you all what was happening, but unfortunately there was litarally no time to do so. I'll tell you how my week went last week. And how very, very thankful I am that it is over and I managed to somehow survive it. For those who did not read about the events of the past couple weeks in another thread, Ill back track just a tad. My Mominlaw's long time bf had a massive heart attack on September 16. So, as of last Monday, he had been in the ICU at the hospital for two weeks, and my dh and I had been taking mom back and forth to work and to hospital every day, and trying to prepare for 2 upcoming weddings this past weekend, one on Saturday, that I was hired to coordinate, and his little brother's second wedding, which dh was best man. So.... Sunday night I get a phone call from the Bride & Groom I am working with, they had just stopped into the reception site after the end of another function because their caterer had invited them to come in and see the floor plan and the food set-up. While they were there, they were confronted by one of the venue planners about comments they had made to her boss, because she has been incompetent throughout the entire planning of this wedding and they finally said something and she pretty much accosted them and made a veiled threat; something along the lines of 'it's really unfortunate that you made these comments to my boss one week before your wedding'! I was in comeplete shock that this person had been so unprofessional and nasty to them. I tried to talk to her boss the next day only to find out that he is on vaca all week. So I told the dir of ops, in no uncertain terms, that this woman was to have nothing further to do with this wedding or this couple. Monday night around dinnertime, the daughter of said mominlaw's bf called to say his situation was very grim. So dh and I picked mom up and rushed down there. He was sedated and on life support by the time we got there. We stayed til around 10:00 and then brought mom home. I didn't have to work on Tuesday and Wednesday (Thank God) due to the Jewish Holidays, so on Tuesday I took Mom down to the hospital and the two of us along with his daughter and her mother, witnessed his passing. It was very very sad, and afterward I honestly thought I was going to be making another trip to hospital with Mom, because she looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The ex started taking control and bombarding mom with a bunch of dumbass questions within 5 minutes of his passing, and I told her as politely as I could that all that stuff could wait til the next day as mom was in no shape to address any of it at that moment. After I got Mom home to my house, lo and behold, one by one, her friends started appearing out of no where. None of them knew what had happened yet, but it was so unusual for her to miss a day of work, that several of her closest friends knew something was terribly wrong, within an hour or so we had about 6 or 7 co-workers of hers sitting around drinking with us and they were telling stories and mom was transforming to her normal self right before my eyes, which was a huge relief because I had a meeting to attend that night for the wedding I was working on, which I would've cancelled had it not been for these wonderful women supporting her through this. Tuesday night I attended the meeting with the Bride & Groom and the floor manager for the reception site and it went well. Wednesday mom and I had to attend the meeting with the daughter, the son, the son's wife, and their mother at the funeral home. Now keep in mind a couple things as I tell you about this; they were not well off by any means, but he did have a pretty substantial 401k policy and a fair life ins policy through his work, however he did not leave any of it to mom, nor make any prior provisions for his own last wishes. Would not even discuss any of it except to say to mom "Don't worry about it, my kids will handle it.' So when it came time to discuss the payment of all the arrangements, it was excruciatingly uncomfortable for my poor mominlaw to disclose all of this to the son and daughter, with their mother (who is a total piece of work) sitting right there. That was all the witch needed and from there she took over and ran with it, she would occasionally turn to my mominlaw and ask if she was okay with this or that or if she wanted to add anything, but my mominlaw is not a person to try to impose her will on anything, and she would just nod and say 'no, that's fine. This woman ended up interjecting herself into the whole thing every chance she got. She is remarried, but yet she wanted to be listed in his obit as his former wife. They did a candle lighting ceremony at the funeral parlor and she was also a part of that. Throughout this entire meeting I kept expecting her to wipe one of her kids nose or follow them into the bathroom to change a diaper or something, these 'kids' are in their late 20's, as an fyi. The funeral home asked if the family wanted to display a photo collage of the bf, and both kids just looked around and at their mom as if waiting for her to decide. She wasn't going to put any real work into this whole thing, and besides, she hasnt lived with the man in 16 years, so she has no recent piccies of him. I have tons as, for the last 16 years he has been with our family for every holiday and birthday and whatnot, so I volunteered to make the collage, it was important to me that something of my mominalws life with this man was apparent during this process, and I figured this was prolly the best way to ensure that. Wednesday night I insisted on taking Mom to a fund raiser dinner that I'd already bought tickets for, just so I could get a real meal into her, because I knew that she hadn't eaten or slept properly in the last 2 weeks. Little did I know at the time that that would be the last decent meal either one of us would eat until the following Monday (yesterday) More on that later. Thursday I went back to work and the son and daughter-in-law of the bf call looking for the paperwork from bills vehicles and the 401k and other kaka, so I leave work to go pick it up at mom's and bring it to them and they are 20 minutes late meeting me, and then another 10 minutes sitting on the wrong side of the building. *sigh* Afterwards the trip up north to coordinate the rehearsal for the wedding I was working on. (A 20 minute highway trip and right about this time I start to realize that my car isn't quite right) The wedding was planned as an outdoor affair at a park in a beautiful little sanctuary, the Bride & Groom intend their dogs to be a big part of the ceremony, Thursday night the weather was fabulous and the rehearsal went great, but the forecast is calling for rain all weekend, I am, however, holding out hope that they are wrong. They usually are around here. I got home around 9:00 pm and then spent 4 hours on the photo collage for Friday's wake. Friday comes along, work is nuts all day. I leave early to go home and change and pick mom up to bring her to the wake. Dh has to attend his brothers wedding rehearsal, as he is the Best Man. So mom and I are on our own and not feeling too confident going to a funeral, where she was pretty much the wife, but looking like she was prolly going to take a back seat to the ex. We really couldn't have known that hundreds and hundreds of her co-workers would not let that happen. OMG, it started almost immediately they started streamingh in, and making a bee-line for mom and sitting and talking with her, telling stories about the two of them, making her laugh. They had both worked in the same place for the last 30 years so everyone he worked with knows and loves my mominlaw, and biy did they let her know that night. A good many of them kept shoving cards at her and telling her 'these are for you, and no one else'. Two of the cards contained collections that they had taken up at work for her, with literally hundreds of signatures and well wishes. The majority of these wonderful ppls would offer her any help they had to give and on their way past me they all whispered 'take good care of her, okay?' It made me cry more then once. Imma take a breather before I get into the story of "The Longest Weekend Of My Life" I've had more drama in the past week then I've ever had in my entire life, I love that you all are here and will let me vent and carry on, cause I just cannot seem to do that to anyone in rl without deeply offending as you'll all here about in part deux. I will tell that tale a little later.
I missed you guys so much last week, I wanted to come and tell you all what was happening, but unfortunately there was litarally no time to do so. I'll tell you how my week went last week. And how very, very thankful I am that it is over and I managed to somehow survive it. For those who did not read about the events of the past couple weeks in another thread, Ill back track just a tad. My Mominlaw's long time bf had a massive heart attack on September 16. So, as of last Monday, he had been in the ICU at the hospital for two weeks, and my dh and I had been taking mom back and forth to work and to hospital every day, and trying to prepare for 2 upcoming weddings this past weekend, one on Saturday, that I was hired to coordinate, and his little brother's second wedding, which dh was best man. So.... Sunday night I get a phone call from the Bride & Groom I am working with, they had just stopped into the reception site after the end of another function because their caterer had invited them to come in and see the floor plan and the food set-up. While they were there, they were confronted by one of the venue planners about comments they had made to her boss, because she has been incompetent throughout the entire planning of this wedding and they finally said something and she pretty much accosted them and made a veiled threat; something along the lines of 'it's really unfortunate that you made these comments to my boss one week before your wedding'! I was in comeplete shock that this person had been so unprofessional and nasty to them. I tried to talk to her boss the next day only to find out that he is on vaca all week. So I told the dir of ops, in no uncertain terms, that this woman was to have nothing further to do with this wedding or this couple. Monday night around dinnertime, the daughter of said mominlaw's bf called to say his situation was very grim. So dh and I picked mom up and rushed down there. He was sedated and on life support by the time we got there. We stayed til around 10:00 and then brought mom home. I didn't have to work on Tuesday and Wednesday (Thank God) due to the Jewish Holidays, so on Tuesday I took Mom down to the hospital and the two of us along with his daughter and her mother, witnessed his passing. It was very very sad, and afterward I honestly thought I was going to be making another trip to hospital with Mom, because she looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The ex started taking control and bombarding mom with a bunch of dumbass questions within 5 minutes of his passing, and I told her as politely as I could that all that stuff could wait til the next day as mom was in no shape to address any of it at that moment. After I got Mom home to my house, lo and behold, one by one, her friends started appearing out of no where. None of them knew what had happened yet, but it was so unusual for her to miss a day of work, that several of her closest friends knew something was terribly wrong, within an hour or so we had about 6 or 7 co-workers of hers sitting around drinking with us and they were telling stories and mom was transforming to her normal self right before my eyes, which was a huge relief because I had a meeting to attend that night for the wedding I was working on, which I would've cancelled had it not been for these wonderful women supporting her through this. Tuesday night I attended the meeting with the Bride & Groom and the floor manager for the reception site and it went well. Wednesday mom and I had to attend the meeting with the daughter, the son, the son's wife, and their mother at the funeral home. Now keep in mind a couple things as I tell you about this; they were not well off by any means, but he did have a pretty substantial 401k policy and a fair life ins policy through his work, however he did not leave any of it to mom, nor make any prior provisions for his own last wishes. Would not even discuss any of it except to say to mom "Don't worry about it, my kids will handle it.' So when it came time to discuss the payment of all the arrangements, it was excruciatingly uncomfortable for my poor mominlaw to disclose all of this to the son and daughter, with their mother (who is a total piece of work) sitting right there. That was all the witch needed and from there she took over and ran with it, she would occasionally turn to my mominlaw and ask if she was okay with this or that or if she wanted to add anything, but my mominlaw is not a person to try to impose her will on anything, and she would just nod and say 'no, that's fine. This woman ended up interjecting herself into the whole thing every chance she got. She is remarried, but yet she wanted to be listed in his obit as his former wife. They did a candle lighting ceremony at the funeral parlor and she was also a part of that. Throughout this entire meeting I kept expecting her to wipe one of her kids nose or follow them into the bathroom to change a diaper or something, these 'kids' are in their late 20's, as an fyi. The funeral home asked if the family wanted to display a photo collage of the bf, and both kids just looked around and at their mom as if waiting for her to decide. She wasn't going to put any real work into this whole thing, and besides, she hasnt lived with the man in 16 years, so she has no recent piccies of him. I have tons as, for the last 16 years he has been with our family for every holiday and birthday and whatnot, so I volunteered to make the collage, it was important to me that something of my mominalws life with this man was apparent during this process, and I figured this was prolly the best way to ensure that. Wednesday night I insisted on taking Mom to a fund raiser dinner that I'd already bought tickets for, just so I could get a real meal into her, because I knew that she hadn't eaten or slept properly in the last 2 weeks. Little did I know at the time that that would be the last decent meal either one of us would eat until the following Monday (yesterday) More on that later. Thursday I went back to work and the son and daughter-in-law of the bf call looking for the paperwork from bills vehicles and the 401k and other kaka, so I leave work to go pick it up at mom's and bring it to them and they are 20 minutes late meeting me, and then another 10 minutes sitting on the wrong side of the building. *sigh* Afterwards the trip up north to coordinate the rehearsal for the wedding I was working on. (A 20 minute highway trip and right about this time I start to realize that my car isn't quite right) The wedding was planned as an outdoor affair at a park in a beautiful little sanctuary, the Bride & Groom intend their dogs to be a big part of the ceremony, Thursday night the weather was fabulous and the rehearsal went great, but the forecast is calling for rain all weekend, I am, however, holding out hope that they are wrong. They usually are around here. I got home around 9:00 pm and then spent 4 hours on the photo collage for Friday's wake. Friday comes along, work is nuts all day. I leave early to go home and change and pick mom up to bring her to the wake. Dh has to attend his brothers wedding rehearsal, as he is the Best Man. So mom and I are on our own and not feeling too confident going to a funeral, where she was pretty much the wife, but looking like she was prolly going to take a back seat to the ex. We really couldn't have known that hundreds and hundreds of her co-workers would not let that happen. OMG, it started almost immediately they started streamingh in, and making a bee-line for mom and sitting and talking with her, telling stories about the two of them, making her laugh. They had both worked in the same place for the last 30 years so everyone he worked with knows and loves my mominlaw, and biy did they let her know that night. A good many of them kept shoving cards at her and telling her 'these are for you, and no one else'. Two of the cards contained collections that they had taken up at work for her, with literally hundreds of signatures and well wishes. The majority of these wonderful ppls would offer her any help they had to give and on their way past me they all whispered 'take good care of her, okay?' It made me cry more then once. Imma take a breather before I get into the story of "The Longest Weekend Of My Life" I've had more drama in the past week then I've ever had in my entire life, I love that you all are here and will let me vent and carry on, cause I just cannot seem to do that to anyone in rl without deeply offending as you'll all here about in part deux. I will tell that tale a little later.