Death brings out the worst behavior in humans

Death brings out the worse in people.  I am not sure why. It could be they are dealing with their own pain of loss or anticipated loss.  It could be they want to hold on to some thing that is not going to be there for long or they could just not be able to deal with the certainty death brings.

I have seen it with the passing of my grandparents when I was twelve years old.  I have seen it with the passing of my grandmother when I was forty years old.  And I saw it when Bill was ill.  Emotions run high. Fear rushes through your veins. Uncertainty rules your stomach. You can't eat. You can't sleep. Your mind owns you.

Bill had moved in to my  home.  Before the news, we were unsure what we were going to do with everything.  We  had talked about renting his house, but with the diagnosis, he decided to get rid of everything. He asked me what I wanted.  We had already moved some of his furniture up to my house, but I didn't have a lot  of room.  He made phone calls and the following Saturday after he had been discharged, the troops came to help him out.  He was a giving soul. He wasn't charging his relatives for what they wanted,  you want it, take it.  You gave it to me, you can have it back, but at some level you have to realize the finality of it all. He was giving his nephew a lot of things that he needed.  He was young with a family of four boys and Bill wanted to help him out. Many things he was  unsure of what he was going to do with them as no one claimed them.

He and his brother had gone to a storage unit he had.  I was unaware he even had one.  His youngest daughter came over with her mother.  It was the first time I saw Donna. I didn't meet her.  I wasn't introduced to her, I just saw her flitting about the house with Ashley.  They were removing things from the walls and inside cabinets, hoarding them in her room.  Donna had told her to take what ever she wanted so she didn't regret it later.  I was boiling.  I knew Bill would be as  well.  Ashley was just loading up her room.  No  concern for any one else.  She didn't ask her father if she could have some thing, she just took it.  Others had asked and had been given permission to take, but Ashley just took and her mom was right behind her.

Bill came home and I told him what was going on.  I never saw Bill lose his temper, but I heard he had one.  He went to the back of the house to confront his former wife and daughter.  He was surprised to find such a large pile of his belongings nestled in the corner.  Within minutes, Donna slithered out the front door and Ashley sat on the bar stool pouting. 

He had told her in the most direct way, he "was not dead yet and he didn't appreciate her helping herself to everything."  I understood she was fourteen and with the news of her mother's drama and her dad's illness, she was lost, but she and her sister were very greedy.

She loved to read and had a lot of books.  She wanted her Dad's bookshelf, but it had already been claimed.  I suggested she tell him and they could remove it from the truck, but she told me that she had been chastised and was to not ask for a thing.  

Ashley always wanted some thing. She often played the woe is me card to get attention, but after many years of this, the family had grown wise.  When Bill was at home in January, she wanted to come up and spend every weekend he was there.  She was draining.  She and her sister were going to stand up with Bill and I.  She had been asking her mom for a cut and color for the wedding.  I have a hard time spending money coloring my hair, but to spend that on a fourteen year old, was even harder.  She wanted a new dress for the wedding. She needed new shoes for the wedding.  You would have thought she was the bride!

I had had all I could take one Saturday.  We had gone to Macy's and I bought my dress for the ceremony.  She found two dresses.  She was  a size two and if you didn't know, a size two is just impossible to find, so if you found one, you had to buy it, just had to!!  Her older sister needed a dress, so Ashley convinced me to buy them both and she  would wear one and Nikki would wear the other.  I had suggested Nikki might want to pick out her own, but Ashley was confident her sister would like one of the two dresses, "But make sure she knows they are both mine!"

I told her I wouldn't take her to get her hair dyed, but I'd do it for her. We had been watching a CD of her when she was younger and her hair was dark.  She had colored it a light brown/blonde and it looked out of place as her eyebrows were so dark.  I colored her hair a dark brown and she looked adorable.  She went into the bedroom where Bill was resting and he looked up at her, "My little girl, my little girl is back."  He remembered her as the dark haired child that we had seen on the CD.

She wanted her nails done, she needed jewelry, purses, the list was endless and I put the brakes on.  I had had it.  I was tired. I had been trying to take care of Bill, working and running him here and there.  I didn't need this child to take up more of my time.  I told her my priority was her father and she started to pout.

I went in to the bedroom and told Bill that was it.  He needed to get dressed and she was out of here.  He got up and we took her home.  I knew he was upset, but not because I had insisted she leave, he was upset that she had driven off another one.  On the drive home he said he never thought he'd see the day that she pushed me over the edge.  He'd been waiting for it.  He thought it was going to happen a few times, but I had always been so patient.  He understood though that she was too demanding and his former wife was not helping at all.

Shortly after wards, his oldest daughter called me.  She must have spoken to Ashley.  They were big in to keeping all things equal. She wanted to meet me. I told her I didn't have time, I was busy taking care of her father.  She hemmed and hawed and then the real reason came out, "I'm going to be short this month in rent and I need for you to give me money."  Nikki knew about Bills' financial situation.  She had heard that I spent money on Ashley and she wanted her share.  I refused.  I was growing tired of them.  They had no respect for their father.  I had seen that by the way they had treated him on  his birthday and Christmas.

The second time he was admitted to the hospital, I made arrangements for an attorney to come up and start preparing a Will.  I had spoken to several of my friends who were attorneys and they were dead against me marrying Bill.  Their biggest fear was that we didn't know how long he would live and any healthcare debt he incurred after we married would become mine.  I told them  I didn't care.  I was marrying the man and if he incurred debt, so be it. But they did give me the name of someone who could help me get his Will written.

I introduced them in the  hospital and then I left the room.  I wanted Bill to be able to speak freely about his wishes.  I didn't want him to fear hurting my feelings if he chose to leave everything to the Humane Society.  He didn't have much, but if he had personal belongings that he wanted someone to have, he needed to feel free to speak without fear.  He told me much later that he had left the girls each forty percent of his Estate and the remaining twenty for me. I knew no matter how you sliced that pie, there was nothing there, but I was unsure how I was going to tell the girls that when the time came.

I had been over to his house to get things that he wanted. I'm not sure what he planned on doing with them, but he may have known, his oldest daughter had a key to the house and things were coming up missing.  He had bought Calphalon pots and pans when he moved into his new home.  He had the baking dishes as well and he didn't want them to come up missing.  Ashley noticed them at my house and was upset that I had them.

"You already have your own set, why do you have Dad's? I want them!"  I told her they were not mine to give to her and besides that, she didn't cook, she was fourteen.

I had suggested they would be going to her Uncle and she became very upset. "Those pans are expensive! What is he going to do with them?"  She said the same thing when I told her some of the other pans he had were going to her Aunt Anita.  She just thought that she was entitled to everything but especially if she knew the item was expensive to begin with.  

I had asked both of the girls to tell me some thing they wanted that belonged to their father, that was in his house and I'd see to it they got it.  If someone asked me that, I would know exactly what my parents have that I would want.  Both girls didn't know, they would have to go through the house to see what he had.  I refused to allow that.  The night before he died, I took them into the spare bedroom where his clothes hung and told them to pick out a baseball cap, a sweatshirt and a tie to  keep.  Never to wear,  never to wash, but to inhale the smell of their father when they were lonely.  Ashley was the first to announce she couldn't wear his sweatshirts, she was a size two!  I knew this was all they would have of him, so I again, encouraged them to make a choice.

I have terrible memories of them during his illness as did he.  The second time he was hospitalized, Nikki called to tell me they were coming up to see him.  He told me to tell them he didn't want company, but they came any way. I had suggested Nikki not bring her boyfriend.  Bill despised this young man, but Nikki brought him along.  Ashley was going to be coming up as well, with her mother.  Bill and I had a plan, he'd see them for a few minutes and then he'd act like he was tired and I was to shuffle them out of the building.

They arrived.  All four of them stood in the hall outside of his room, talking, laughing, dancing in the hall and carrying on.  I suggested they keep it down as they were on the oncology floor and people were not feeling good.  One might have thought, if you were walking down the hall, a few mental patients had escaped, but they never quieted down.  Donna came in to the room and you could see Bill's body stiffen. There was no love lost between those two.  She started to come around the end of the bed and I stood up, blocking her.  She stopped, standing at the foot of the bed, she grabbed his foot and slightly shook it, "Behave yourself and get back to work, I need my check."  And she walked out.  By this time, Bill  had a little too much morphine in his system and was really tired, not faking it as we had planned.   I followed Donna out in to the hall and suggested she round up the circus and leave, Bill was  tired. A grown woman should know how to behave when you are visiting people in the hospital.  You have respect for those that are inpatient by being quiet so not to wake those who may be resting, but the whole clan was inconsiderate no matter where they were, this was just the beginning of the drama that was about to unfold.

I was there to comfort Bill.  Nurses can only do so much.  If he needed fresh water, I got it.  If he needed a can of Sprite, the nurses had shown me where to get it.  I had been friendly with the nurses and they gave me certain privileges to care for Bill's needs. I was coming down the hall when they arrived, with a tray for Bill.  Donna was quick with a sarcastic remark about me being treated like a waitress and that's  what nurse's were for.  She really must have been born under a rock, I couldn't imagine someone so insensitive.

I would like to think the timing dictated the behavior, but I have since learned, the behavior had always been there, for once, timing had nothing to do with it.