Dealing with the Death of a Spouse
I have had to face a difficult task in recent months and it is dealing with the death of a spouse. As this hasn’t been the easiest of times, I wanted to put my thoughts down to help people try to plan for the unexpected. I am no expert, but these are just some things I have encountered that I feel if I write them down and share them with people, it might make their life a little easier.Have a will and a power of attorney. I have spoken with so many people that do not have a simple will. This has been a life saver and has helped ease the burden!
I was the one that had set up all the bills and for some unknown reason I had put them all in my husband’s name only. Make sure you put your bills in both of your names. It makes deleting a name a little bit easier.
Don’t put up with anyone’s crap when they say you need to have multiple items that declare your spouse has indeed passed away. I didn’t put up with anything. I did find working with PayPal was one of the most difficult tasks. They want everything including your firstborn. (Yes I’m being facetious!) After several telephone calls and trying to submit all of the documentation they demanded I again called them and got someone that said I needed to submit even more documentation. At this point I had had it and asked the nice person what I could do to get these things changed. I told him I had bent over backward trying to please them and no one else, including the life insurance and stocks, wanted as much as they did. He got the name changed without any further documentation.Make lists! This is an overwhelming process and making a list and marking things off and adding things as you think of them helps. It helps to see progress and as I would mark off something on the list I would feel like I finally got something accomplished. I don’t feel like it is a bad thing to add something to the list. The way I would look at adding an item is it is one less thing I have to remember. If it is on the list it will get done when I get to it. (I’m still keeping lists, it still helps after 2½ months.)
Don’t expect to get everything done at once. That will never happen. You still have things you have to do on a daily basis and all the other stuff gets done when you can. It would be nice if you could just blink your eyes and everything would be taken care of, but it doesn’t happen that way. I had some neighbors tell me their mother is still trying to get through things 2 years after the death of her husband.
Don’t let people tell you that you shouldn’t make any major decisions before a year after a spouse’s death. Life goes on and so do your feelings and needs. I am living in a huge home and it was big before Dan died. We had talked often of selling the house and moving to something smaller, maybe even moving to a new state or country. This was an easy decision for me and one that was almost instantaneous. Nine weeks after Dan died I had to put our 14 year-old dog down. It makes the house even that much bigger.I also found out shortly after Dan’s death that I needed to do something about the automobile situation. My car was 22 years old and having air conditioner problems and was stalling. We had talked about getting it repaired right before his death. Dan’s car was going on 11 years. I needed a car that could haul things and Dan’s car could not do that. Again, if I had listened to the people that said don’t make any major decisions for one year, I may not have the transportation I need.
Go through things at your own pace. Do not let anyone force you to get rid of anything until you are ready. Every so often, when time permits, I tackle another drawer in the office or a pile of things. Don’t get me wrong, my family has been more than helpful. Without their help I wouldn’t be as far along as I am. But they gave me the space I needed to get things done at my pace. No I still haven’t gone through the clothes, but that will come when I’m ready.
Understand that you have to start thinking on your own. After so many years it can be overwhelming, but you have to do it. I often think, would Dan have done it this way, or if Dan were here we would do this. I have had to do many things I had no desire to ever do in my life. It’s amazing to realize how many things your spouse took responsibility for. I always knew he did these things, it just amazes me the time and effort it took. I never wanted to do the hardware stuff for technology, that was Dan’s job, he liked doing it. I don’t, but I have had to learn. Just a few days ago I was griping at my brother that if he had bought the MacBookPro when Dan was alive I wouldn’t have to deal with trying to help him out, Dan would be doing it.This fantastic quote came across my e-mail today from Abraham-Hicks and it puts the way I feel about death into the best possible terms. I hope this will help others.
We're not wanting to be insensitive to what so many of you are feeling, but we are very much wanting you to put this death thing in the proper perspective: You are all going to die! Except there is no death. You're all going to make your transition into Non-Physical. It is time to stop making your transition into Non-Physical sound like a subject that is uncomfortable and begin acknowledging that it is something that happens to everyone. This death thing is so misunderstood that you use it to torture yourself never-endingly and just absolutely unnecessarily. There are those who feel such fulfillment of life and such Connection to Source Energy, who understand that there is no separation between what is physical and Non-Physical; who understand that there is not even a lapse in consciousness, that "death" is a matter of closing one's eyes in this dimension and literally opening one's eyes in the other dimension. And that, truly, is how all death is, no matter how it looks, up to that point.. The re-emergence into Source Energy is always a delightful thing.
--- Abraham
Here's Another Feather In Your Hat!
Posted by Nancy Strong at Wednesday, August 03, 2011 9:44:00 AM 
Categories: Organizing, Time Management, Virtual Assistant, Motivation
Tags: dealing with death
Categories: Organizing, Time Management, Virtual Assistant, Motivation
Tags: dealing with death
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