“I keep thinking I should have visited more. I should have called. I should have made time. Now they’re gone, and all I have is this grief tangled up with regret.”

When we got to my Uncle’s this morning, Hippy Aunt, one of her daughters, and two of her granddaughters were already there.
The living room floor was piled with papers.
I don’t know if Uncle left it that way, or if they’d gone through the house and dumped anything that looked official.
His bedroom was the same.
A mess.
Uncle used to be very clean. 
Very neat.

There were signs. Literally. That his memory was going.
He had notes throughout the house like “Shut the back door” and “Take the trash out on Wednesday.”
Had he lived, he would have turned 80 in November.

I need to process this for myself.
The smell was overwhelming.
Either the toilet wasn’t working, or it hadn’t been flushed in a long time.
Even closing the door didn’t help.
It was clearly out of order.
Aunt’s on medication that makes bathroom trips frequent.
She just held her breath and went in. 
I never heard flushing, so I assume it couldn’t flush anymore.

Thankfully, if there was a stronger odor, the bathroom masked it.
We were told things had progressed too far for a viewing. 
His body had started to break down.
At best, Uncle had passed about two days before being found. 
At worst, it may have been closer to ten.
We avoided the bed. 
There were visible stains on the pillows, so we tiptoed around that space.

They found most of the important papers.
His Army discharge papers were there, along with a few insurance documents.
Unfortunately, the insurance papers didn’t amount to anything useful.

We headed up to the funeral home.
Aunt will go back at a later date to clean out the house and let the town do whatever they want with it.
Nothing inside is salvageable. 
She just wants to double-check that nothing got missed.

No one in the family realized Uncle was living in such rough conditions.
When visitors came, he met them outside in the yard and wouldn’t let anyone inside.
My aunt and I knew the house was deteriorating, but we didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.
For years, we begged him to move, but he always refused, offering a new excuse each time.
During our last visit inside, we saw that the back bedroom and kitchen no longer had ceilings. 
It was just the rafters.
 From what we could see, and we were only allowed in certain areas, the rest of the house looked intact. But the kitchen was already full of black mold.

The man had an insulated lunch bag and ice packs he was using as a refrigerator.
He cooked in the living room with a toaster oven.
I didn’t find any groceries.
 If he’d had anything perishable, I assume Hippy Aunt had already thrown it out.
I saw little containers of single-serve cereal in a chair, but that was it.

It makes me cry to think about how miserable his life was.
But the truth is that he would not allow anyone in the house.
He flat-out refused to leave.
Hippy Aunt begged.
 I begged. 
We begged and begged and begged. 
He wouldn’t.
He was still sound of mind and body.
What could we have done?

We wanted to give him the military funeral he earned, he had a grave beside my mom.
All of my grandmother’s children have a grave plot. 
She bought them back in the 50s.
The cost of a vault, a coffin, even a bare-bones one, and the grave digging was absolutely hair-raising.
We couldn’t do it.
So, Uncle gets cremated.
I don’t know who will take him home.
I also don’t know how Aunt will pay. 
I halfway think they expected me to come up with cash.
I gave them a thousand from our savings account, but I couldn’t do the entire amount.
It’s not fair to my aunt. 
The woman is 72 years old, had a stroke, and a pacemaker.
She can’t pay it either.
After the bills are paid, I can call the funeral home. 
Maybe I can squeeze out another hundred.
That will still leave her with over a thousand to pay.
I have bills🤷🏻‍♀️

Hippy Aunt headed home. 
We stopped at Food City and picked up a rose.
I had forgotten about Mother’s Day. 
I was there, Mom was there. 
I left a rose for her.
As Badger says, we have no reason to go back to my hometown now.
There is nothing there for us anymore.
We don’t think Uncle was paying his land taxes, so I assume the town will take over the house.
More power to them. 
That place is a total tear down.

It was after 3 p.m., and we hadn’t eaten all day, so we grabbed supper at Long John’s.
Then traffic was so heavy, we couldn’t pull out in the right direction to head home, so we had to head back toward Uncle’s.
While we were going that way anyway, I made Cowboy stop at Crockett Cemetery.
Badger had her camera, and I figured it was a good way to say goodbye to my childhood hometown.

We made it home at 5 p.m., but had to turn around and go back to town.
Badger needed milk. 
She takes her meds with it. 
Don’t ask.
We were finally settled in for the night at 7 p.m.
I’m getting this up and heading to bed. 
Today was rough.

I have Uncle’s phone. It would be nice if we could get in it.
We could see the actual date he last messaged someone or answered his phone.
I hate to think that he had laid in that bed for over a week before anyone missed him.
He has it password protected.
The phone says it needs four symbols and a letter.
Not words. Not letters. Symbols.
I’ve tried everything and can’t unlock it.
I doubt if we ever access the phone.

Almost forgot, the funeral home has a support dog. 
A goldendoodle, I think. 
Possibly a giant poodle.
It sniffed us all as we came in. 
Aunt petted it. 
Cowboy pet it.
Nary a response from the devil.
So, we paid and got ready to leave. 
The dog was on a bench in the hall.
The cousin that gave us Duffy reached out to pet it, and I was standing next to her.
That darn dog leaped up snarling, growling, and snapping.
So much for a support dog.
Badger, of course, says that I have too many issues for the poor dog to handle, and I blew its mind.
I presume it smelled the craziness on me.