Final Countdown

© Copyright 2019 Grief Probate Journey Blog

FINAL COUNTDOWN

We are now starting to reach the point where things will be drawing to a close. With this in mind, it has got us feeling extremely overwhelmed at the moment. It’s also almost as though:

• Everything is happening all at once, but not all.
• Things are starting to become more real
• The reason we are in this situation is so much more in our face now
• Our blinkers will have to come down

Disassociation or removal of ourselves with what has happened will soon no longer be an option. Feeling quite:

• Lost
• Worried
• Scared
• Anxious

This is because once it is really real to us, what do we do? How do we cope? Its almost like after our three-year ordeal, we finally have to:

• start waking up
• Realise we are alongside society
• Find ourselves again

Along this journey, we have been so busy that we’ve just been doing. Never having any time to stop, think, realise and take in what’s really happening and what we are actually really doing. Everything has been moment to moment, thinking on the spot and, making sure we get things done within the required deadlines. We’ve not felt like we’ve had any time to plan things sufficiently which has meant we have made mistakes along the way.

One of our biggest deadlines is upon us, and wow, this is a big one. The final physical lasting memory and connection to our Dad will soon be gone. We’ve always known this day was coming, but now it’s actually getting nearer to the time the feelings are so much different.

In previous posts, we mentioned feeling as though we’d like to bury our head in the sand like an ostrich. At that time, it was because things were so busy, we were overtired, and wanted to pop our head back out once things were less hectic. Now we feel that way again as feelings of strong emotions are creeping upon us, its extremley overwhelming and so we’d like to pop our head back out once these feelings pass, and situations do not feel as daunting as they do right now. But that is not how life works. We have to face it and learn to deal with it.

Life right about now feels like, we are small fish in a big sea of piranha, and we will have to relearn living life. Living our new life without our Dad. We’ve been doing this since the day it happened, but the process has kept us so busy, plus our childhood family home (which then became our Dad’s home) was still there.

Another big change we are now faced with is that our Advocate who has been supporting us over the past two years (June 2017 – August 2019) with our formal complaint against the hospital is leaving their post. Of course, we are pleased for them, but at the same time, we are sad. It’s a big loss for us. Our advocate has been the only person within the:

• Professional bodies
• Businesses
• Organisations
• Institutions

We have dealt with (aside from when we had Counselling) who is:

• Genuine
• Consistent
• Empathetic
• Understands what we have/are going through
• Has our best interest at heart
• Advising us accordingly in order to help us make the best decisions

Without their support, it will literally feel like something is missing. (This is the same way we felt when our counselling sessions finished). We do not know which way our case might go. It is currently with the  Parliamentary & Health Services Ombudsman. We can only hope that should we require further advocacy support that we would be lucky enough to be assigned someone as great as our current advocate. (was/is). We have to move forward thinking positively that we will succeed with our complaint. (Making a complaint will be a topic in this blog).

In a previous post, we were talking about life after probate. Right about now our mind is starting to think about the fact we will have to be thinking about life after losing our Dad. Although it happened two years ago now, because of our situation, everything has been delayed for us:

• Feelings
• Emotions,
• Realisations included

After trying to deal with the horrific treatment of our Dad and the manner in which the hospital staff let us find out about our Dad passing, within less than 24 hour’s we were thrown into a whole new world due to being referred to a coroner.  We’ve been in shutdown mode to any form of acceptance or acknowledgement since that day up until now as our focus has always been getting things done. Thing’s are not completely over as once the house is sold:

• Probate will need to be finalised
• Conveyancing matters will need to be finalised
• Pursuing the complaint against the hospital

It also almost feels like, what will be our purpose now? I’ve answered that as I’m typing. Our purpose now which has always been alongside probate will be Justice for our Dad.

As well as that, as a family we need to focus on:

• Taking care of ourselves
• Making sure we are okay
• Continue looking out for each other

We always knew that once things started to slow down, this is when things would start to become real. Even though we knew, there is no preparation. It’s basically feeling the feelings when they randomly appear.

It’s quite difficult as all of a sudden, we are feeling deep emotions, we are not okay, but you don’t want to bring others down with your mood and so you try your best to appear to be happy. In our case, because our Dad passed two years ago, we are having delayed realisations from two years ago in this present day. It feels so strange even for us, it’s new feelings for something that happened two years ago, but as our feelings have been suppressed all this time, this is our situation. Good or bad this is our situation.

We will try our best to move forward as positively as possible, whilst not denying our feelings. A positive that has come out of our situation is this blog.

Through this experience, we have learnt that:

• Knowledge is power
• Knowledge is key
• You need to know your rights

These reasons were our motivating factor for creating this blog so that we could share the knowledge we have gained. If this blog makes a difference to at least one person, it will have served its purpose.