May 25th 2015- Going through Dad’s Will

Yesterday was pretty uneventful, snore worthy I think. However, I think that probably was for the best because of the nightmare I had the other night really hit me hard. Come to think of it I don’t think anyone slept well the night before, not even Josh. I’ve had a bit of trouble sleeping since then, but no nightmares, thank god. Anyway, Josh, Steve, and I really didn’t do much. We sat around and talked, watched Netflix for a few hours, and ordered Chinese food for dinner.

The next day we started to dive into Dad’s stuff, which I believe from the deepest parts of my soul was extremely excruciating for everyone in the room…. Dad’s room. His room had changed a lot when I left. It really looked off… I can’t really explain it. There were papers and other random books and paraphernillia scattered all over the place. There were piles of clothes sitting in random areas in the room and a very old and stale cup of coffee on the desk with a fly buzzing around it. To me I felt as though I was walking right on my father’s corpse and intruding in some sort of way. The room smelled horrible for some odd reason, like mildew, moldy meat, putrid mud, and dust. A loud clash of thunder cracked through the air, making all of us jump and then a heavy downpour engulfed the home. Steve and Josh both looked at me with slight concern.

“Hey, sis you really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Steve and I can look through the will if you’d like. Besides, there’s still a lot of other stuff that needs to be done-“

“No, no don’t be silly! I’m fine, I swear! I can get through this Josh.” I interrupted Josh hastily for I didn’t want to let him down for not having the guts to do my part. “I’m sorry.” I muttered as I crossed my arms.

“Are you sure sweetheart?” Steve asked while gently putting his arm around my shoulder. 

“Yeah, I’m positive! I want to help out as much as I can. Please let me help. I promise I’ll let you two know when I need a break ok?” I assured Josh and Steve that I would be ok, even though I didn’t know it myself. They both said ok and nodded. We both took out a large file in his filing cabinet in his closet, took it to the large desk in his study, and starting to go through it. 

My Dad might have been a very laid back man, but the thing is he always kept everything neat and tidy. Laundry, dishes, Tupperware, clothes hangers, papers, even our food pantry was intricately organized. Anyway, reading through Dad’s will just had very basic stuff in it, at least from what I could see. Everything from the first five or so pages seemed to be pretty basic… then his writing just seemed so garbled after that. He had a plan set on where his assests would go and whom they would be awarded to; everything from his bank account balance, his investments, his furniture, car, home, etc. He also had everything laid out on how he wanted his funeral and burial to be laid out for the most part… then the rest of the text had scribbles, text that was lined through, massive paragraphs with typos and chicken scratch… what got me was the various drips of what appeared to be coffee on the paper, no not just that, but there was also drips of blood as well. All three of us just looked back at one another in confusion. 

“Josh?” 

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He sounded hesitant to answer my question.

“Have you shown this to the attourney yet?”

“Nope…” He gulped.

“Josh, I really think we sho-“

“Ok, I-I-I have a confession to make to you guys!” He stood up and put his hands up when he announced this. “I have not been in this room until now. Here’s the thing I really didn’t want to tell you Jo. Before Dad died, he really began to lose it. He would often barricade himself in here for days on end and would never let anyone in, not even me. I came by every once in a while to give him food and his medications, then he’d open the door slightly, yank it out of my hands then slam the door in front of my face. He wouldn’t talk to me or look at me… I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t find Dad in here when he passed. He was in the shower and he collapsed, I swear!” Josh put his hands up to his face and broke down. I immediately hugged him and sat him down while Steve closed the file and pushed it to the side. 

“I believe you Josh, it’s going to be ok, I promise! We are in this together. I think it would be best maybe if we try to have another set of eyes or two on this so we can figure this out.” I said while comforting Josh. I had never, ever seen him cry like that before. Not even when mom passed away. So with that, we called and made an appointment to see the attourney to help us decipher through the garbled will. God help me, Josh, and Steve through this… All I can hear when I sleep now is the rain that heavily impails the windows…

Joey

(all credit goes to the original owner(s) of featured image(s)