The Cockroach Cafe (the successor to the Shiny Thread)

[MereDintofPandiculation]

A space for us all to get together for relief from caring, share news, frustrations, problems, or just have a rant. Everyone and everything welcome (though if you have a big problem needing advice, you may want to start a new thread so as to be heard above the noise of the clanking gin bottles and general chatter)

DD2's boyfriend's mum (still with me?!) is now working in one of the care homes DM was in. She's only been there about 3 weeks, says it is terrible and she will leave. That makes me feel bad, because I kept telling DM that everyone was kind and nice and had her best interests at heart...

nora they will appreciate the card I'm sure.

nora sure they will value the card.
yolo you did the best you could. Please don’t beat yourself up.
Just heard that carers won’t cover Christmas Eve/ day Boxing Day teas/ bed calls... s£&*.

jesus sandwich are they SS or private? that's bad, what do they expect people to do? (yeah yeah, I know....)

Private.... expectation on daughter round the corner who has no life of her own......
Dbs have offered to help out which is good, but they are 80 plus miles away....

Oh sandwich what a nightmare! It winds the crap out of me how essential things shut down because of fucking Xmas.

Hopefully your brothers will help as Xmas day at least is an easier drive?

oh fuck sandwich... how will you manage? etc for you xx

Thanks for the solidarity folks! I will cope Christmas Eve/ day as dm should be coming here for the day- but other plans to visit and spend precious time with my dd will be greatly curtailed....
But is s#£&..

@thesandwich i am outraged that they wont cover xmas day. What, exactly, would they do if you wasn't around the corner? Becoming a carer is bloody eye opening - people liken it to childcare, they couldn't be more wrong.

Interment itself went ok
I cried more in Costa on DP before than I did in churchyard
It was just very final
Took DM out for Sunday lunch - she is very lost herself and I think will feel it more in January
I’m shocked at the amount of narcissistic individuals I come across (no names mentioned)
Even at this time - it’s constantly about them!
I’m trying to rise above it
Dcat is millimetres from my side DS not far behind him - there is only retail therapy left
Thank you for helping me through the last few months x it’s really helped - I’m having a large gin and an early night

Jace I feel for you

On the subject of selfish people, sorry if I said it before, but about a month after dad died, an acquaintance of his was visiting mum (I was there all the time pretty much) and took me to one side and said “you know, I’m really struggling to cope with the death of your father”.

An acquaintance. Not even a friend. At least they had the decency to take me aside so mum didn’t hear it. But I was quite pissed off. It wasn’t the only time someone tried to make it about them, so I’m sorry but there might be more.

I know you can be hit hard by the death of an acquaintance but burdening their children with it? Like, can you just not?! (If that song had been out last year I might have actually said that!)

Thank you everyone
Especially #AutumnRose1 I’m not even sad or that surprised - they are what they are - part of me feels sorry for why they are like this
All that said - it’s about me! For a change
There is a huge hole in my life - I know I will grieve and move on
But right now I’m hurting
It’s hard to convey to semi strangers - on line how much the world is diminished by lack of my Dad - I listened to people I don’t know that well today about how much he touched their lives and was humbled
So many soliloquies
RIP Sir S...... xxxxx

The thing that stands out for me in remembering my dad's funeral, was the sheer numbers of people that turned out for him - including blokes who he had lived in a hostel with in his early 20's, yet he was 71 when he died. This before the age of the internet etc, but had kept in touch over the years. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I am pretty sure that when it comes to my time I'll be hard pressed to fill one pew.

Wow sandwich I'm really shocked that the carers don't cover Christmas, even if you had to pay double time or something. Lots of people have jobs that mean they have to do a Christmas rota, it's really not that unusual.

to you Jace, I found it hard but also lovely to hear how much my dad meant to other people, especially from parts of his life that I realised I didn't know much about.

And yolo I'm dismayed that the care home guilt comes back to bite, I'm still struggling with the first round of it! But on a cheerier note, they did have a visit the other day from an exotic animal sanctuary, including a snake, some giant african land snails, and ... a... giant... african... cockroach. It's true, I've seen the photos!

Yay for the cockroach maddy! cheers one and all.

Funerals are funny things aren't they, often quite enjoyable in a weird way.

DB took mum's ashes home with him, although he doesn't actually know what to do with them either! (Pre the hospital meeting, we were discussing what to do with them - DH suggested putting the box on the table at the meeting and saying 'here's mum'!! We didn't, but we thought about it!)

I have a passionate hatred of funerals

I found dad's ashes ceremony not too bad - but it seems to be creeping up on me now. Annoying.

So do you get the ashes interred in a cemetery? I suppose you do, we were offered that now I come to think of it, but it's a place she'd never been to/had no connection with.

Dad's ashes, she put some under a loose tile in his favourite bar and the rest went in the sea. My friend has put her daughters' in a spot on the Downs. I think I'd like mine put in a firework (although that's bad because of animals being scared etc). Maybe a tree? But then it puts it onto someone's conscience to nurture it...

I know you can be hit hard by the death of an acquaintance but burdening their children with it? Like, can you just not?! I've never taken it like that, I've always taken it as expressing to me how much my mother has meant to other people. Never felt they were burdening me - that's their problem to solve, not mine.

yolo A lot of my friends are outdoor types, so favourite for ashes is to take them up a high mountain and cast them to the winds (having due regard to wind direction if you don't want most of them to come home with you )

Me and sister thought we'd just take mum's ashes to some woods in our town, as there was no one particular place that was particularly sentimental for her, but thought she'd appreciate somewhere quiet and pretty.

It's not really how it looks on TV though is it, the graceful scattering of a handful of ash to the wind... We had to laugh, in the end it was more like one of us keeping watch while the other rather unceremoniously dumped it out in stages, trying not to get caught for littering by hikers & dog walkers 😅

We like to think she'd have laughed rather than been offended by the slightly undignified experience!

dint and llello

I know exactly what you mean Lellochip
I scattered my cousins ashes with DP not that long ago at a particular spot (his request)
It was on a riverbank under a bridge where his family used to moor their boat
It was a wet and windy day, the bank was steep and muddy - we had to cling onto each other and alternately scatter as otherwise we might have ended up in said river
One of my close friends whose late husband was Ernest put his ashes in a planter by her black door
Ern is in the Urn, and usually has something very colourful growing from the enriched soil

Forgot to mention - just to improve my day
I came away from churchyard yesterday after interment to find someone had left a scrape down the side of my car
Today went out for a work related Xmas lunch - returned to car to find someone had scraped my rear bumper!!! 2 in less than 24 hours - neither are worth claiming on insurance but despite being over 5 years old there wasn’t a mark on it before
Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Dcat for anyone who needs one lol

Thanks for the support folks- it helps.
A cockroach how fab!!!!
jace so sorry about your car- and thank you for the cat. Much appreciated.

Loving the cat - here's one for the dog lovers

I love both.

for those of you attending funerals this week.

Had full blown meltdown at work. Managed to get drs appointment and upped my meds.