Short version of this, is that my Dad died earlier this year and it turns out his estate is a mess and he has, in fact, left his wife (not my M) homeless. (It is a different country so inheritance arrangements are wildly different). Not only that, he failed to have any conversation with me about what I needed to do to sort out his affairs in the UK. And as his only child, I am now lumbered with some increasingly convoluted legal processes across two continents for a woman I barely know but can't leave her without a roof over her head in her 70s. Dad had Parkinson's and has had plenty of time to speak to me and get it sorted.
M - ongoing issues with very complex conditions including dementia, personality disorder and ongoing mental health issues. Has also, in this case deliberately, left her affairs in an absolute mess. This time out of spite, even telling her neighbours and friends she was doing this. She is now in a nursing home and deeply unhappy about it. But what should be a simple handover to the authorities to sort seems to be an ongoing issue, caught up in all sorts of legal wranglings which I can't go into details about.
I honestly am so disappointed, stressed and fed up. Neither parent was great - often downright awful. But essentially both very selfish. I left them to it when I was 18, dipping in and out when I chose to. But now I can't seem to escape it as the whole "Next of Kin" thing has kicked in, despite never wanting to be it, and I have the horrendous luck of sorting out their messes... yet again.
Please tell me that this will eventually pass, if all I do is keep putting one foot in front of the other? Or share your stories of leaving it all the f**k alone so I can work out whether just walking away is really an option?