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Thanks for the good wishes. We managed to pack up her apartment in one day and gave everything that we didn’t ship home to my husband’s sister and nieces, or to the Salvation Army. It was an ordeal, but we got it done and got home at midnight last night.

Now, there is the matter of the obituary! I’ve already written it, but I couldn’t get the picture to attach (from the “road”) so I have to rework it and resubmit it today. Talk about EXPENSIVE! This is just a modest sized obit (500 words), and the local newspaper wants $2000 to run it! No wonder my uncle refused to have one written and published about him! He also refused a funeral.

We opted for cremation for many reasons. They charged $1400. She already owned her burial plot, and the cemetery demanded another $1400 to inter the cremains when they are ready.

I’m planning to write and publish a memorial booklet to send to the family and her remaining friends. But, I can’t believe that a simple cremation with no service and burial in a plot she already owns would amount to $5000, plus my expenses for printing and mailing the book. She’d “roll over in her grave” if she knew.

The biggesr shock is the cost of the obituary. She supplied that newspaper with numerous young journalists over the years who won awards for them. They should run it for free, or at a steep discount! Now I know why you see so many people standing in the street waving placards asking for donations for “funeral expenses” every time I visit her town.

And her taxes? I wrote a check from her trust for more than $20,000 for state and federal taxes while I was there. All because this year her estate had pretty much recovered all the money it had lost in the stock market since Obama was elected (2009). This despite massive medical deductions.

I thank God that she managed her money well, otherwise I’d be standing in the street with a placard begging for money!

I think that I’ll try to contact the newspaper directly to ask about the obit today, just to check whether the funeral society is trying to rip me off on the price.