Gone

Eeeek! It's been too long. The last week has been really crap. The Galumph's step-grandfather passed away in the UK, all alone in his house, and it was a few days before he was found. Such a sad and lonely death. My heart goes out to him.

The Galumph, his sister, and their father are the only family this man had left, and even then it was only by marriage (he's Galumph's father's step-dad), so the task fell to me to write his obituary. How do you write about somebody you've never even seen a photo of, let alone met? I hope I did him justice. Ever since his wife passed away a few years ago, it has been his wish to die so he can be with her, so at least it's some comfort knowing that it finally happened. God preserve me from such a lonely end.

As you can imagine, there's been a lot to organise. Circumstances being as they are, there's going to be a coroner's report done, so Galumph's dad has flown over to the UK to deal with that. We have no idea when the actual funeral will be, because apparently in the town he's in, there's a bit of a backlog of cremations. Who knew? Gah, it's all such a ghastly mess. I've spent the last few days trying to locate real estate agents, auction houses etc in his town, as everything will need to be sold and packed up. His whole life, neatly folded away by strangers. It'll be like he was never there. The thought breaks my heart.

I was intending to do some blog wittering, but it doesn't really feel right anymore. Too light-hearted for a post like this. Maybe tomorrow. I'm off to cuddle my Grumbles now.