Thanks all for your kind thoughts.

I wcho Maire- in saying losing some who has had dementia is a release and not a tragedy.

Yes, my brother had moved back in and taken care of both parents (Dad died 3 - 4 years ago).

We have 2 remaining sisters; one an obsessive driven physician, one a near hopeless lush whom we had to work around the entire 2 weeks.

Yes we are all hardheaded and stubborn. My mother has one surviving sister who is hale and hardy and kicks ass at age 88.

My brother is negotiating to keep the house so there is no immediate rush to get everything out; we all just think he needs to get stuff out of there and make it his own house and not be constantly reminded of our mother.

It was quite a scene. In addition to the one sister, whose car most of us agreed to disable if she tried to drive home (her husband refuses to do that from the other end), my brothers bulldog going into heat and having to be separated from her son (of course my brother kept a male puppy from her one litter), his 20 year old daughter riding in a car whose driver hit a cop directing traffic and there turned out to be pot paraphenalia in the car so the kids all got busted, his 18 year old daughter, we found out, had been busted for drunk and disorderly, and instead of sticking around decided to take her Dad's borrowed car on a 6 hour jaunt whereupon the overused engine blew up on the freewat halfway home,

well I'm venting. Therre is a reason I live some distance away for a reason.

My brother's two sons are angels. So is the lush's son. Go figure.