HUGS
Mezz. Yes, I remember when my wonderful mother-in-law died, my young (college age) niece was furious that people were laughing and enjoying each other's company when HER Grandmother had just died! She is a very black and white person and didn't realize you could be really sad and grieve, and still enjoy each other's company, and laugh at happy memories, and be happy to be together as a family.
I'm very happy my son is coming up to stay with us, if only for a few days. I don't know if my brother has even been to my house (in ~30 years) and he is a very fussy person and I'm sure he'll look around in disgust at the clutter and the dust. Oh well! That's why we're putting him up in a motel!
We've been tidying but I have piles of stuff related to retirement, and piles of tax papers and, well, piles of stuff in our 'office'. I don't want to hide stuff away willy nilly and then not know what I did with all these important papers!
It's very true, when people are dying, often they'd rather you weren't in the room - people wait until you have stepped out or gone home to slip away. I know that was true with my mother-in-law mentioned above. We visited her at the hospital (and she looked terrible), and after we went home, she passed away. Same with my grandfather - we saw him looking bad/sleeping in the hospital and then gone.
Maybe Dad was trying to make things easier for us somehow; that always seemed to be one of his goals.
Frustrating though that we're finally both retired and have nothing but time and didn't get to spend any of it with Dad.
I wish I could have gotten in touch with more relatives to let them know, but Dad was very old and even his younger relatives are in their 80s or have passed away, except for a few.
I think some of my husband's family will come and some of his cousins maybe. I think it will be very nice and whoever can make it there on a Monday (but a holiday here, Martin Luther King day), I will be very grateful.