2022 Year in Review

Well, this year has been eventful, and not in the best of ways. Honestly not sure what happened first part of the year because second half kinda overtook it.

I guess will start with the worst news. It was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend and I get a call from my mom who sounded upset. My father has been in a nursing home for a while now in the final stages of Parkinson's so I thought it was going to be about him. Then she said my uncle (her brother) had a massive stroke. To say this was unexpected is putting it lightly. I was over mother's house on Sunday and he was there and seemed as fine as can be. In fact my mom was talking to him in the morning about running some errands and such and then 2 hours later got a call from paramedics that were on the scene and she was the emergency contact on phone. Doctors pretty much told us even if he did recover he wouldn't be the same person he was. He'd be bedridden, paralyzed on right side, and a host of other things. That night we had life support stopped.

It doesn't end there. Remember this was memorial day weekend. Both my brother and sister had plans and were either already away from home or about to leave. This left just Me, my mom, and a nephew. So every day I would pick up my mom, sometimes sleeping overnight at her place, to see my uncle. To say this was difficult is an understatement. My mom and uncle were really close and it was really hard on her. This is the first time I've ever had to deal with someone in a coma and off life support and someone who was really grieving. It was one of the most difficult few days of my life simply because I had no idea what to do. What do you tell someone who had someone pass away and among other things she was his healthcare power of attorney and thus was the one that made the decision to end life support? "Things are going to get better?" No, they're not going to get better, her brother just died without warning. About the only comfort I was able to provide was that she made the right decision because no one wants to be like he would even if he survived, which was highly unlikely. We did find a Living Will the day after life support was ended so we did do as he wished. While at the hospital nurses said the same thing. Also they said that some people will keep the person on life support for months not be able to let go. Which I fully understand it's not an easy decision to make. But at the same time it's just prolonging the pain for everyone. He passed away 4 or 5 days after life support was stopped. He was a Vietnam veteran and given a proper military funeral.

The next order of bad news came about a month after again I got a call from my mother upset. This time it was my father that passed away. I only say this wasn't as bad because we were more prepared for this. At this point both my brother and sister were back from vacation and so they helped with a lot of the planning for funeral and such as I lived about 45 minutes from all of them. He passed away in his sleep. Cause of death was Pneumonia caused by Covid-19. So anyone who still somehow thinks covid isn't real I have a death certificate to show you. Also a Vietnam veteran he was given a proper military funeral.

Some things I'd like to mention. With all these deaths it makes one want to make sure all their things are in order if they happen to just suddenly die. From my uncle I inherited one of his cars. In Ohio you can setup a TOD (transfer on death) on a car title. If you have one then you don't have to deal with probate, it's immediately the property of whoever is the TOD. Unfortunately this is not well known and while my uncle setup POD (payable on death) for most of his bank accounts he didn't setup anything on cars. This required the cars to go through probate court which took 5 months before the car was actually in my name. That whole time it was sitting in garage and I couldn't drive it as it wasn't in my name, or my mothers. So I urge you to check in your state if you can set up a TOD and to do so as it means one less thing to deal with after your gone.

Speaking of probate court, a Will makes probate court go much faster. Five months is considered "fast." I did not have a will and I wanted to change that. There is a site that is truly free to create a pretty decent will, freewill.com. All it does is asks you a couple times to leave part of your estate as a donation to some charities that make the service possible. It is entirely optional and you don't have to donate anything. The hardest part was getting the thing signed as there's a whole "ceremony" to it because you have to gather up everyone in the same room and sign the will as they witness who then have to sign the will as well. Also as a friendly reminder don't modify the will in any way like removing staples or anything as that makes it look suspicious in the eyes of the court.

Another thing to consider is to create a Living Will. This is just a specific type of advanced directive that says to end life support if you are in a vegetative state and deemed by 2 doctors to remain in such state even if you gain consciousness. Just search the internet for "[your state] living will" to find some form to fill out. This is actually a bit easier as it just has to be notarized which your bank will typically do for free. Even if you don't want to do what the living will lays out I urge you to get some sort of advanced directive as well as a healthcare power of attorney.

So, with all that you may think what else could happen? Well in November I was told the project I was on at work was being "sunset" (they didn't say that but find the term funny) and that includes my position. AKA I became part of a "business action". AKA I was laid off. Though the way they did it was admittedly pretty good. I was told that December 31st (yep, today) would be my last day at my current position. Assuming I didn't find a job there was an additional severance package. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to go in to details about the severance package as a condition of accepting it but it was fair. I was mainly still at the company because of the people I worked with. Any new position I took I wouldn't be working with any of previous team and thus I didn't really find a good match. Thus I will indeed be unemployed as the ball drops. Fortunately I have enough of a buffer with money and with the severance package where I'm still financially sound. I plan on taking a couple weeks to analyze what I want to pursue, if different from what I previously did, and then don't really expect any issue finding a job in current job market.

Oh I guess I usually have a spot in these where I talk about personal relationship stuff. Yeah, I didn't really do anything for reasons above. So that makes this subject nice and short.

So while 2022 had a lot of bad things happen I do have a new job to look forward to which can be exciting in it's own sorta way. So that's the main thing I'm looking forward to next year. Also hopefully next year won't be as much a downer.