Well my friends, after far too many months of stress and financial wrangling, I'm happy to say that yesterday we closed on the sale of my late grandfather's house.
It's not only a financial windfall that (partly, at least) offsets the losses of my dad's extended unemployment and health problems, but it finally lets us get some emotional resolution about my grandfather's death, and about the shoddy and shameful treatment his second wife gave us. I found myself feeling about ten pounds lighter today, actually whistling singing as I was grocery shopping..."Sarge" was something of a whistler, I remember him whistling little tunes when he would take my brother and I for after-dinner walks around the neighborhood when we were boys.
(When I was born, my grandfather decided he didn't want anyone calling him "Grandpa" or anything like that, so he picked out a nickname. Why in the world a WWII Navy veteran picked "Sarge" is a mystery that will forever be closed to me. But William Hobbs will always be "Sarge" to me, and my grandmother Marion, "Grandma Sarge". Strange things, families.)