Bug Soup

A Broth of Rambling Thoughts ( with some morsels of 'silly' thrown in for flavor)

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Uncle Stuart Passed - Mom came Home

I am sad to report that my Uncle Stuart passed away last Sunday.
He was in the care of my cousin and her husband when he passed during a nap.

I was lucky to be able to talk to him the Friday before he passed.
We loved him very much , and he is already missed.

He originally wanted to be buried in a cemetary plot that my mother owned , next to my father in California. It needed to be transferred into his name, and that was to be my job.
Seemed simple enough , send the title and a letter of our ( my siblings and I) intent to give the plot to Stuart , and a copy of her Death certificate to Forest Lawn with a check for the cost of the transfer ( $100) , and they would send each of us kids a form to sign and have notorized then they'd put it in his name.
Shouldn't have been a problem , time was a factor but it could be done quickly, hopefully before he passed.
Well, there was a problem, seemed getting my mother's death certificate was a huge problem.
It's been a year and a half since she passed, but I'd never had a need for the cert before. Usually these things are handled by funeral homes, but my mother had donated her body to a university .
I started by contacting Hood County, where she died. They didn't have it, so I sent the request form to Tarrant County, where she was moved. They called me and had no record of her death , so I contacted the donation center for the university. They showed the certificate had been issued in Hood County where she died.
I went personnaly into the Vital Stats office and talked to a very pleasant woman , who told me they didn't have any record of it, and that she must not have died in Hood County.
Yes, she did, I was there.
So run around from her, while I stood there and literally cried that it wasn't a matter of wanting the cert, I needed it, my uncle was dying, and I had to get this done. She offered to contact the state office, but for some reason there was never anyone in that office, for days. I contacted the state office, but all they could tell me was that I could send a request , and in 10 days ( if I wanted to pay extra) or 4 weeks, I'd have the information.
After a week of dealing with the clerk, calling her several times a day, and stopping in her office a few times, the cert was located. In her office. She had inadvertantly filed it under my mother's maiden name.
Too late, much too late.
She'd found it 3 days after my Uncle Stuart had passed.
A week after he made other arangements, I finally got it.


My Mother's ashes were delivered by mail yesterday . They are sitting on the table in the front hall.
The box is heavy.