When we visited the Rehab Center, they gave us a key to his car, which we understood was parked at Ft. Belvoir, in front of the Guest Housing center. We had been told it was parked in a Handicapped Parking space. We found our way there, wondering what we might find.
We saw the car immediately parked in the handicapped space. It had a Texas license plate. It was a shiny, practically new car, which was the last thing we expected. A Ford Taurus with 4000 miles.
I immediately tried the key in the ignition. Not a sound came out of it. It had been parked there for at least four months, so that was not surprising. Since we brought jumper cables, we tried to pop the hood, but could not find the lever that you push in order to lift it up.
I went inside to talk to the people at the guest house desk. They knew we were coming. The man who was the manager said that he had many boxes of Ron's things in storage. That was a shock. There were four of us and our suitcases in Brenda's car. No room for boxes. Ron's car appeared to be equally packed. The trunk was full, too.
All four of us were rummaging through different parts of the car, from the items in the trunk, to the items in the glove box, to the large duffel bag in the back. At first, it seemed from the documents in the glove box that perhaps the car was a rental. How in the world would we deal with that?
By now, I had rolled out a large cart on wheels filled with boxes of belongings. I immediately noticed that the hood was now open, and the man from inside the building, the manager, was helping the girls put on the jumper cables. I asked them how they had managed to get the hood open. Brenda had Googled it, and up popped a demonstration from U-Tube. I laughed!
I think it was Michelle and I who went through the boxes. I remember that because there were a couple of things she wanted to save and see if her husband could use them. They were mostly personal items, socks, trousers, books, peanut butter, silverware, and that kind of thing, which we had no choice but to discard.
Meanwhile, Priscilla was going through the file folders with financial information. I saw on her face that she almost fainted at what she saw. There was a financial account worth quite a bit of money, certainly far more than she had ever seen in her financial life. I could literally see the hope that bubbled up inside her. That kind of money would make a really tremendous difference in her life! The question was: Was there a will? Were beneficiaries designated? Who might those have been?
The car started and the battery charged. We thanked the kind gentleman who had helped with that. Now, we are anxious to depart and get back to the hotel to have a good look at the items in the files.
Priscilla drove that car, and clearly the brakes sticky from that amount of time sitting. Two of us were in one car, two in the other, and we stayed together until we got back to the hotel.
Suddenly, things have changed. Originally, this was about viewing the body, making arrangements for cremation, having a memorial service.
Now, it is clearly going to be about legal matters, legal fees, probate court, paperwork, uncertainty. Anything at all could happen.
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