The Sober Widow

Chapter 17

I’m going to take a break from all this alcohol talk, but I’ll be back to it at some point. There’s just too much to say about it, and since I stopped drinking, it seems I see it everywhere. But now’s not the time.

When your spouse dies, there’s a LOT to do. A lot. And while I am a lawyer, I don’t want to offer advice, nor am I qualified to any longer (status – “retired”), so please don’t take this as anything but information.

In my case, I was glad that we had joint ownership of everything important: bank accounts, mortgage, deed to the house. Therefore, I didn’t probate his will, because he left everything to me anyway. The things he wanted individual people to have, I gave to them, to the extent he wrote it down or he made it known to me. I also gave away things I thought people would want to have in memory of him.

(Sidebar – at his favorite place, the Tides in Nahant, he was known as “Tony Shirts.” This is because he had quite a large collection of Roosevelt short-sleeved shirts with colorful designs and themes, and took great pride in wearing a different one each time he went there for lunch. Which was at least twice a week. For his memorial service, the Tides sent a beautiful floral arrangement. When I thanked them, I suggested they might like to have a shirt to frame and display, and they jumped on that opportunity and took two. So if you go to the Tides, look for his shirts in the bar area and in the short hallway between the front and back dining areas. I was so happy they wanted to do that, and I think he would be really tickled.)

OK, we’ve covered that I had easy access to the important stuff. Now let’s deal with all the other things, AND let’s do this from a hospital bed! I am so grateful to the hospital staff at both Salem and MGH for letting me use their printer and fax on the occasions it was necessary. I also engaged an attorney I know to help me redraft my own will in case things went south with the surgery, and he was so wonderful about doing all this by email and phone calls. My dear friend Carlene came up from Hingham to facilitate the hard copy, which I obviously had to sign in front of witnesses at the hospital.

All of this is why my brother fondly dubbed me the “CEO of Death.” I thought about making a business out of it when I was finally home; you know, doing this for other people who are shellshocked from a loss like this. Making a thousand calls and emailing organizations, logging into various websites and all from the hospital, are one thing. Doing it while you are grieving your “person,” and being extremely sick and not in your right mind, are something else entirely.

While we had joint credit card accounts, he had his own cards, and I had mine. Luckily, he had written down all his passwords and I had access to that, so I was able to log in as him and change things over to me and cancel the cards in his name. Things you don’t really think too hard about, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, credit cards, Sirius XM radio, his own health insurance card, subscriptions to things like his shaving creams/supplies, U.S. Mint silver coins – there was just so much. I’m also relieved that a lot of places would allow me to send a copy of the death certificate via email as opposed to a hard copy in the mail. And of course, I had to interact with his employer to arrange for final paychecks/life insurance/pension/401(k) etc. to be paid or accessible to me. Other things popped up from time to time, and as of this writing (almost two years later), I only just recently contacted the electric company to have his name taken off of the account.

I am still dealing with taking his name off the mortgage and deed. I didn’t really do this on a timely basis, not thinking it was that critical, but then the 2024 tax statement came in and I realized that it would require another tax filing under his SSN. Since I don’t want that to happen again next year, I have to address it now (ha ha, no pun intended).

Now let me tell you about the car. Oh my, was this long and difficult. He had an Infinity, which I drive now. I sold my Honda to my brother, who needed a car. Both cars were registered in Tony’s name. I can’t remember why, but there was a reason. Anyway, when his Infinity lease was up in 2020, he had already negotiated a purchase price and an interest rate to continue the loan. There were still two years left on the loan when he passed, and although I intended to keep it, I had to do something to register it in my name as the registration was going to expire on November 30, 2023. In early October (again, from the hospital), I contacted my insurance agent, who referred me to the lienholder – PNC Bank. I’m telling you this so you can stay away from PNC Bank. In order to register the car in my name, I had to have both the loan and the title of the car in my name. You start with the loan. So I called and got to a person who told me what to do. I did that within about three days, and waited a week to hear back. Didn’t hear anything, so I called again and got to another person, who said “oh, I’m sorry, that information is incorrect.” I did what the second person told me to do. Didn’t hear back. Third time’s the charm, right? Wrong. I found out that the prior two people were both incorrect, and in order for this to happen, I would have to apply for my own loan, with a higher interest rate.

Now it’s dangerously close to November 30, so I got the payoff amount, decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle, and sent them a check. With the turnaround time to get the title, and with holidays approaching, this took a while, and the Infinity had to be off the road. Finally, once the title arrived, my brother could take it to the insurance agent to have the car retitled in my name, and the registration reissued. This took about a month, and then finally the car was mine. If you get a chance to work with Wood & Associates in Lynn, do so. They are terrific.

I’m still dealing with a few minor things, like his MS Outlook account. Because you rarely have to sign in to get your emails once you sync them to your phone, this was a non-issue for a while. Then, one day in late 2024, I was prompted to do so when I used his phone (I still have it; I shut off the number but there’s a ton of stuff like photos and music that I don’t want to lose), I couldn’t get in. The only reason this is important is because our mortgage company has him as the main title holder, which I think I’ve mentioned. They have my email address on file, but they send him stuff first. So that’s when I knew I needed to take action.

If anyone knows how to access someone’s account when you don’t know the password, let me know. Because while Microsoft has a password recovery, they will text his phone the code to get in, and I shut off the cell service. They ask you for the last few emails he sent, but somehow the access was limited to the January before he died. That’s four months of emails I can’t get, so I don’t know what the last three were. It’s probably a moot point now, but I wish I could access them to see if I missed anything else.

One last thing: I’ll never forget how nice, for the most part, all the service folks were when I told them while I was calling. Without fail, all but one expressed sympathy and showed a real desire to help me in any way they could. But. This one guy at Barclays, which was a credit card that Tony used pretty much exclusively because they offered travel points and discounts. Which we couldn’t use anyway once Covid hit the world! Anyway, when I called and mentioned that he had died, the guy just went, “uh huh.” Nothing, no “hey, I’m so sorry, what can I do,” – nothing. I could not cancel that account fast enough, that’s for sure. I’m only mentioning it because it was just so insensitive, and since he was the only one, I’m glad that the world is still nice (but who knows what’s in store, amiright?).

As I said, things still pop up from time to time, but I do believe I have just about everything covered. I hope this doesn’t happen to you anytime soon! But if it does, call me. I just may hire myself out!