Just a quick update for anyone following this thread. We did indeed drive down, taking three days to do it in the new car, going from Massachusetts to Florida. An interesting experience, if tedious journey. Driving through the outskirts of DC at night in the rain is not for the faint of heart, especially when you don't know the roads. What a horror show.
We stayed in a newly opened TownPlace Suites in Boynton Beach, FL. Have to say, some of the best all-around accommodations we've stayed in for long-term visits. Got a king suite, with a separate living room. Highly recommended. Clean, spacious, quiet and you can cook in the room.
Anyway, we have been at my mother-in-law's condo every day for at least six hours. She is frail, but eating. Her dementia has increased and ranges from stone silence to violent rages against everything, from weeping and sobbing to talks of suicide. Then there is the fear. She is afraid of everything it seems. The short-term memory is rapidly diminishing. There have been some occasional moments when she is somewhat rationale and understands what we're saying, but those moments are few and far between. Yesterday she was raging against Mexicans for some reason (an no, she's not a Trump supporter). I went in to her room and calmed her, getting her to focus on something else, at which point she calmly announced that she'd probably die in "four or five hours". Each day is like this.
To fill the time, my wife and I have set out to go through my late father-in-law's closet, a small walk-in unit where he not only kept his clothes, but decades of slides, photos, brochures, maps, political memorabilia, newspaper articles, old magazines, cards, letters, cameras, video tapes, cassette tapes, etc. We boxed up all his clothing to give to charity, then started going through the papers. Oh what a task! My late father-in-law was a meticulous hoarder of things, many of which were labeled, but most of which were just stuffed together in every nook and cranny of the closet. I kid you not, I filled 1/3 of a dumpster with box after box of old VHS cassettes. There were hundreds of them that he had recorded. We saved the family ones, but threw away the rest. Same with the cassette tapes.
There was gold in this exploration, some laughs and some heartbreak. Yesterday I started digging into the drawers of the closet, again stuffed with all kinds of folders and found a large one wrapped with a cord. The folder contained all the materials relating to my wife's late sister's tragic accident which ultimately led to her death. She had been horribly burned in a massive propane explosion at a construction site when she was just 18. In the folder were her charred personal effects, including her notebook and wallet, some very graphic photos showing the burns, letters to the lawyers, newspaper accounts and such. My poor wife. Oh how she sobbed upon seeing these things. She felt compelled to go through it, because her father had never showed her these things or even told her that they existed.
On a lighter note, we found cassette tapes of family gatherings and video tapes of events that will have meaning for us. And, we have an old VCR that still works and an old 8 mm video tape camera for the smaller tapes so we can play these one day.
My sister-in-law is finding it too painful to go through her dad's things, let alone go into his old closet. It was his version of a "man cave". He'd retire there and type out letters to friends and relatives (saving a copy of each one!) for hours on end. So to clean out the space is like slowly erasing a part of him from our lives. It's a weird exercise, but fulfilling in its own right. It feels somehow good to be doing this, moving on and preparing for when my mother-in-law passes. I'm sure she doesn't have long, but who knows. The poor woman has no quality of life and she wants to die. We're just hoping nature takes its course sooner than later so she can be at peace.
Time to head over for one more day of sorting through the closet, separating the "must save" from the "must toss" things. The journey continues for one more day, before we start to make our way back home. I think we'll take more time on the way back and get some much needed R&R time just for us. We have a week's worth of clothing with us, so may as well take advantage of the fact that we have our own car and can go anywhere we want.
