My Mum died in her late 60`s but my Dad lived until he was 87. My youngest brother had married later in life and not long before Mum died. He and his wife had taken on quite a large mortgage to buy his wife`s family home. Her Mum passed away just before mine did.
Dad was like a lost soul living alone. He came to my house twice a week, to my sister`s house twice a week and to my youngest brother`s house twice a week, my oldest brother lived hundreds of miles away but kept in touch by phone. We did his washing, food shopping, paid his bills for him etc and made sure he was with one of us almost every evening. We were all working full time but we always found time to have him and look after him.
He decided to sell his house and move in with my youngest brother who`d asked him to consider it. They were struggling with their mortgage and by then their first child had come along. I asked Dad to think carefully, Mum had only been gone a year or so and even though he`d begun to go out during the day and join in several clubs and activities and make some friends, he still fretted for her.
Anyway he sold up, moved in with my brother but it was far from what he deserved. My brother and his wife worked several jobs between them, Dad was left very much alone, he was roped in to care for toddlers by then there were 2 of them, he was always cold because they never put the heating on whilst they were out, my SIL was taking a big chunk of his pension off him, he even used to buy his own favourite foods because SIL wouldn`t buy anything but the cheapest and even though he never said anything to me and my sister, we both could tell he wasn`t really happy during the 15 years he lived with my brother but he was too proud to admit he`d made a mistake.
When he fell ill with cancer it was me and sis who took him to appointments and collected him to bring him to our houses. My sister begged him to move in with her, she had more room than I had and her kids had already left home but he wouldn`t move, stubborn as a mule. The money from his house had gone and we knew where, he had just a single wardrobe with a few clothes, his own TV, his recliner chair and that was it and he had about £3000 in a carrier bag in his wardrobe which he`d squirrelled away to pay for his funeral.
The last week of his life, myself and sis never left his bedside and when he finally passed away my sister took my SIL to task, she`d never do it whilst Dad was alive because he was a peacekeeper and she knew it would upset him. My brother later suffered with a guilty conscience and so he should have. He had depression, fits of temper and his marriage hit a sticky patch. My SIL began drinking heavily and she was even found unconscious on a bus station somewhere plus she was stopped for drink driving. My brother and his wife imploded but somehow I think karma had a hand in it and sometimes people reap what they sow.