It’s actually been two months.  I just got off the phone with your daughter.  She is mad.  Mad that she has to deal with your shit.  We are all dealing with your shit.  Remember that ring that I bought for you?  Paid nearly $1,500 for it?  Found out it’s only worth about $57.  You probably knew that and as a result, never tried to pawn it.  

We inventoried your belongings and valued your truck, your motorcycle and your gun collection. (minus the Glock you used, of course as it is still considered evidence.) Your entire estate is worth about $25,000.  That’s all you left us. Crap worth $25,000.  And now we have to figure out how to liquidate it as your daughter clearly could use this to take care of herself and the grandson you will never get to know. She has generously offered to split this with me and she didn’t have to.  I think I will create a spreadsheet (to keep it straightforward and non-emotional) of money you owed me and ask for that.  I’ll include the medical costs I paid out of pocket for you, the trip expenses to Los Angeles for one of your crazy get rich ideas, car repair, and the storage locker rent.  And I’ll add the cost of the crime scene company who had to come into my garage and wipe the remnants of your brains off the floor.  Yes…I need to be reimbursed for that.

Your daughter is learning more about you too. Her mother is finally sharing stories of your time together.  She had a great conversation with your friend, Don, too.  Seems that Don never had any clue that you were a manipulative liar.  He truly loved you and is devastated that you didn’t go to him for help.  He shared with your daughter some of the things you said about me. I can’t believe what I heard.  No wonder you never wanted the two of us to get together.  You thought Don would find out that the Kim you described, never really existed.  And then he’d know you were a liar.  

Scott, he knows now.  Your daughter told him that you were a chronic liar and cheater with her mother, with Deb, with Mary, and with me.  Got him to understand that there was no way four women would fabricate the same stories.  None of us had ever really met each other. As I used to say, the common denominator always was YOU. 

This reminds me of all the crazy stories you told about your ex wives.  Stories of cheating with your brother, stalking, physical abuse…crazy stories that sounded incredibly outlandish when you were talking to me that I KNEW were lies.  Yet when I questioned you, you got angry and defensive. I honestly think that you BELIEVED these lies and that the more you told them, the more they became your truth.

Sometimes you lied to other people as you told stories of things you and I had experienced together. I would listen to you exaggerate or embellish a description and wonder if you were even aware that what you were describing never happened anywhere but in your head. If I questioned you later on your story, you gaslighted me, trying to make me believe that I had a bad memory.  There were MANY times when I replayed my own truth in my head over and over so I wouldn’t lose it.

Sometimes the stories you told were so over-the-top, I worried about how you were being perceived by your friends and I cringed when I heard you tell them.  You told your parents that you were a millionaire and were frustrated that they never acknowledged your successful business acumen. You told me this as well when I first met you, and then followed that up with a description of your “ranch” where you once had over 50 horses!  Imagine my surprise when I actually visited it and found a dilapidated old farm house sitting on a seven acre parcel with a rusty round pen and two horses.  The only nice thing on the farm was your shed…large enough to house several horses in the back and your horse trailer.

The truck was old.  The horse trailer was old.  The bobcat was old. Your furniture came from the local thrift store. The property was unkept, full of weeds and long grass.  You talked about mowing but rarely did it. I could see lot of promise, but you simply lacked the ambition and the resources to make any kind of substantial change.  

You told me it was worth half a million dollars and that when you chose to sell it, people would be falling over themselves to purchase it. Little did I know that you had actually stopped making house payments and after we left for Buffalo, it would be taken away from you.  Of course, you ignored all the mortgage notices, you ignored the sheriff sale and actually said that the sheriff was doing this to screw you.  It had nothing to do with the fact that you had simply stopped making payments.

And you told everyone that you were a successful small business owner.  The more I knew you, the more I saw how you had misrepresented your “company” and I believe once again, that in your mind, you were the President and CEO of a multi million dollar corporation. The truth was that you borrowed money to purchase gloves, masks, medicine, and bandages, and then filled first aid kits monthly at about a dozen small companies.  Then you kept your fingers crossed that the money you made from selling them would cover the loan. You made it sound like everyone LOVED when you came on your visits yet I noticed that the clerks rarely noticed you. And I really did feel sorry for your distorted perception.

I wonder if you see this now.  I wonder if death gives you clarity. I wonder so much about you and your experience being dead.  I wonder if you have wisdom you didn’t have when you were alive and I wonder if you are able to look back at your past actions and feel a sense of regret.  I wonder if you would change anything about your behavior. I wonder if you would admit and own your narcissism. 

And then I think about what being dead did to you. You used to believe that the soul lives on in animals and there is a part of me that sees you in nearly every bird, in animals, in shadows, even in Toby.  I often look out the windows and see that stupid cardinal and I can’t help but wonder if it’s you.

I dream about you constantly, too.  Several weeks ago, I dreamt that you suddenly walked in the door and demanded that I call your daughter to tell her that you weren’t dead and that you had just been playing a game to see what we would do.  I forced myself to wake up.

The horrible thing is that I’m not sure which was worse: The nightmare that you weren’t really dead, or the reality that you actually are.