>>I am so sorry about the loss of your Mother and how things are being dealt with there . What do you want to do in regards to a memorial service for her? Not what your father wants but you?

heatherm thank you for your post (thanks to everyone responding!)

Sadly, I do not have an overwhelming amount of grief surrounding the death of my mom. Because of my relationship with my dad I have been very estranged from her as well. I saw them both occasionally (maybe once or twice a year when they needed a ride somewhere or something) but because of the nature of my illness I am sort of "programmed" not to respond to them emotionally. That kind of carried over when she died.

Even so I know that I have some issues with "closure" but right now they are not pressing. I have it in my heart that if and when I am in a better place with regard to my depression and the anxiety, I will hopefully think of some way to provide this closure. Right now I really have no idea. Best of all worlds would be to do something on my own with my friends, although what to do is currently hard to imagine. If my dad and her surviving relatives want to do something with the ashes I don't think that I need to include them in whatever I do for myself. My dad will have a better idea of what she would want with her actual remains anyway.

The "surviving relatives" involved are all very distant and also estranged from me. The only ones I had some regular (supportive) contact with became very judgmental (understandably) with the way my mother's illness and death were handled, and that carried over to me so now they cause me as much stress as he does. Although they are the ones who know the most about our "story" they have still been pressuring me to do something to help him.

>>How old is he? Do you have any other siblings?

My dad is currently 86 years old. I am 41, and have been dealing with ulcerative colitis since I was 17. At first it was diagnosed improperly and I was near death before being treated correctly (at age 17 I weighed 55 pounds, the colitis did was not revealed in X-rays so they thought I had an eating disorder). I have no siblings. I've never been sad about being an only child but now that I am alone and dealing with so much additional crap so suddenly, it is now a constant source of pain that I have no one in my life to help me through this, neither friends nor family, to help with either with practical details (help me with my bills, a place to live if I need it, etc.) or with just emotional support.