Help R.J. get Ron though the crisis and loss of Jacquie

My name is Ronald J. Kyle, son of Ronald L. Kyle and Jacquelyn M. Kyle. You might know me as R.J., which is what my parents call me, and many of my friends might know me as Reggie.

My Mom, Jacquelyn Marie Kyle, passed away on Feb. 28th, 2025. It was unexpected, although she had just recently been hospitalized and then moved to a local rehabilitation facility.

For the weeks she was in the hospital, then at the rehab facility, I have been staying with my Dad at the house. He would forget where she was and begin to panic if I weren't here to remind him or if I did not leave a detailed note. My Dad has dementia in the form of memory problems brought on by a combination of depression and a condition he had surgery for many years ago. I have been attempting to handle their finances and caring for them for about 2 years now. I have not really been able to have a proper job during this time; if anyone has ever been a caregiver, I'm certain you know what I mean.

While at the rehab facility, my Mom suddenly slumped over and stopped breathing. They were able to get her breathing again and sent her to City Hospital. I immediately left work, and my partner Tracy met me at my Dad's house. We told him the emergency and left to get there as fast as we could.

Sadly, they had already called me and told me that her heart had stopped, and they were unable to restart it. When we arrived, the doctor sat the three of us down and told us how he had tried everything he could, but in the end, there was nothing to be done.

We three went to see her and stayed with her for a while, then we went back home. My Dad and I were up all night and finally fell asleep. When we woke up, the thing that I had been dreading happened; he did not remember that she had died.

I was at first unsure how to handle this; do I remind him only to have him forget again and make him relive it every time over and over? Do I lie to him and say she's at the hospital? Do I just refuse to answer?

In the days since she died, I have found that if given enough time, my Dad will eventually remember for himself. When he does this, it is as if he has already gone through what he did before forgetting, and he handles it better. I have also found he only forgets it happened when he sleeps. Whether for 10 minutes or all night, when he wakes, he will not have remembered.

If I, or something else, reminds him about it, he DOES experience everything as fresh as though he just found out the news. I have done this once the first time he forgot and once by accident since then. The problem is that before he remembers, he sees my mom is not here and will not stop asking me until I tell him something. He is not accepting of vague statements, and if I don't answer or say I don't know, he breaks down and starts assuming the worst possible things he can think of and begins to spiral.

This has made it almost impossible for me to even do what needs to be done concerning the planning of my mom's funeral, much less figure out anything beyond that. Even this GoFundMe I had hoped to set up days ago.

This is for our relatives, my parents' friends, and my friends who have known my parents. My parents have a great many people they consider friends, some whom I have met and know well, others whose names are known to me but I may or may not have met, and many who I do not even recognize the names of.

As for my friends, many of you know my parents quite well, and more than a few of you have told me you consider them family and even like a second parent to you. I have many times heard from you stories of how they had helped you out or were there for you with advice or support, and I had been completely unaware of it until I was told about it.

That's how my parents have always operated—doing whatever they could to help others without any need or desire for any reward or recognition or anything other than that they were able to help, and so they did. The very definition of what is meant by "do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing."

Whether they were doing quite well or they were in dire straits and selling the silverware in danger of losing their house, never would they ever dream of letting on to anybody that anything was wrong, and they certainly would never ask anybody for help. I am certain many of you even interacted with them daily during these periods and had no idea. They were at one point days from being forced to lose their house and were still donating and volunteering.

My dad has no idea I am setting up this GoFundMe, and my Mom would not have wanted me to be telling the world that everything was anything but hunky-dory, but if there is one thing my parents were NOT good at, it would be asking for help or accepting it from others without insisting on paying it back.

In my mom's things, I've even found a gift for someone with $10 in it, a piece of jewelry, and a note thanking the person it is for for having covered the $10 donation she had been unable to find at the moment. I remember this, and the person had told my mother not to worry about it, it was only $10 and no big deal, but she did worry about it so much that she was intending on giving an additional gift as thanks for loaning her the $10. I plan on delivering the gift for her, but I mention it here to illustrate how she was.

I am my parents' son in that way a bit, I suppose; I would not be making this GoFundMe if the situation were not as dire as it is. Without getting too far into it, the problems my dad has with memory made him unable to do the freelance work he had been doing, leaving him with only his and my mother's Social Security benefits as income. It is also why I had to take over their finances for them, but I do not have a lot of money, and I have not been able to properly work due to all this for a while now.

There is a life insurance policy, but it is only on my dad because, as I have come to find out, he had planned to get one for my mom after a year or two, but his memory problem started, and it was forgotten about.

Their combined incomes were just barely enough to cover the expenses, but we are now at the point where the mortgage payments had been missed, and it is now in default, with the bank asking for the entire $250,000 that the loan was for. The house itself has gone up almost $200,000 since that time, but that doesn't matter since essentially banks do not care and are unwilling to do anything to help as they would rather take the house. The gas bill apparently stopped auto pay because they changed to Empower, and I only just found out about this with a shut-off notice because when I wasn't here, my dad would apparently get the mail and instead of putting it in the box for me where he was supposed to, he would open it and take it somewhere and forget about it.

Now the costs of my mom's funeral are added, and I do not know if I can see a way forward. I need to talk to a lawyer about this, but I have not been able to due to dealing with my dad and attempting to get everything set up for the funeral. I fail to understand how the house can be worth almost twice what is owed on it, yet no other solution seems available other than to liquidate it and force my dad to move into some unfamiliar place that is so expensive the amount of money from liquidating the house would quickly be gone.

It just makes me mad at the world knowing how much my parents always gave out without a second thought or any thought of getting anything for it, and now my mom is gone and everything that my Dad (and I) have left of her is about to be mercilessly ripped away.