Throughout this process of my mother's death, both before and after, my inability to ask for help stands: the currently most-frequently asked question of me, "is there anything I can do to help?" is, on the surface – and, probably, to most normal human beings with a functional brain –, an honest, earnest effort on the part of those who genuinely do wish to do something amidst a situation in which no one knows how or what to do.

But, by asking me if there's anything they can do to help – and, in spite of best intentions –, they're adding a task to my already not-insignificant task list. Indeed, in cooking, it's far easier for me to do everything myself than to parse out my process into pieces that someone else could do, no matter how much the help may help; I'm so used to shouldering everything myself that I am woefully unequipped to ask anyone for anything let alone find something in the miasmatic GTD process of admistrative death following corporeal death to delegate.

To wit: It took a near breakdown during the process of my uncle's death by glioblastoma to be willing to have it be my idea to go to a therapist; it took me holding a knife to my wrist to decide that medication was probably a good idea last summer; and, in the last week, it took four tries before I was willing to send a text to ask a cousin to check in on my grandfather the day after we learned that his daughter was going to die and I never did send a text asking a friend and/or an aunt if they had a guide, or "literature" about what to do after someone dies...the list can go on and on.

And it probably will.