How my dad looked like on his death bed. My dad spent a majority of his life keeping away from the family after the divorce. I hadn't seen him since I was a child. One of his caretakers took a picture of him asleep the day before his death and sent it to me. I don't think they sent it out of kindness, I never asked for a photo and it was obvious that he never asked either. They didn't send me anything else, no words of consolation, just a photo of him hospitalized. We'd never spoken before, but my bro gave them my number.

They then asked my family for money for his funeral (which he didn't want, according to my late uncle) and also for taking care of him. My family wasn't obligated to send money, but did anyway - a couple grand. They also asked 6 months later, when it all should've been done with, for some funeral ceremony that they didn't need to do for my dad. Sounded like BS.

I never showed my mom the photo of my dad. I still feel like she should never lay eyes on it. She is a very anxious person and not the best at handling stress. I never told her they asked for money again either. My brother knows and also agreed to ignore them. It's not like we had any other ties with them anyway.

I have a feeling that my dad kept away from the family to avoid scenarios like this - anything that had to do with him was his own business, not ours. He was a private guy and hardly told me anything besides that he was "doing fine." The photo, the funeral, and the money business over him was something that he must have wanted to keep us out of and those caretakers went against that.