So anyway, my last blog was a tad depressing, but at least the main reason for that was because of mostly stupid decisions I made, this will not be the case today.
Remember long ago blog readers when I wrote about my grandmother's passing and how divisive it ended up being for the family, well, i can say that my mother's passing had an almost reuniting effect, if because there is a shared dislike of my mother's husband. And it didn't take long for that to come forth during what will be called Funeral Week.
FW began last Monday, bright and early, if one could say that 2:20 am is bright (which it isn't) or early (which it is). It was at that point that I got the phone call from my mom's husband that she had passed away in her sleep. It was something that I have had ample opportunity to prepare for, she had had multiple strokes previously, each one stripping another piece of her away, to the point where she would see hallucinations and she couldn't remember how to perform the simplest of tasks. So when word was first received that she had had another one, my thoughts went to is this the final one? or what will be left of her? if she pulls through this one too.
The signs were there when i went to visit her, both in the hospital and at the nursing home she was moved into. She had a palsy now on the left side of her face, she was going to need therapy to be able to talk and swallow properly after this one, as well as the expected physical therapy that they would most expectedly do. In that regard I am glad she went into a nursing home, i know she would not have gotten that level of care and attention at home.
But her condition continued to deteriorate, she was put in the DNR list, so should she have another episode that was going to be it for her, plus she wasn't eating or responding to any therapy attempted. Finally last Sunday she was going into hospice care, having been through that with a number of other relatives, at that point you are just playing out the string until they die. Hospice care didn't last long, from Sunday afternoon until the 2:20 am phone call Monday morning.
I immediately texted my bosses, letting them know i would not be in Monday morning, made my way home where i got to my mom's house and waited. I had to pick out the outfit she would be buried in (my aunt Carrie helped with that, because my fashion sense goes as far as shorts and comic book t shirts) and a 2pm meeting at the funeral home to schedule how this was going to play out. My mom's husband tells us, they have a $10,000 life insurance policy to work with as far as arrangements go, which alleviated some of the burdens on my mind.
So we get to the funeral home, my aunt Carrie came with us, probably a good thing she did, otherwise i might have made a scene with what transpired. We go down into the basement of the funeral home where they have the planning office located and the funeral director starts talking and says I understand you have a life insurance policy you want to use to defray the costs of this, to which Mike says yes and hands over all of the policy information. Turns out he got the policy after her stroke and subsequent hospitalization, probably after she was put on DNR status. The director said he would talk to them, but chances are they would contest paying any claim, as well they should, the policy didn't become active until Sept 1st, my mom died on the 8th. Of course they are going to launch an investigation into what amounts to fraud. But his carelessness at best, criminal behavior at worst, doesn't solve the problem of burying my mom.
The funeral director looked at me and asked if i could help with the cost of the funeral, i said probably but needed to make a phone call first. I called Ed in Florida, who spotted me a $2000 loan on my future paychecks to help with the cost, which turns out I am on the hook for $3700 worth of the funeral, unless we just want to keep her alying around above ground indefnitely.. Anyone who may end up planning my future funeral, just strap a cement block to my ankle and toss me off a bridge into the river, it would be far cheaper and easier. The decision was made for one viewing, with the service immediately thereafter on Thursday. After the meeting Mike asked if i was going back to spend time with him, to which i said no, i have to be back in Pittsburgh to work in the morning. He asked if i got bereavement time off, I said I just asked my boss for $2000, I think he has done enough, I need to get back to work paying that off now.
Not that I couldn't cover subsequent payments, and/or paying off my boss, but a bunch of family members also kicked in, stating on their donations that their money was only to cover my half of the funeral, seems as none of them were all that pleased with the insurance scam bullshit either. Plus they did lots of other things that i didnt even think of, my aunts (Carrie, Mary and Amy) put together photo boards. I saw pictures of my mom as a little girl that i didn't even know existed. Mary also opened her home to everyone prior to the service, so the family had a nice little get together before everything. For my part, i guess I was there (where else would I be after all) and I made the decision on one viewing followed by the service at the funeral home. I didnt see the need on dragging this out over a few days.
The service and what not went off without a hitch, I kept my mouring to myself, but then I am always like that. few people get to see me cry, so if you are on that list consider yourself lucky, or at least close enough to me to witness something as rare as a yeti sighting.
Mike has since called me, he keeps thinking the insurance claim will pay out, I keep thinking it pays out if he ends up in jail for his stupidity. But he asked me when i was coming up to go through my mom's things to get what I wanted. On one hand I probably should, but I have a level of anger right now that a face to face between us is not a good thing. with my affinity for holding grudges, not sure that is going to subside any time soon. As long time readers of the blog well know, which would be none of you, most likely you stumbled upon this place all happenstance and stuff, I haven't spoken to my father since before i started blogging many, many moons ago.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
B365v4.15 - Summer of '17
Okay, when I last left the blog, some months ago, things were looking somewhat rosy for yours truly, I had just come back from seeing a concert in June that was epicly awesome, got back from my vacation in Vancouver, which may be my favorite place on Earth, though truthfully I haven't visited much of Earth, so there is that to consider as well. And, what is certainly unique to the blog, or at least readers of the blog, I was, dare I say it, in a relationship.
We can scrub the good news from your minds now kids, the beginning of the end happened right around July 26th, or one month into the relationship. Allow me to explain. My partner in crime in this endeavor was someone I knew for a while, as she used to be a coworker, was smitten with for like 3 years or so prior to our coupling, but she comes with baggage. I know this because of the reasons why she no longer works with us (drinking on duty) and other things that came up in passing conversations with us, legal issues and substance abuse issues. So I knew any path for us was going to have some obstacles, but being the bigger man, or deluding myself into thinking I was a bigger man, I assumed we could get through or past them. Piece of advice, any time you think you can fix somebody, don't, they need to fix themselves.
So I started giving her money, originally it was for what I believed were legal fees and doctor's appointments for her son, later I was to find out only some of that was true, it snowballed into me giving her money for drugs, in a stupid attempt to keep her from being dope sick around, especially around her kid. Sure there was talks of stopping, going into a detox and what not, but they were just words, with no meaning behind them, those steps were never taken, instead there was a litany of excuses as to why they couldn't happen this week.
Somehow we reached the one month plateau (July 26th), I am using one month here because things went from bad, and I could recount stories of that month but for brevity's sake I will not, to worse. On our one month anniversary, I asked if she could meet me in town around 4pm, little did she know I had plans for us, i had bought a dozen roses and a stuffed bear, and was looking forward to taking her to dinner and a movie. I suggested 4pm because it would allow us time to get from town to the Waterfront and catch a not too late showing of a movie she said she wanted to see. The clock keeps ticking closer to the time when I suggested we meet, she is still at home, she is waiting for someone to bring her money she is owed so she can set up another meetup to buy her daily supply again, I am thinking this night is going to get shot to hell, which was not what I wanted in the least. Finally I gave up and asked her what she needed, she said $50, which I said I had and then hopped a trolley to go catch up with her. I get out to her stop on the trolley line, and at least give her the flowers and bear and money she needs, but she still needs to see her guy at Station Square, I am looking at the time on my cell and cross checking transit schedules from points A B and C and realizing none of what I had planned is going to happen. We get into town way too late to make connections via PAT transit, and she hasn't even met her guy yet. We did make something out of nothing though, at least catching the free movie in Schenley Park, dinner ended up being snacks that we picked up along the way.
The movie ends, she is complaining about the quality of stuff she got, and suggests that I just let her go, she knows a pizza shop in the Hill District where she can score, to which I say, that ain't happening, I wasn't leaving her to wander around the Hill District by herself, so I get her back into town to do the transfer thing onto her trolley to get home, she starts approaching strangers on the street asking if they are holding. When that exercise in futility failed we walked to the trolley station and I put her on a trolley home, then I rode back to my place in Oakland.
I can't recall if anything happened on the 27th of note, we probably hung out for a bit with more of the same, her getting money from me, saying she was going to be dope sick and she was getting her son later that day and she didn't want to be sick around him. I would have preferred she not be sick around him as well, but the only solution available to me at that point was to give her money to buy more shit. Friday the 28th rolls around, and I get the woe is me story, her so is there but she isn't feeling up to doing anything with him, she needs more stuff, which again I offer to pay for. AS she is coming into town she texts or calls me and asks if she can borrow my laptop, there is an online game her son likes to play and she had previously sold her laptop for her habit. I say sure, we would have to go get it though, it was in my apartment and not on my person. That wasn't going to work, she did not have her son with her, so she couldn't be gone all that long, I say fine, I will have it when I work on Saturday if they decide to come into town to do something. So we meet, I give her money again, she does her thing and then goes home.
Early in the morning of the 29th, I get a call from home, my mom had fallen in their kitchen and she was being taken to the hospital, i would be kept updated on what was happening and details became available. So now I have a dilemma on my hands, do I drop everything in Pittsburgh and go home, where I may or may not be needed or do I stay in Pittsburgh, work my Saturday shift and be here in case more of the "I'm so sick" stories come in. I opted to stay in Pittsburgh, at least here I could do things,if I went home I would just be sitting around waiting on what others might or might not be able to do. I do my work shift, she comes into town with her son, as well as a request for more money. It actually turned out to be a really good day, we took her son to the arcade downtown where we tried teaching him skeeball, and won enough tokens to buy him a few crappy prizes from the arcade . I say crappy, but he seemed to like them, so there is that. As an added bonus we make plans to go to the museum on Sunday, which seemed a pretty cool thing to do. It was also on Saturday when I decided to let her borrow my laptop, even though she was resistant to the idea, I thought if her son decided he wanted to play whatever game he was into, it would be far easier to just let him play it than to try to explain why he couldn't.
So we go into Sunday, I get an update on my mom, she had a stroke, but was resting comfortably in the hospital, they wanted to run a CATSCAN to see if they could determine the damage done by her most recent episode. For now though, everything was just in hurry up and wait mode, until they ran the test we knew very little, save for my mom being her stubborn self and wanting to go home. It kind of put a smile on my face, picturing her fighting to leave, it is a bad family trait in that we don't like hospitals very much, but then who does. We meet up for the trip to the museum, things go well, not great but certainly not terrible, again I ws asked for money, and again rather than have her sick around her kid I agreed, later I would give her money for a magistrate hearing on Monday, All told this stretch of days right hre would total up to $300, and I explained in a text that night I was officially tapped out, after paying my own personal bills plus that additional expense and money I laid out for us to do things that weekend, I was pre-oil Jed Clampett kinda broke, though I used more colorful language here for the blog. Poetic license and all that jazz.
Monday rolls around, the news on the CATSCAN is good, Mom could be going home in a couple of days, they just wanted to keep her for observation, so I am thinking I dodged a bullet on that front. I get a call from Ed in Florida, they are selling the business, so the hits just keep on coming in my life at this point, so I text the girl and ask what she is doing after her magistrate hearing, she says nothing, so I ask if I can bring her some stuff from work, like cigarettes or what not (we both are social pariahs that way in that we both smoke), and I throw together a few things to have a mini picnic in the park near her house. Just as I am leaving work, I have a system crash on one of the registers. Not just blue screen of death here, it ended up being the black screen of death, which waylayed my departure by an hour from work, when I went to text her again, she tells me she has plans that night, not to bother coming out, which was news to me until she said it, but knowing her like I did at that point, I figure she is probably going out to find heroin again to keep from being dope sick (I had this routine down to a science by this point) and while I knew I couldn't help her in that regard, it was probably better I didn't anyway. The only thing I asked was that she texted me when she got home, because seeing some of the things I had seen over the past month, I was scared she might try something similar. We exchanged a few messages as the evening progressed, until about 10 pm or sso. I knew if she took the last trolley from town about what time she would get in 1:30am , so I just sit here and wait and worry, my head goes to all kinds of bad places, what if something happens and I am not there, what is going on with my mom, what will I be doing for a job in a few months time, it was all rattling around in my cranium t the same time. We blow well past the 1:30am mark, past the 2:30am mark and it wasn't until after three when I finally get a message, so I asked if I was even wanted in her life at that point. Because it is something I never would have done, I would not leave people to just sit around and worry about me if I could let them know i was okay. It turns into a big fight, a fight that goes on for hours, until around 6am I go out to her place before my job in the am to pick up my laptop and I get all kinds of excuses why she can't give it to me, because in her mind returning personal property is a crime or something. Finally I had had enough, I figure she probably sold it like she sold hers for drugs or something so I said, it's okay, I'll just report it stolen. I was done playing, my head was full of worry about so many things at that point that this was one thing I wasn't going to add to the pile when it could be easily solved.
I did get the laptop back like a day later, my mom's health in the meantime also was quizzical to me as the talk of a day's observation turned into two days, then maybe she could go home for therapy, which she did eventually do, only to get put in a nursing home a day later, develop an infection and go back to the hospital, then back to the nursing home, then get put on DNR status, then get moved to hospice care before passing away this past Monday morning. While her maladies were continuing I did make it back to see her 4 or 5 times while juggling fights from the now defunct relationship and trying to find ways to keep everyone (or at least the good ones) employed at work with a potential ownership change into my social calendar. So the summer that started out all promising has instead become quite miserable, I am so ready to let this one go.
We can scrub the good news from your minds now kids, the beginning of the end happened right around July 26th, or one month into the relationship. Allow me to explain. My partner in crime in this endeavor was someone I knew for a while, as she used to be a coworker, was smitten with for like 3 years or so prior to our coupling, but she comes with baggage. I know this because of the reasons why she no longer works with us (drinking on duty) and other things that came up in passing conversations with us, legal issues and substance abuse issues. So I knew any path for us was going to have some obstacles, but being the bigger man, or deluding myself into thinking I was a bigger man, I assumed we could get through or past them. Piece of advice, any time you think you can fix somebody, don't, they need to fix themselves.
So I started giving her money, originally it was for what I believed were legal fees and doctor's appointments for her son, later I was to find out only some of that was true, it snowballed into me giving her money for drugs, in a stupid attempt to keep her from being dope sick around, especially around her kid. Sure there was talks of stopping, going into a detox and what not, but they were just words, with no meaning behind them, those steps were never taken, instead there was a litany of excuses as to why they couldn't happen this week.
Somehow we reached the one month plateau (July 26th), I am using one month here because things went from bad, and I could recount stories of that month but for brevity's sake I will not, to worse. On our one month anniversary, I asked if she could meet me in town around 4pm, little did she know I had plans for us, i had bought a dozen roses and a stuffed bear, and was looking forward to taking her to dinner and a movie. I suggested 4pm because it would allow us time to get from town to the Waterfront and catch a not too late showing of a movie she said she wanted to see. The clock keeps ticking closer to the time when I suggested we meet, she is still at home, she is waiting for someone to bring her money she is owed so she can set up another meetup to buy her daily supply again, I am thinking this night is going to get shot to hell, which was not what I wanted in the least. Finally I gave up and asked her what she needed, she said $50, which I said I had and then hopped a trolley to go catch up with her. I get out to her stop on the trolley line, and at least give her the flowers and bear and money she needs, but she still needs to see her guy at Station Square, I am looking at the time on my cell and cross checking transit schedules from points A B and C and realizing none of what I had planned is going to happen. We get into town way too late to make connections via PAT transit, and she hasn't even met her guy yet. We did make something out of nothing though, at least catching the free movie in Schenley Park, dinner ended up being snacks that we picked up along the way.
The movie ends, she is complaining about the quality of stuff she got, and suggests that I just let her go, she knows a pizza shop in the Hill District where she can score, to which I say, that ain't happening, I wasn't leaving her to wander around the Hill District by herself, so I get her back into town to do the transfer thing onto her trolley to get home, she starts approaching strangers on the street asking if they are holding. When that exercise in futility failed we walked to the trolley station and I put her on a trolley home, then I rode back to my place in Oakland.
I can't recall if anything happened on the 27th of note, we probably hung out for a bit with more of the same, her getting money from me, saying she was going to be dope sick and she was getting her son later that day and she didn't want to be sick around him. I would have preferred she not be sick around him as well, but the only solution available to me at that point was to give her money to buy more shit. Friday the 28th rolls around, and I get the woe is me story, her so is there but she isn't feeling up to doing anything with him, she needs more stuff, which again I offer to pay for. AS she is coming into town she texts or calls me and asks if she can borrow my laptop, there is an online game her son likes to play and she had previously sold her laptop for her habit. I say sure, we would have to go get it though, it was in my apartment and not on my person. That wasn't going to work, she did not have her son with her, so she couldn't be gone all that long, I say fine, I will have it when I work on Saturday if they decide to come into town to do something. So we meet, I give her money again, she does her thing and then goes home.
Early in the morning of the 29th, I get a call from home, my mom had fallen in their kitchen and she was being taken to the hospital, i would be kept updated on what was happening and details became available. So now I have a dilemma on my hands, do I drop everything in Pittsburgh and go home, where I may or may not be needed or do I stay in Pittsburgh, work my Saturday shift and be here in case more of the "I'm so sick" stories come in. I opted to stay in Pittsburgh, at least here I could do things,if I went home I would just be sitting around waiting on what others might or might not be able to do. I do my work shift, she comes into town with her son, as well as a request for more money. It actually turned out to be a really good day, we took her son to the arcade downtown where we tried teaching him skeeball, and won enough tokens to buy him a few crappy prizes from the arcade . I say crappy, but he seemed to like them, so there is that. As an added bonus we make plans to go to the museum on Sunday, which seemed a pretty cool thing to do. It was also on Saturday when I decided to let her borrow my laptop, even though she was resistant to the idea, I thought if her son decided he wanted to play whatever game he was into, it would be far easier to just let him play it than to try to explain why he couldn't.
So we go into Sunday, I get an update on my mom, she had a stroke, but was resting comfortably in the hospital, they wanted to run a CATSCAN to see if they could determine the damage done by her most recent episode. For now though, everything was just in hurry up and wait mode, until they ran the test we knew very little, save for my mom being her stubborn self and wanting to go home. It kind of put a smile on my face, picturing her fighting to leave, it is a bad family trait in that we don't like hospitals very much, but then who does. We meet up for the trip to the museum, things go well, not great but certainly not terrible, again I ws asked for money, and again rather than have her sick around her kid I agreed, later I would give her money for a magistrate hearing on Monday, All told this stretch of days right hre would total up to $300, and I explained in a text that night I was officially tapped out, after paying my own personal bills plus that additional expense and money I laid out for us to do things that weekend, I was pre-oil Jed Clampett kinda broke, though I used more colorful language here for the blog. Poetic license and all that jazz.
Monday rolls around, the news on the CATSCAN is good, Mom could be going home in a couple of days, they just wanted to keep her for observation, so I am thinking I dodged a bullet on that front. I get a call from Ed in Florida, they are selling the business, so the hits just keep on coming in my life at this point, so I text the girl and ask what she is doing after her magistrate hearing, she says nothing, so I ask if I can bring her some stuff from work, like cigarettes or what not (we both are social pariahs that way in that we both smoke), and I throw together a few things to have a mini picnic in the park near her house. Just as I am leaving work, I have a system crash on one of the registers. Not just blue screen of death here, it ended up being the black screen of death, which waylayed my departure by an hour from work, when I went to text her again, she tells me she has plans that night, not to bother coming out, which was news to me until she said it, but knowing her like I did at that point, I figure she is probably going out to find heroin again to keep from being dope sick (I had this routine down to a science by this point) and while I knew I couldn't help her in that regard, it was probably better I didn't anyway. The only thing I asked was that she texted me when she got home, because seeing some of the things I had seen over the past month, I was scared she might try something similar. We exchanged a few messages as the evening progressed, until about 10 pm or sso. I knew if she took the last trolley from town about what time she would get in 1:30am , so I just sit here and wait and worry, my head goes to all kinds of bad places, what if something happens and I am not there, what is going on with my mom, what will I be doing for a job in a few months time, it was all rattling around in my cranium t the same time. We blow well past the 1:30am mark, past the 2:30am mark and it wasn't until after three when I finally get a message, so I asked if I was even wanted in her life at that point. Because it is something I never would have done, I would not leave people to just sit around and worry about me if I could let them know i was okay. It turns into a big fight, a fight that goes on for hours, until around 6am I go out to her place before my job in the am to pick up my laptop and I get all kinds of excuses why she can't give it to me, because in her mind returning personal property is a crime or something. Finally I had had enough, I figure she probably sold it like she sold hers for drugs or something so I said, it's okay, I'll just report it stolen. I was done playing, my head was full of worry about so many things at that point that this was one thing I wasn't going to add to the pile when it could be easily solved.
I did get the laptop back like a day later, my mom's health in the meantime also was quizzical to me as the talk of a day's observation turned into two days, then maybe she could go home for therapy, which she did eventually do, only to get put in a nursing home a day later, develop an infection and go back to the hospital, then back to the nursing home, then get put on DNR status, then get moved to hospice care before passing away this past Monday morning. While her maladies were continuing I did make it back to see her 4 or 5 times while juggling fights from the now defunct relationship and trying to find ways to keep everyone (or at least the good ones) employed at work with a potential ownership change into my social calendar. So the summer that started out all promising has instead become quite miserable, I am so ready to let this one go.
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