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Just when you think you have life together reality collides and your world is torn apart. Ten years ago my niece was married and had three children aged six, four and two. Her husband abandoned her with $20.00 and one suitcase of clothes for the four of them. Welcome to the face of the homeless. In a way she was fortunate because we did what we could to help out and her mother was there and even though she only worked at minimum wage jobs she could help a little. It was through the networks of North Carolina’s people who care that she was able to keep the children with her and find shelter and food while she struggled trying to find work in a depressed economy. If you can find work the cost of babysitting is more then you make. If you don’t find work you are reviled as being lazy and a drain on honest, hard working Americans. The wealthy elite who can afford to buy elections are so far away from the truth of homelessness that it is a sin that they should even be allowed to be in power and make decisions on lives they could care less about. They aren’t sure how many homes they own and can pump millions of their own money into smear campaigns but are blind to those truly in need. They are so concerned about tax cuts for the wealthy that they are incapable of seeing the people holding up cardboard signs with no food, no shelter, no hope.
I am going to be moving down to Winston Salem, North Carolina this Spring. My job of being a caregiver to my mother ended on May 26th with her death. My job at the hospital ended because of hatred and bigotry and an incompetent Administration who cut the low level employees and their benefits while wasting millions of dollars on renovations that we can not fill. With declining health I’ve decided to take early Social Security and try to supplement that with selling of art, jewelry and photography.
My niece because of a system that actually had some people in place who care and a support system of family is now remarried with a wonderful husband who loves her children and has made them his own. He is a Presbyterian Minister and we love him dearly in spite of the sports teams he cheers for. Besides he is a Doctor Who fan so he has to be good. The entire family wants me down there so they can help look after me. They worry about me being alone with COPD and degenerative arthritis. Of course I will also be there for them as they go through the minefield that is children in their teens.
I met a couple of people that my niece works with in the field of homelessness. It is something that is dear to her heart helping out those who are in the position she once was in. She has all but the thesis in her Master’s Degree and she wants to help others. I found out when I was there that 25% of the homeless are Veterans. We send our men and women out to war and then neglect them when they come home. I will be spending a great deal of my time in helping out along side of my niece. I realize that if it were not for my Mother carefully watching her money that I would be in no position to pay for the COBRA while I try and get disability. I would not have a home over my head while I try and get everything taken care of for my move and so that my brother and I can sell this house.
There are things we can do right now to help. If you check out this story today on Dr. Ray Workman in the Winston-Salem Journal http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2010/nov/19/poignant-portraits-ar-550208/ you will see how he is helping. And if you go here http://homelessposter.com/ you can buy the poster to help out. And if you are good at computers call the Bethesda Center. Someone has hacked their site and made it unsafe to go to in order to donate. Tax cuts for the rich? Bristol Palin as Dancing Queen? Come on we are better then that. We can do something to help those who really need our help. The Homeless? This is the new face of the homeless.
“Life. Don’t talk to me about life.” Marvin the depressed robot from "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy"
The last week I have felt like Marvin. Life has been a bitch. I was set up at where I worked so that they could get rid of me for a two fold reason. One I am 62 and not in the best of health and businesses are getting rid of people like me in any manner they can so they can lower their insurance costs. Two I made the mistake of being really good at what I did and that pissed off the head of a department who does not like smart women who can discover when she and her staff makes errors. I was cash posting between 100 and 450 items a day. I was told if I made one single error I was out of a job. It was a deliberate set up to get rid of me. There was zero compassion for the fact that I was a caregiver for my Mom for six years and am now trying to restart life after her death and that I am still reeling emotionally from her death. Six years is a big chunk of your life and 62 is a hell of a time to start over. So what now?
I have spent my life working at jobs that paid the bills. It supported my being able to do and run science fiction conventions. It has supported my being able to do art and cooking and photography and writing and poetry. I can’t say that the jobs were the best of times but it kept body and soul together and supported my cats in the process. Do I try for another job and face the same possibilities that this company too doesn’t want an older worker with health issues? Or do I look at the fact that I have been working since 1966 and can draw early social security? Do I face the fact that the COPD and degenerative arthritis has finally gotten to the point where it is impacting on my way of life? Or most importantly of all do I face the fact that I have two cats, Merlin and Pixie, who don’t really like each other and I have to be referee?
Okay the last question was flippant but I need to try and keep a sense of humor or I’m going to go crazy. After looking at my life and bank balance I realize I can survive for a while without making a decision but it would be smarter to make some plans. I’m tired and hurt from the moment I wake up to the moment I finally fall asleep knowing that I will wake up several times hurting. I can’t face another full time job even if I could get someone to hire me. I can get COBRA so at least I have medical insurance for a while. I’m trying to see if I can get disability so that when the COBRA runs out I can still get my medicine. So what do you do with this new life that is spreading out before you?
In my case I am planning to do something I have always wanted to do. I am a creative person and I plan on trying to earn some extra money with the photography and art. I am going to try and get my first book of fantasy short stories published while I am working on the second book. I am going to try and get my poetry published. I have enough recipes for a cookbook and I am trying to find someone who would sponsor the cookbook. I am thinking of OXO since with my arthritis I use their products. People with severe arthritis need to know that they can still enjoy cooking.
Those projects will help nourish the creative spirit and bank account. In practical terms I need to go through this house and clean things out so that it can be sold. In doing so I will gather all the information and pictures I can about both my parents. I want to write their story not only for myself but for the family. I am finding that there are still things that I know that my niece had never heard of. I want her and her three children to know more about their grandparents and great grandparents. I have my own story to tell. I have had an interesting 62 years so far and have some good stories to tell.
One thing that being a caregiver has given me is a renewed sense of activism. There is so much that could be done to make it easier to care for someone. It is hard to find the resources to keep going and get people the care they need. Care giving is a labor of love but it is also one of the hardest jobs in the world especially if the person you are caring for is a relative. You want to see that person as they were. I wanted so much to see my Mom as the vigorous person she always was. It hurt so bad to see that once straight back bent over. It hurt to see how twisted and deformed her fingers became with the arthritis. She was 94 pounds when she died. She was skin and bones. She had gone from robust to fragile in the blink of an eye.
In the last week I have made the conscious decision that I need to honor my parents by being strong. It would be easy to give up. It would be easy to swallow a bottle of pain pills and say I can’t face it any more. It would be easy to refuse to get out of bed and just lay there and vegetate. I have cried many tears. I have been angry. One thing I am not going to do however is quit. That bitch who cost me my job is not going to win.
I am going to be moving to North Carolina to be near my niece and her three children. I am the godmother to the four of them. It will be easier to get some help down there. My niece’s husband is on the Advocacy Board and she has already contacted someone who is willing to help me. I have a state of the art computer to do my art work on thanks to my Mom. I have a new Canon Rebel camera to do professional photographs with thanks to my brother. I have my first professional photography job at the end of the month.
I have a life and I plan to live it to the fullest. I have things I want to do. Little things like make a dress for my niece for Halloween. They do a theme each year and this year it is "The Lord of the Rings.” I promised an Arwen dress for her. After all I made her wedding dress four years ago when I promised her a "Princess Bride" dress. I majored in theater and love Shakespeare and I have "Hamlet" with David Tennant in the title role and Patrick Stewart as Claudius to watch. My grandnephew Tristan and his Mom watched it and loved it so I need to watch before I go down there to visit the beginning of November. I have Pixie and Merlin to cuddle and their fights to break up.
When life hands you lemons make lemonade and while you’re at it make a profit by selling it. My new business card is made and these pictures are on it. I am going to be as busy as a bee and soar like an eagle. Yeah life. Love it or loath it. You still have to deal with it.
I always get frustrated at the fact that one of the first things that gets cut when schools are trying to save money is the arts. I majored in theater and know the love of being on stage. I’m a writer of both poetry and fiction. I’m an artist. For me the arts are not a luxury they are a way of life. The arts in its many forms can not only entertain but it can teach. It can make you think.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is widely considered to be a major influence in starting the American Civil War. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath created major controversy in its depiction of migrant farm workers. George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for all its faults did provide for African Americans the showcase to prove they could be a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment business. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be performed on Broadway. Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell showed that art and the common man belonged together. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie brought an awareness of the working man’s condition to the world of song.
The arts like anything else can be turned and used for propaganda. The arts can also be a powerful tool to teach and bring to the forefront the issues and problems of real people. By its very nature art changes and evolves. A few years ago the idea of doing art on computers was laughed at. With the arthritis in my hands it is the only way I can do artwork these days.
It is in this ability to change and adapt that art has the most valuable lesson for today’s world. We must change and try new ideas if we are to conquer the problems facing us today. The ideas of the past are not working. I work in a small town hospital. I know from first hand experience that there is a health care crisis. I see people struggling to find jobs and to pay their bills. FDR realized with his New Deal that it is the common man who suffers most in economic down turns. We must change and we must push our representatives to change. The policies of the previous eight years have been proven not to work. It is time for the common man to be represented and given the chance to live the American Dream.
As readers of this diary know I was the caregiver for my mother for six years. We lost Mom in May. We had lost my Dad in May of 1999. Both of my parents loved my artwork and I frequently did pictures specifically for my Mom in the last couple of years. My Dad was a major reason that I pursued the art as he was one of my biggest cheerleaders. The last picture I did before my Dad died was one I called Gathering Moonlight. The picture illustrates a scene in one of my short stories. My Dad loved the picture. I have been reworking old pictures as the models and technology has advanced with computer art and I want the pictures to reflect those changes and the new techniques I have learned. I always hesitated to redo Gathering Moonlight because of the emotional connection it had for me as the last picture Dad saw before he died. Last night though I asked myself the question what would you do if Dad were still alive? The answer was that I would redo the picture and show it to him. So for Dad and Mom here is the new version of Gathering Moonlight. You have to be able to change. The past formed our present and what we do in the present will form our future. If we don’t want to repeat the errors of the past we must change now or there will be no future. This is the lesson we can learn from the arts.
I have always had problems with insomnia. On weekdays when I know I have to be at work I’ll go ahead and take the Ambien so I can at least get some sleep. On weekends or days when I don’t have to work I’ll just do the best I can. Often times it means that I get up in the early hours of the morning and go on the computer. Pixie is my companion at those times as she is a little night owl. Merlin just takes over the whole bed and goes back to sleep.
I have been going through a bout of really missing Mom the last couple of weeks. I have been dreaming of her the last couple of nights. After the nightmare of a couple of weeks ago I was hoping not to dream of her but the land of dreams follows its own rules. I’m beginning to suspect that Pixie is avoiding sleeping at night. Mom would proudly tell me in the mornings how Pixie would “sleepy time with Grandmother all night” although I knew she had been up prowling when Mom was asleep. She would come upstairs to my room to eat on the off chance that the upstairs kitty café was serving a different menu from the one downstairs.
Last night Pixie cuddled up next to me for over an hour although neither one of us slept. She catches up on her sleep during the day. She still keeps watch on me at three in the morning, the time we believed that Mom died. She needs to make sure that I don’t leave her like Mom did. She comes in several times during the night to check. I think that is her way of dealing with the loss. She has chosen me to be her new person and she checks up on her person frequently. As time passes maybe she will be a little more secure and actually curl up on the bed and sleep.
The night before when I dreamed of Mom it was a dream where I knew she was dead and shouldn’t be where she was. I was trying to get her back where she belonged. She could only go through the motions silently visiting that way. Last night I dreamed again of Mom but this time she came for a visit to comfort me. We spent a day with me taking her to the stores on the shopping trip that she wasn’t well enough in life to go on. The next morning in the dream I was finding evidence that she had really been there. I was the most comforting dream I have had since she died. I hope Pixie has comforting dreams like that. She really misses her Grandmother.
I think it is significant that I had that dream right after I started a prolonged creative streak and have been doing a lot of art work. I am even embarking on a new short story for the first time in four years. I think Mom knows I miss her and she wanted me to know that she is still with me. I am still finding my way after being a caregiver for six years. I think Mom was trying to tell me last night that she appreciated my being here with her and that she will always be with me in spirit.
The politest thing you could say about my cat Merlin is that he is a “wuss.” Bravery and Merlin are a complete contradiction in terms. Pixie on the other hand is the brave one. My Mom told everyone who would listen that Pixie was the brave one of the litter and came into the house while her siblings hid. Pixie is definitely the “alpha cat” in the household. I would like to try and say Merlin is a gentleman but unfortunately when a 17½ pound cat runs away from something that is 9 pounds and half his size coward tends to be more appropriate.
It is now three months since that horrible day when my brother came home from work and discovered Mom hadn’t slept in like we thought when we went to work that morning but had a fatal heart attack shortly after going to bed. Pixie stayed with Mom’s body until Mike came home and has avoided Mom’s bedroom ever since. In fact she spends little time downstairs and has taken over Merlin’s upstairs territory. At times it is hard to believe that it has been three months that Mom has been gone and at times it seems like just yesterday.
The stresses from those first few days seem to continue in new and different ways. At times I feel strong enough to stand them and at times I feel like I’m completely losing it. My brother and I pushed the biggest stress, cleaning out and fixing up the house, and selling it until next Spring. I couldn’t cope with it and the stresses of my job at the same time. The one thing I know for sure is that I want out of this little town and back to a larger city. I’ve been here six years caring for my Mom and the town’s people still seem to be surprised that I exist. Most of the cards and letters of consolation were addressed to my brother. No one in this small town cared that I was the caregiver and I was hurting too. I’m the outsider still and they have made it very clear I always will.
As Pixie came to grips with her grief at losing her “grandmother” she did what she had done at the very start. She looked around and decided that someone else was to be “her” person. Of course her person and slavery may be a bit mixed up in her mind. Mom had spoiled Pixie completely. Pixie wanted food she sat on the counter and demanded to be fed. Pixie wanted a nap on Mom’s lap then Mom sat there in the chair and held her for a couple of hours while she slept. I would come home from work and Mom would beg me to take her cat so she could get something done.
o be honest I spoiled Merlin but he at least knows that I have to work and do need some time to myself on the computer. Pixie seems to think every waking hour should be devoted to her. I am now supposed to be her person and lavish the attention that Mom did on her. She doesn’t seem to believe that Merlin counts. After all he had twelve years of being an only child and it is her turn. She chases Merlin away when I’m not watching her. Merlin has taken to leaving cat poop around the house in rooms where I frequent in order to try and mark those territories as his. I tried giving him his own litter box which he seemed to want at first but Pixie decided she liked that one instead. Finally at my wits end I took him to the Vet to make sure nothing was wrong with him. My Senior Citizen is very healthy but has “anger management” issues. The Vet has given me some medicine to help Merlin with the stress. In one of those life is funny moments it turns out to be the kitty version of what I’m taking to try and survive the stress overload I’m under.
So now I come into the kitty political wars. If I can negotiate a truce between these two I want the Nobel Peace Prize. In a way watching these two is like watching politics. On the one hand you have Merlin who was adopted at four weeks and never had to struggle. I’ve always taken care of him. He can be very needy and neurotic. On the other hand we have Pixie who in spite of the fact that my Mom called her a Princess is in reality a little street punk. She was born in the storage shed attached to our house. She decided that she wanted things better and pushed her way in. If Merlin could have an easy life then so can she. The difference is that she will fight for what she wants and Merlin won’t. As for myself I have a neurotic and a street punk and I love them both.
One of the people I love most in the world is named Tristen. He is starting his Freshman year in high school. His mother is my niece although our relationship is really more of a mother daughter relationship. I am her Godmother and Godmother to all three of her children. Tristen is the middle child and has been diagnosed with Asperger’s. His hasn’t been an easy life but he has turned into the most incredible young man I have ever known. We are each other’s cheerleaders.
Berni and I are a lot alike and we talk frequently. Sometimes with three kids you need an adult who understands. She has a wonderful husband now but she and I are survivors of abusive marriages and we have a bond that will never be broken. I got my Geek started in science fiction conventions that I worked and even ran. Meeting some of the stars of Doctor Who, especially Tom Baker, is what got her the second date with her now husband.
Tristen for many years was misdiagnosed but his Mom refused to give up. She finally found someone who would listen and tell her what was really wrong with her oldest son. In the four years since she remarried Tristen has grown up enormously. He was able to go to Houston’s Space Camp and had a wonderful time. He is a total Geek and we had a conversation not long ago that went from Doctor Who to Torchwood to Star Trek to Star Wars to computers to the thousand and one uses for duct tape that we both love. For Christmas I’m getting him some of the McGuyver DVDs. I loved Mac and I’m sure Tristen will too.
It spite of all his problems he and I bonded from the very start. Often times when I’m down he will suddenly email me on Facebook or pass a message along to me from his Mom. Knowing how he has helped himself overcome serious problems is a source of inspiration to me. He loves Fantasy and my short story collection “Sean’s Stories”. He loves my art work especially ones with dragons. I sent him my two newest dragons. He loved them. His Mom and Step Dad, soon to be adopted Dad, got away by themselves for the first time since getting married for three days. Her biological Mom watched the kids. I was impressed by the short posts Tristen has made recently on Facebook.
"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time!"
"They are back! Unfortunately, now they have to face the chaos of our household, especially with the upcoming school year."
"Mom and Dad are currently out on their vacation, leaving us w/ Gramma alone. I wish them the best of vacations, and hope that gramma can survive Zack without the "Parent Buffer".
And after having a horrible few days at work and being home ill his response to my dragons made me feel much better and loved. You can’t beat the love of a child. They are our true resources and we need to improve everything from health, to schools, to the world we live in for them. On the Western dragon Tristen said: "I love it!” And on the Easter dragon he said:"I love it even more! the lilac background compliments the silver dragon perfectly!”
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