12 May 2012

Updates -- 12 May 2012

It has been a very interesting couple of weeks for us.

Mother's Day is upon us.  A good thing.  But it is tempered with the memory that, just over five years ago, in the space of five weeks, Dear Wife and I both lost our mothers.  Makes this time of year a bit tough for us.  One daughter lives near us but is also married and a full time college student in a very demanding program, so we see little of her.  Other daughter, old one, lives several states away, so we see very little of her either.  Makes the more traditional observances of the day difficult.

We spent last weekend traveling.  Thursday morning we set out on a 650-odd mile drive to spend a few days with Beloved Older Daughter (noted above) and Esteemed Son-in-Law in order to be suitably proud as she graduated from University.  We are so proud of her!  Next year at this time, Lord willing, we will  repeat the trek as Esteemed Son-in-Law does likewise.  We have been in no financial position to help them -- we're relying heavily on the day-old bread store -- and they've had to finance the whole matter with full-time employment and relatively modest student loans.  We are proud of them both.
At the same time, by spending a few days in their spare bedroom, we got to see so many of those who we came to know and love in the five years we lived in that small town.,  So many wonderful memories.  And some that are bittersweet also.  The friends who went through a bitter divorce.  The school friends of our daughters who came to regard us as their substitute parents who are now single mothers.  The one with a serious case of Multiple Sclerosis.  The empty houses with "For Sale - Price Reduced" signs out front.   The empty store fronts and closed-down factories (Gone To Mexico or China) that have led to the empty houses.  All the things of life.  We miss that area and the friends and life we had there.  More of the Storms of Life.

A while back, someone who had worked for Dear Wife at a restaurant she managed, called her in desperation.  Bad health, including HIV, diabetes, peripheral circulatory problems, and others, no money and no home.  We let him stay with us "for a while".  Still here.  The health issues have caused the amputation of half one of his feet.  The diabetes and HIV create their own set of issues.  It has taken TWO YEARS to get him onto the Medicare/Medicaid/SSDI wagon.  And being a homosexual doesn't improve things.
Three weeks ago, without telling us, he drove off in our car.  Supposedly to make an appointment at a local AIDS/HIV clinic.   Probably he did.  He then drove to a local public park often frequented by the local homosexual community for "hookup" purposes.  And managed to get arrested there on a loitering charge.  Not helped, incidentally, by the fact that his driver license was LONG since revoked, or that there was an active warrant over unpaid fines.  We got a call.  From the jail.  Where he was.  With the news that our car, our ONLY car, had been towed and impounded.  NOT, I assure you, what I needed to hear, particularly when I was dressing to go to work, expecting for that purpose to be driving that car that was on the far side of town in an impound yard.  By God's grace and some help, we got a ride to go over there, pay a horrendous fee to recover our own property, so that I could go to work.  Did not improve my attitude, believe me.  Having to go to the city jail a few days later so as to arrange to give some of his meds to the nurse who oversees the needs of the inmates was not what I had planned for that day.  Judge sentenced him to a 30-day stretch.  We got a call a couple days ago from the jail that he had been transferred to the local charity hospital with severe respiratory infections (the city doesn't want to be on the hook, financially, for his care).  Yesterday Dear Wife and a family friend went to the hospital and brought him back to our little dwelling.  He has nowhere else to go.  Needless to say, we are going to be keeping a close hold on the car keys from this point forward.