Wow, what a whirlwind the last few years have been. One of my last entries was talking about getting my house sold, which was stressful, but God finally closed that chapter. In June of 2018, my mom had asked for me to start helping her as my nephew was moving out on his own. Since she was living on her own and her own mobility was starting to become significantly worse, the choice was clear. Since she lived about 25 miles (40 km) away, I could really only go up to see her about once a week to help her. But that worked for both of us just fine.
I would do shopping for her, and some cooking and cleaning in the house. I would take my own laundry up as well and make a day out of it, usually on Sundays after church. It was so great getting some time with her. I know she enjoyed the time we spent together too. While the laundry was going, we would chat and watch our favorite shows together, typically American Pickers, or her favorites like Live PD and pretty much any show involving animals. Because she was such a great mom, she would also let me watch a car show like Gas Monkey Garage or others.
But after 4 months or so, I was starting to get overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed. I started feeling physically weak and only having one day to recover every week was starting to take it's toll on me. But I found out that my employer offered up to 20 days per year of family leave, which I was approved for. And I took Fridays off to help mom so that I could still have a couple days to recuperate each week.
We started looking for a nursing care facility as mom knew she would need to do that soon. My step sister also came up to visit and she and I went to look at a couple of places. And we were stunned by the prices. The cheapest one we could find was over $5,500 per month! So we were forced to put that on hold for a little while.
Shortly after starting to take the family leave days to help mom, I got a call from my dad's wife. She told me that she was pretty certain that it would be his last Christmas. He had had a double lung transplant about 5 years earlier and over the years, he has just continually become weaker and the seriousness of the complications became more serious and with increasing frequency.
Since they lived on the other side of the mountains, and I was still feeling maxed out (yes, even despite the family leave days), I was really struggling. With everything else going on, the LAST thing I wanted to do is drive through the snow over the mountain pass in December. I seriously just couldn't deal with it. But I agreed to go, and just started praying. Well, actually I started begging God to make passage EASY both directions. And he totally answered my prayers! All the roads were totally clear both directions! That's very unusual for December, especially twice!
So we had a wonderful time at Christmas with my dad and step mom. But unfortunately, her prediction of it being his last Christmas were, in fact, correct.
At the beginning of February, mom called me to tell me that she was in the hospital. As she was going to bed one night, she was twisting to sit down on her bed, and she pulled a ligament in her knee. She was told that she could not return home as she would no longer be able to walk. So now started a mad dash to clear out the house, find a buyer, and get it sold as soon as humanly possible. After 10 or 11 days, she was released from the hospital into a nursing home, but her cost to stay there was $300/day (That's $9,000 per month!), and that was not covered by any of her insurance.
So for February and March, I worked so hard to get her house cleaned out, mostly by myself. I was exhausted, and at the same time, watching my mom struggle. It was a very emotional time.
On the same day mom went into the hospital, dad also went into the hospital in Eastern Washington. Thankfully he was released after a period of time and was relatively stable during the months of February and March. I didn't have the time or energy to go visit. That was, until mid-March when I got a call from my step mom. Dad was back in the hospital and it was getting more and more serious with his lungs. They decided to put him into a nursing home and had authorized hospice care.
So the next day (Monday) I let my employer know that my dad was not doing well and that I needed to go see him. About the time I arrived, he had just been transferred to the nursing home. He seemed to be doing well, playing pinochle with a doctor, and just joking with the staff. And my stepmom kept watch over him as much as she could physically. After two days, I decided I needed to return to Seattle.
At the end of March, after two of the most physically and emotionally challenging months of my life, we finally got mom's mobile home sold, and the buyer agreed to haul off a BUNCH of stuff I had to leave behind because I had nothing left physically in me to haul that stuff off. I can't tell you how much of an answered prayer that was. God was seriously protecting me from a project I don't think I could have handled.
But God also gave me a dozen amazing friends from church to help me move the stuff we kept into storage. Finally, I was able to take a breath.
Or so I thought.
So mom paid for her 40+ days in the nursing home, over $11,000, and we were so blessed to find a group family home for her to live in at $5,000 per month (the cheapest we had found so far). She was moved there on a Thursday, and by Sunday we moved in her personal items.
But that same day, dad had gone into the hospital again. This time they said there was nothing they could do. His body was just too weak to put him through another procedure. I got the call and I couldn't respond. After getting mom all set up in the evening, I went to bed to get ready for the week because I just didn't have the energy to make a decision on dad. When I woke up in the morning, it was clear to me that I needed to go. So I called in to work, and let them know I needed to back to see my dad. So I packed the car for a few days, and made a reservation at a hotel in their town and headed over the mountains.
When I arrived, dad was being transported to the hospice facility. Dad was pretty lucid and we were able to interact with him a bit. My brother arrived later that day and he stayed in dad's room that night.
The next morning we all went back and dad just slept. In the times he was awake, he was not really able to interact. At lunch, we all stepped out of the room to their little break room and had some food all together with some of my step mom's sisters. My stepmom went back to the room while we all chatted a bit longer. She must have known something we didn't. When we returned to the room, for the first time, dad's head was turned to the side instead of facing forward. I knew this was not a good sign. We called in the nurse and she confirmed he was very close to death. We were all upset and my stepmom asked if I could pray. So the three of us gathered in a small circle and we prayed for dad. It must have been during our prayer that he decided to go.
Needless to say, this was a very challenging time. I remember after we had our chance to say good bye in the room, they wheeled him into the small chapel there before loading him into the transport. That's the last time I saw him.
He passed on a Tuesday, and I stayed the rest of the week to be with the family. The one thing I have to say is, especially while dad was in the hospice facility, we laughed so much. So many memories of us being rotten kids and how we tormented our poor dad as kids. So. Much. Laughter. So many wonderful memories!
So after this, life returned more or less to normal. Or at minimum, to a new normal. The week after I returned home, I had a fall out with one of my roommates, who got in my face about having a chore schedule in the house. And I lost it. I was done. It was too much. I stormed out of the house as I just couldn't deal. It felt like the perfect betrayal. I was devastated by the interaction. I had been trying to keep things together, to move on with real life, and this stopped me dead in my tracks. It was truly the last straw.
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A month or so later, I got another call from my mom. I didn't answer it because I had just gotten off the bus coming home from work and didn't want to have a conversation at the transit center. I regret not having taken the call. She was calling me to tell me that she was going to the hospital. I tried calling her back, but couldn't reach her. I didn't know what was happening, and there was no way for me to find out.
She hadn't been feeling well that day, and by mid afternoon, she was starting to worry. So they called an ambulance and took her to the ER. While they were examining her, they said that they couldn't tell what was wrong. They were about to release her when the doctor exclaimed that she was having a heart attack. Right there in the ER while she was being examined! So they rushed her in to surgery and had 3 or 4 stents put in. She was in the hospital for another week or so as I recall and then was released to go back home to the group home.
In July, I was still feeling pretty overwhelmed by everything: dad dying, trying to still be there to help mom, recover and be reconciled with my roommate, etc. But I wasn't doing very well with it. So I decided I needed to find my own place for a while, got some advice, and started looking. I found a place and moved in on Aug. 17th. It was a micro studio in a really GREAT part of town. It was a newer building (the newest I had ever lived in as an adult) and I moved in and tried to organize my life, everything I owned, into 230 square feet (21 square meters). It took several months, but I was able to get it organized. Finally!!!
During this time, I was going through lots and lots of boxes that came out of her shed. Many wonderful items I hadn't seen in decades. Some I had never seen, but most if it belonging to her mom who had passes over 20 years before. So for many months, my apartment was filled with foul smelling boxes and the treasures of two lives.
So then came the holidays. And pretty much every week I was still helping mom, cooking for her, shopping for her and just going up to visit. She moved a little closer to me, but I had also moved a bit farther away, so the distance was still about the same. We had Thanksgiving turkey breasts and most of the trimmings and for Christmas she just wanted spaghetti. She absolutely loved both of them. We exchanged gifts for Christmas and just sat around talking and laughing like we always did.
After the holidays, and in the month of January, I was finally able to just relax a bit. 2019 had been such a brutal year, I literally needed a month off. I still went to see her pretty much every week, but it was much more relaxed. Then February hit. Mom was back in the hospital again. She was so tired. She hadn't been able to get up or out of her room since July. The doctors told her they wanted to do a procedure, but she told them in no uncertain terms "no"! She only wanted comfort care from now on. No more procedures, she wanted to be left alone. I found out later that she even stopped using her CPAP machine when she slept.
She hadn't been able to eat much for months. Her nurses were very concerned about this and so she would eat some things that I made for her, and she ate the spaghetti at Chritmas and we had Outback steaks for my birthday in January where she did eat a full meal.
At this point, the second week of February, she began to have a very soft and raspy voice and it was very hard to understand her. The doctors said she may have a slight case of pneumonia. But unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end. Two weeks later, mom passed. And in 10 1/2 months, both parents: gone.
My nephew's wife and I sat there for about 5 or 6 hours on the day she died. So about 6:15 p.m., I decided to go home. She passed about an hour and a half later. My best friend, my biggest fan, my wholehearted supporter was gone. I got the call and drove the 25 miles back to see her. My amazing friend and hospice nurse, Roger, came also to be with me. I don't know what I would have been like alone there in that room. So glad it was Roger.
Then started the pandemic. Couldn't donate items to charity as nobody would accept them, so therefore I was unable to get the storage until cleaned out until July.
By September everything was done, except the memorial service. The pandemic killed all large meetings. I guess we'll have to see when that can be done. Right now the virus is completely out of control. I don't foresee any memorial service until at least summer 2021.
Between grieving for my mother, and dealing with all of the other challenges over the past few years, I have been exceptionally grateful for having an amazing employer that allows me to work from home. I'm also grateful for having been able to live alone to quarantine myself from the virus. It's been a blessing and a curse though. I long for times with my friends, going to a restaurant, seeing family at the holidays, and being able to invite people over for dinner, games or a movie (or all three!).
Nine months in quarantine drives you a little bit nuts. Again, I'm very grateful to be able to work from home, but I haven't left the house much in the last nine months, except to get groceries, and try to get fresh air. But the vast majority of the time has just been spent IN my apartment. And the cabin fever has been getting progressively more serious. Over the months, I was essentially getting no exercise and I didn't need to go anywhere, and I suspect i gained about 30 - 40 pounds. And because I wasn't doing my standard daily stuff, all my muscles were atrophying and when I did try to walk, or even stand for periods, my back would spasm so bad that I had to rest it.
So I finally decided that I needed an outlet. I really didn't want to just go out and walk, that's the most boring thing in the world to me. And with the virus, I felt even less like going out. And since my gym has been closed, I haven't had that as an outlet either. Even when it did re-open, I didn't feel comfortable going in with there even being the possibility of catching the virus.
So I decided to buy a little fixer-upper car like I used to have when I had my house. After a couple months of searching, I finally found the perfect little car: a 1982 Honda Civic. It's 38 years old and needs a fair amount of "love" to get it to be something I would feel comfortable using a lot, but I still have my Accord, so right now I don't need it for much.
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| 1982 Honda Civic, "before" picture |
But yesterday, I figured I had better make use of a rare sunny Saturday in December and go out and do some work on the car. The guy I bought it from was trying to make it into some kind of rally car or whatever and had put these weird racing seats in it. It was nearly impossible to get in and out of the car because of the bolsters on the sides of the seats. So I found a regular seat for that model and installed it. Now I can reach all of the buttons on the dash and even change the radio station!!
And I have to share a funny story. It wasn't so funny at the time, but now I'm glad it was something minor. So I had gone to run an errand and I was stopped on this steep hill. Then the car died. So I tried starting it again and I got it to go a bit farther, but then it died again, and it was on an even steeper grade. But it wouldn't start again the second time. So I was able to back it down the hill and do a U-turn on the road and then compression start it with the downhill grade. I got it home and didn't think much about it. It seemed like there was no gas in the tank, but it was showing well over 1/4 tank...
So then I had to run another errand a few minutes later and this time it died on me on a much busier intersection. I was able to drive it the two blocks home, but then it wouldn't start again today. Which is so weird because it usually starts almost immediately. And so I was able to confirm... no gas! Easy and cheap fix ($10 for a gas can) and now all is good with the world again.
I've also started doing the keto diet in earnest. Between the stress and sadness of this year, the pandemic, the election, the protests and seeing this country for what it is, I just haven't been able to start in any meaningful way. I'll post my start weight soon and will provide updates. I may even start doing video diaries. But between working on my car and the diet I have already made progress! Please pray for me to continue in that!
So finally tonight, I've been thinking a lot about my health lately. Having this car is helping my mood, my spirituality and my physical health doing lots of little things to make the car a little better every time I work on it. I love making a shabby little car into something special and rare and useful. It's the basis of every DIY show on cable! It's so much fun to create something cool!
If you're struggling during the pandemic. I have two encouragements for you:
1. If you feel distant from God, please contact me. God is the ONLY thing that has allowed me to keep sane during this crazy time. Please let me help you understand who God is, my life isn't perfect, but with Him, it's not only tolerable, it's AMAZING.
2. Once you have a true, deep, intimate relationship with God. Get a hobby. Do something you enjoy. Get away from the kids for a bit (if you can), and read a book, build something, take a walk, whatever it is that fires you up! But please seek God before this step. Nothing can bring you the peace and the happiness that you get when you know God.
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So if you've made it this far, thank you. Writing is how I process my little world, my challenges, and it helps me somehow to create order out of chaos in my mind. It's so therapeutic and healing.
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