Back to the Future…Again

13 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Accessible Home, Aging in Place. Seniors, SilverTsunami, Uncategorized

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Yesterday, I told my landlord that I would be moving out soon. I dreaded telling him. With all the drama that my tenants put me through in the last year; twelve troubled months felt like a decade. The last thing I wanted was to be a problem tenant.

My landlord told me that he already had a new tenant lined up; a 90 year old lady. She’s been renting someplace else but wanted to move to a ground-floor apartment, one that was easier to access. I was able to maneuver up these three steps when I was on crutches. You can tell a lot about accessibility if you can get where you need to while on crutches. You couldn’t get up here easily in a wheel chair.

Today, my domain name SafeGraySpace automatically renewed. I got an email this morning. So here I am; back to the future.

I looked at the site again. It’s valid. A 90 year old needs to move; at her age? Who was making plans for her safety and comfort? It is society’s disgrace.That’s not where any one should be at 90.

Soon, I will moving out of this space into the downstairs unit of the duplex. It is not the SafeGraySpace I intend to remake it into. But I have a plan. I am certain most of my existing plan will be modified. In the initial step of cleaning up after the renter’s,   I discovered things that the building inspection should have revealed but didn’t.

Trying to clean up around the bathroom window, a huge chunk of termite-ridden debris fell from the area that should have been the window frame. I stopped. It looked more like dirty lace than wood. I suspected that I could be doing more harm than good.

My plan is to move in and stay in it the way it is for awhile. It is livable. I once lived in an off-grid, no running water, log-cabin at 9,000′ elevation for 6 years. I can do this. I need to know that this place is where I want to create my SafeGraySpace. It’s a start.

Accidental Landlord

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by in Addiction, Accident, Landlord, Uncategorized

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I had no intention of being a Landlord. It was an accident. Admittedly, I’m terrible at certain roles in rigid relationships. This role may be the one I am the least suited for.

Currently, my landlord – tenant relationship is complicated. There’s the simple part, the one that should be symbiotic; I pay the mortgage they pay rent and get to live there.

But, if they don’t pay me, I still have to pay the mortgage. Getting them out, formally called eviction, after failing to pay rent for two months in a row, was tough and rough. Things can get unpleasant. Unhappy people can do a lot of damage on their way out.

The slightly dilapidated duplex I bought after my boating accident, to convert into my SafeGraySpace quarters came with renters and a lease for 11 months after ‘closing.’

There’s an upstairs and a downstairs unit. Upstairs is Section 8; that’s both a thesis and an opera of it’s own. That payment is automatically deposited. Like clockwork.

The downstairs renters were difficult from the get-go. Their reasons for being late with the rent were endless. Their complaints were constant. My concerns were temporarily appeased with the fact that their lease would end in November. Things got ugly fast.

It wasn’t the broken windows, the filth, the holes in the walls that bothered me. It was something pink and sticky and everywhere; splattered on the baseboards, walls and doors and coating the inside of the fridge. Every room had evidence of this substance.

What was it? I suspect it was something illicit and probably addictive. These people were broken; probably by an addiction. This sad problem is what broke my soft heart.

Things can be repaired, cleaned and replaced. It’s much harder to fix people; to repair human beings. As I said in the beginning, it was by accident that I am in this role.

I’ve mostly recovered from my accident. I hope these poor people can recover from whatever it is that drives them to exist, covered in their sticky, pink mess. Good luck.

Kick-Off

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in New Year Resolution, Forgiveness, Past, Uncategorized

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I am sorry. I read something last night posted by a “FB friend.” It was about something that had happened twenty years ago. The fact that it took him twenty years to write about it suggests a degree of significance in the story of his life.

Good parts of my story, the memorable moments, are my history. The others are the past; the parts that were so bad, they should be left alone; in the past. I have a past.

I hold on to certain things for decades too. My living room looks like a shrine to people and places I have loved, little alters of prized scraps everywhere. My mind is like that; cluttered with my remixed memories. I verge on the brink of being a memory hoarder.

There was something about reading this post that twisted my dreams into a nightmare. I was sitting on the beach on a island in the middle of the ocean. Suddenly, there is a volcanic eruption. Instead of ash, mutilated corpses are falling from the sky. Wake up!

I want to offer an apology to this friend. He would never have had the experience he wrote about, if not for me. Other exceptionally good things came out of us knowing one another. For those things, I am eternally grateful. For the pain I caused, I am sorry.

To kick-off my New Year, I’m trying to declutter my past. I’ll kick-off with apologies. For any and all grief I have ever caused, I would like to officially ask for forgiveness. May this New Year gently bring us all more peace and less pain. It’s kick-off time.

Starter Lie

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

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It started with a lie. Actually, it never really started. My battery wasn’t the problem; it was simply my starter. I tried to explain to the repair shop foreman that my battery wasn’t very old. He didn’t listen. When I tried to tell him again that I was pretty sure it wasn’t my battery, he said I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was stuck. I’d arrived by tow truck.

He said they would look at it and let me know. Go have a seat. Off I ambled to the designated waiting area. There was one couple already waiting. There was the smell of a neglected coffee pot and standard waiting-room, flat-screen blaring sports. It was the first Saturday of the year, the day after New Year’s Day Friday. Most people were on a mid-winter break. People seemed stunned, extra holiday dazed.

The couple left after about twenty minutes. I can do my job remotely so I just started looking at work emails and drafting answers. Time slipped off into work mode. Another customer wandered in and then another.

Someone from the dealer’s staff checked on the coffee and began to half-way start a fresh pot. I looked at the time. I walked back over to ask the foreman how it was going. Apparently, the mere sight of me walking back towards his desk annoyed him. He just shook his head like I needed more than words and turned his back. I ignored him ignoring me.

 I told the foreman that I really wanted to be able to communicate more effectively with him. I asked him if there was another way for me to explain myself. He looked at me like I’d asked him if he wanted a scoop of poop ice cream. Asking him for an update was apparently almost an Original Sin.

And that is how the first Saturday of this New Year started, or like I said when I started writing this, it never really started.

The car did get fixed. It turns out that the battery wasn’t dead. I found that out today when I took it off the floorboard of my back seat into the auto repair shop where I’d bought it a year and a half ago.They tested it and it wasn’t dead. I’d been lied to.

I want to start my New Year over, so for me it hasn’t started. That is my starter lie. I am starting over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2015’s End

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Elders, Galveston, Grandparenting, Gun Control, Livable Community, Love, Mental illness, Uncategorized

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I feel stranded. My battery is dead. When I tried to start my car yesterday; nothing. Not a click, not a sound. It feels like more than just that.

I was headed over to the duplex I bought in 2015; the one where I was going to begin my SafeGraySpaces project. The place I planned to renovate into a elder friendly, barrier-free, tiny-home for my own aging-in- place.

I’d ‘inherited’ renters. They had a lease when I bought it. Now, they’re officially delinquent. My upstairs tenant called to tell me it appeared the downstairs tenants  were moving out. Fare thee well free-loaders.

2015’s final two weeks were particularly strange; including a sad phone call asking for help locating the two young children whose 73 year old, great-grandmother had shot her husband to death in the wee hours of Christmas morning. Worst Christmas  ever for  too many innocent people.

At reunions over the past few summers I’d spent hours with this great-grandmother and these two young children. She’d been raising them since they were babies. Their love for one another was obvious. What happens to push a great-grandmother to uncharacteristic, violent action? Evidently, true desperation!

Three days before that horrible incident, I’d  witnessed the whale stranding on the West End of the island. I’ve had the amazing privilege  of kayaking along side whales in the Sea of Cortez.

To see this gentle giant so far from it’s normal, deep ocean home, struggling to simply take it’s final breath; split my heart to pieces. Witnessing this mystical creature flailing and suffering so much, was deeply disturbing. I quietly said goodbye and slowly wandered away.

I’ll head outside in a few minutes when there is enough daylight to see. I’ll clean my terminals off and see if my car starts. If it does, I’ll venture over and check on the duplex. Who knows what I’ll find remaining there?

I bid goodbye to all parts of 2015 and all it’s memories. Welcome 2016!

 

What Matters Most

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Brain, insanity, Love, Mental illness, Uncategorized

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Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life. I am sixty; there have been a few really bad days, a dozen or so incredibly amazing days and luckily, a life time of regular ones. Having a younger sibling with terminal cancer has shed new light on the joy of ordinary and the idea of what matters most.

My sister and I spent the day with one of our brothers. We started with the radiologist, next was the oncologist. The news that a significant part of his brain tumor was not able to be removed was officially revealed to us and for that moment, understood by our brother. He needed time to process all the information, but when you are told your probable ‘Expiration Date’ and it can be measured in days, time has a new meaning.

He is dying. He has a 12 year old and a 15 year old. He wants to spend every possible remaining moment with them. He has a book he is trying to write. He has songs he has written and recorded and wants to finish them. Where does one start? Turmoil shoved his cancer strained brain closer to insanity.

Struggling to help him, I suggested that he try to keep things simple. We talked about how things fell apart for our family when dad died and then again when mom died. He said that for him, the single most important thing was to make sure his children got to stay together. That one thing was what mattered most. Family has to stick together.

What matters most is truly what matters most. Help the person simply remember what matters most to them. With all the medical information and dates and schedules being thrown at them like giant hail stones in a thunder storm, help them try to keep things simple. If they don’t want to go through radiation and chemo therapy, honor their request.

When you can measure your remaining life in days, it matters. Put aside everything and listen. That is what matters most.

Compassion Heals

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in compassion, insanity, Mental illness, misdiagnosis

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Where does the spiral into insanity begin?
When does the real whacko/ lunatic reveal its well-disguised, twisted face?

Can a sibling recognize the hijack, an episode or event when your misunderstood, pot-head brother’s behavior altered drastically; when his brain became overwhelmed by the invading intruder. How often is legitimate mental illness caused by an undiagnosed medical condition?

So you have a really bad headache; so bad that you go to an emergency room – three times in three consecutive months. Then you begin to lose your balance and your vision. Not like when you are super-stoned or stinking-drunk, a different category of impairment. Not fall-down, rum-dumb babbling. Not seeing-double drunk. Different.

You convince anyone still willing to listen to your chronic, nearly non-stop complaints about constant pain, to take you to a Different Hospital. For whatever reason, this hospital’s ER does an MRI and finally, you have an answer: a brain tumor. This tumor is malignant. This cancer is aggressive.These odds are not in your favor. How many others suffering with schizophrenia-like behavior (a.k.a.crazy) have brain tumors?

Our great-aunt was institutionalized in an asylum in the ’60’s. I’m old enough to remember going to pick her up after she’d had electro-shock therapy. I now ask myself if she had a brain tumor too? Was it another tragically missed diagnosis/misdiagnosis?

Mental illness is real illness; usually ignored and often misunderstood. If you are fortunate enough to have mental health, don’t judge; show compassion. It heals us all; the giver and the receiver.

Brain Storm

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Brain, drugs, passion, Tumor

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My youngest brother was admitted to the hospital Monday night after falling off a ladder. An MRI showed a tennis ball sized brain tumor. We were told he needed immediate surgery. Tuesday was spent preparing him for a Craniotomy. A digital map was needed of his brain and some of his vital signs required stabilizing. All day Wednesday we anxiously waited.

The wait was excruciating, for him; literally. His pain was extreme. He complained to everyone. Loudly and often. They tried to medicate him. He consistently groaned that it wasn’t even close to touching his pain. He eventually told them that he had been in so much pain, for so long, he had been self-medicating. The doctor he finally revealed this fact to, was unable to get details.

My brother’s life has always been a challenge; he was born in storm, during a hurricane. He had surgery to remove a swallowed penny as a baby. I remember as a kindergartener overhearing my parents concerns about the anesthesia. As a toddler, he climbed on top of a dresser. While falling off, the mirror broke, seriously cutting his throat. That scar runs right along the bottom side of his now grey-bearded jaw bone. On his tenth birthday, he snapped his tibia in two. Surgeries were required to try to repair the breaks; again, concerns about anesthesia. He first learned to play, then master the guitar while recovering. He sketched out entire comic books. Artistic expression was and is his go-to therapy and his primary passion.

Our dear parents are both departed. His relationship with the mother of his two younger children is damaged beyond repair. She is legally out of the picture; he has sole custody. We located his estranged 27 year old daughter via the web and asked her to call us ASAP. She did. They had not spoken for at least a year.

Myself, I’d seen nor spoken to him in well over a year. Our last interaction was at our mom’s funeral, when he awkwardly pulled me into a sobbing, apologetic embrace.

As children, he adored me. When I left home at 18, he was 14 and running with his pack of misfits. Tragically, two of those lost boys took their own lives as troubled teens. Drugs were involved.

He had the surgery yesterday. He is still begging for more drugs. Still in agony, and now paranoid, he is afraid. I am afraid too. I fear his tumor is only a part of this brain storm.

Be Good People!

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Gun Control, School Shootings

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My two youngest children were in school when the Columbine massacre happened. We lived in Colorado. The Middle Level/ High School my kids attended had participated in a track meet on the Columbine campus a week before the shooting. We’d all just been sitting there on the bleachers soaking up the Spring sunshine.

They were in school the day the massacre happened. Our school district was close enough to concern the officials, so the students were in lock-down until we, the parents could go pick our kids up. Columbine defined tragedy for them.

Thursday, upon hearing about yet another tragic shooting massacre, I called my son-in law to ask him what he would say to my granddaughters (if they asked him) about the Oregon school shooting when he picked them up from their school bus stop. (My kids moved from Colorado to Oregon after they grew up.)

I told him that they could call me and talk to me, their Momo, if they needed or wanted to. He asked what I’d said to the kids when Columbine rocked the reality of our world.

It’s not easy to talk to children about these horribly tragic things but we have to. It’s one of the toughest tasks of being a responsible parent. I’d say to my six and nine year old grandchildren just about same thing I said to their aunt and uncle in 1999. I would keep it more simple since they are younger.

“Sadly, there are some very bad people who do horrible things. But never forget, there are way more good people than bad people. There are way more people who want to help you than to hurt you. It’s our duty to be good people and help our families, friends and neighbors to be good people. Always be a helper.”

Please, let’s finally figure out how to be good people and to truly help each other!

Hero

20 Sunday Sep 2015

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Thirty years condensed into thirty minutes (plus two hours)

Yesterday, I visited with a friend that I had not seen for over 30 years. She and I met when I was a freshman in college. She was 1 year older and wiser.

We sat together over a leisurely breakfast and tried to catch up on each others lives in about two short hours. She started by reminding me of two things that she remembered that had happened during the two years we shared in college, the reasons why she still felt connected to me.

Big things can happen when you are youngish. People that you love can suddenly, unexpectedly die. We briefly touched on those goose-bumpy memories. I got teary-eyed.

Next, she wanted to know how I had landed in the mountains. She was genuinely entertained by my stories of living in an isolated, off-grid log cabin with no running water at 9,000′ for six years. She smiled hearing my tales from working at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio and which famous rock stars I had cooked for and driven to perform concerts at Red Rocks.

We traded abbreviated versions of our adult lives. We swapped life-stories; the good, the bad, the happy, the sad. We are both divorced, have children in their 30’s, and have grandchildren that we adore. We are both happy, healthy and grateful.

I am writing to encourage anyone who reads this to look up long-lost friends and reconnect. She looked me up and found me on Linked-In. After a few emails and a phone call, we discovered that we were going to be in the same area at the same time.

It was well worth the effort. She told me the part of those stories that I was not aware of. The way she retold them; I was a hero. Wow, I had no idea. Thanks friend!