# "Interesting times" in the Chinese sense of the word...



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

There's an old Chinese proverb about "living in interesting times", which basically means "troubled times". Guess we're all familiar with that concept nowadays considering what's been going on everywhere the past couple months or so...

I haven't been on Haytalk much for awhile, check in occasionally but that was about it. Was busy with stuff last summer, harvest in Indiana, then the usual stuff over the winter, yall know how it goes... Well, fast forward to this spring...

SO, my wife Betty (who teaches English II pre-AP at a nearby high school on the other side of the Fort Bend County seat town, Richmond/Rosenberg, about 18 miles from the house here on the Needville farm) and my daughter Keira, who's a freshman in the same high school now, got off school for spring break back around the middle of March. Usually the week before the college kids are on spring break. Anyway, we went to Shiner for the weekend spring break started because it was our weekend to take mom to church and take her grocery shopping. The coronavirus pandemic was just basically a "news story" at that point affecting the megacities like NY and San Francisco and stuff like that, no worries here. I was working on the farm at Shiner and Betty, Keira, and Mom actually went to a craft show over in Hallettsville (east from Shiner, Lavaca county seat). They had a real nice time they said. Betty was a little worried about taking Mom out BUT she figured it was better than Mom's other idea, driving down to Victoria (hour south of Shiner, and a good size town at about 80k-100,000 people, but largely a "poorer" community, largely hispanic) and going shopping and eating out and all the other stuff Mom likes to do. Anyway, they did their thing and we went to church in Yoakum (next town over south from Shiner). Went to eat out afterwards mom's latest favorite mexican restaurant there was closed, so ended up eating at her second favorite mexican restaurant across town. Turns out the first case of coronavirus in Lavaca county had eaten at the closed restaurant the day before, and they were on lockdown to totally sterilize the place, along with another joint in Hallettsville he'd eaten at the night before. Oh well, life goes on.

SO, we got mom's groceries (she LOVES shopping at Wally World piddling around in there for a couple hours every Sunday on their scooters getting a bunch of stuff, most of which she doesn't need) and take her home, and we went back to Needville that evening. We're watching the pandemic crap on TV and a lot of stuff was starting to happen, so we were staying home on the farm, pretty much. Before the end of the week of spring break, the gubner announced the closure of all the schools for two weeks and the "stay at home" orders went out. We were going back to Shiner the following weekend at the end of spring break, again, taking either my sister or brother's weekend to go and take mom to church and eat and shopping, covering for them since we're out of town for a few weeks to Indiana and Tennessee later in summer and stuff like that, Jay (my baby brother) goes to car shows with his truck and cars now and then and Julie (younger middle sister, I'm the oldest of the three) has school things (she's a middle school band director in a school about 3-4 miles from my wife's high school she teaches at) or things with her two teenage boys with their school stuff to do on many weekends. I called mom's church preacher in Yoakum and asked what precautions they were taking for the pandemic, which he answered they were basically just 'social distancing' inside the building and doing communion with individual cups for the bread and not passing the plate, the usher keeping the plate so nobody else handles it. Okay, they're a small church of about 25-50 people on a good day, sooo... Our church in Rosenberg/Richmond had already announced they were closing services and doing it all online, with a YouTube of a small service held by the 6 elders and the preacher in the building, with everyone invited to participate at home. Good idea since our church is about 200+ people on a "slow day".

Well, Mom's 74.5 and not in particularly good health. She is about 250 lbs or so, has diabetes, BAD COPD, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, and about 14 other serious, chronic, uncurable health problems for which she takes a veritable cornucopia of medicines every day... Given the "pushing of the panic button" and the virus's affects, particularly on older folks with underlying health conditions, Betty and I discussed it and agreed that mom should NOT go to church, or to eat out, or SHOPPING on Sunday, so I called her and told her we wouldn't be coming up Saturday or Sunday, but I'd come get her groceries on probably Tuesday or Wednesday. Not what Mom wanted to hear, but what she NEEDED to hear, given the situation. My mother is a natural hoarder anyway; she buys groceries like she's feeding a football team of hungry teenagers, despite the fact that it was just her and Dad (until he passed 3.5 years ago) and we laughingly say if we ever get nuked we know where to go, since Shiner is halfway between Houston and San Antonio and Mom has her fridge and freezer and deep freeze literally filled to overflowing and enough can goods to feed an army-- most of which was getting out-of-date so we started sorting through stuff and taking the oldest stuff home with us to eat before it went bad... Needless to say, she WASN'T gonna run out of groceries or meds for a couple days til I got up there to Shiner to go shopping FOR her. She wasn't happy; she loves going to church and especially going out to eat and going shopping, but with the virus and her health issues, NOT a good idea. She grumblingly consents.

SO, Monday afternoon, my uncle from Victoria calls. Mom fell in the house, he'd just gotten off the phone with her when she was going to the bathroom, and she fell coming out of the bathroom and basically went headfirst into the bedroom door jamb across the hall. She had called 911 and then called him. We of course were at Needville, which is 90 miles away from Shiner, and so we start grabbing stuff and shoving it in an overnight bag, Betty and Keira grab their computers to do their online school stuff, we grab the dogs and dog stuff, and jump in the old minivan and take off for Shiner. Uncle Ronel and Aunt Becky take off from Victoria to drive the hour north to Shiner, or meet the EMT's at the hospital in Yoakum 10 minutes south of Shiner. We went on straight to Yoakum and they're already in the parking lot. The hospitals are already restricting visitors and screening people, only ONE family member allowed in, so we decided Betty was probably the healthiest and best able to comprehend and remember the medical stuff they rattle off at you, so she goes in and gets screened and masked and all that, after a while she comes out and gives us a report, and my uncle and aunt head back to Victoria since they can't go in anyway. Given the fact that Uncle Ronel has a plethora of health problems himself and is 70 years old with dialysis every other day, needs a liver and kidney transplant, etc, and Aunt Becky teaches in an elementary school in a small rural district just north of Victoria. They suspended school according to the gubner's orders, BUT since it's a small, poor rural school serving a largely impoverished community with few resources, the teachers still had to go to school every other day of the week to make work packets for the parents to pick up and return to/from the children since they didn't have the resources to do online learning. They've continued this til the end of school. Uncle Ronel and Aunt Becky eat out most meals and go shopping daily, plus take their little granddaughter to/from the same school Aunt Becky works at, so needless to say they were exposed to a LOT of stuff given the size of Victoria and all their activities.

THEN, to top it all off, the Monday mom fell my brother Jay and his wife Leslie went to their job at the county drainage district here in Fort Bend County and at about lunchtime the bosses found out that one of his co-workers had gone a cruise with another guy and his family over spring break. The other guy works for Road and Bridge department of the county and he wisely called his boss before coming to work and he told him they'd been on a cruise and he told him, "don't come to work, STAY HOME FOR TWO WEEKS!" His buddy wasn't so bright and came in to work, including sitting in the morning "all hands" meeting of about 200 people-- it wasn't til lunch that he revealed the fact he had been on a cruise and was exposed, so they immediately sent him home for 2 weeks and told everybody else to "keep coming to work if they're able (as essential services workers) BUT they should STRONGLY consider isolating themselves from other family, etc for two weeks after being exposed to the other guy..." SO, Jay and Leslie went into self-imposed quarantine when not on the job...

TBC... OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Cont'd...

SO, we stayed in Shiner at mom's house on the farm for several days. Betty went to the hospital Tuesday morning and went through the screening process, masked up, etc and basically they locked the doors behind her and told her "you can stay til visiting hours close, but once you leave, you CANNOT come back-- we're going on lockdown, no more visitors allowed AT ALL". SO she stayed til evening and came home and that was that. We called the nurses station twice a day for reports, they decided to keep mom a couple days for observation, since she had a HUGE hematoma on her forehead from hitting the door jamb and a concussion. They had also determined she has atrial fibrillation of the heart and that was probably causing her heart to race and the dizzy spells she'd mentioned a couple weeks earlier. Her home health nurse had been concerned for a few weeks about her heart rate being pretty high (up well over 100 sitting still) and wanted her to go to the doctor, which she kept quiet about and didn't mention to us til right before it all happened, and when I suggested she make an appointment and I'd come drive her to it the weekend before she fell, Betty overheard her conversation with the doc's office and basically she didn't even mention the heart racing thing and downplayed and hem-hawed and so the doc's office basically said, "We're only seeing sick cases at the moment" due to the virus and I guess they thought she just needed a check-up and her prescriptions renewed. Well, they started treating the A-fib with blood thinners and stuff and the word was she'd be out of the hospital before the weekend. Then the next day it was "well, she's having a bad day, so we're gonna keep her into the weekend, we'll see how she's doing Saturday or Sunday. SO, after having been at the Shiner farm for half the week, we decided to go back home to Needville for a few days; Betty and Keira could get more school stuff done (they were JUST setting up the e-learning home-school computer stuff at that point so Betty was getting real busy) and we needed stuff for an extended stay at Shiner, since it was obvious when mom came out of the hospital we'd have to stay with her at least a week or two if not more til she was back on her feet enough to be on her own. We were home a few days, basically in self-imposed isolation, because we knew that we would have to be her caregivers and we didn't need to take the virus to her because for her it would be a virtual death sentence, and by then Fort Bend County was having a full outbreak. It was surreal, because basically the ONLY thing we did was go pick up some groceries and our prescriptions and Fort Bend county was virtually a ghost town, other than the stores which were low on everything. They talked like they might release her Monday or Tuesday so we went back to Shiner, I figured I might as well haul up a load of hay to put in storage up there so we loaded up the truck and went. Stayed at the farm a few more days, mom "had a bad day" so they pushed it back to mid-week before she could get out, then the end of the week, so we drove back home mid-week for a couple days or so. It was surreal in Hallettsville, Shiner, and Yoakum, because after the "nuclear Saturday" ghost town of Fort Bend and Wharton county (county next to us) due to lockdowns, up there it was "life as normal" at that point-- they still saw it as "a Houston and San Antonio thing" that didn't affect the rural area in between, particularly halfway between. Betty went to the grocery store in Yoakum and bought us a big mess of groceries to see us through, a good part of which we took back and forth with us between Needville and Shiner, and she wore a mask and one glove into the store. When she was in line to check out, a couple of young checkout girls were rolling their eyes and made some sh!tty comments under their breath about the mask, and Betty *nearly* went "full teacher mode" on them, but just said, "THANK YOU so much for following all the protocols the company and gubner has put out... we have a HIGH RISK FAMILY MEMBER in the hospital coming home in a few days, and if she gets this, IT *WILL* KILL HER, so we appreciate yall taking these precautions!" Well, when they picked their jaws up off the floor (obviously had NEVER thought of that!) maybe they learned something. Betty was telling me the story as I was backing out of the parking spot to leave, and we were both speechless when this woman got out of her car with her FIVE little kids in tow behind her like little ducks went waddling into the store! I was shaking my head-- little kids like that touch EVERYTHING and constantly have their fingers and hands in their mouths, up their nose, up their butts, you name it... little ones want to stick everything in the world IN THEIR MOUTHS (natural instinct) and preschoolers put their face and hands on EVERYTHING and will lick the windows, doorknobs, etc... I've dealt with enough kids over the years to know that... Yet here this fat woman goes waddling into the store with FIVE RUG RATS tugging at her skirts... I was like "WTF?? Can't you find ANYBODY to babysit those kids for an hour to go to the friggin' store??" I mean, those kids probably smeared their hands and body excretions over TONS of stuff in that store, stuff OTHER people ended up buying... PLUS the kids EXPOSED THEMSELVES to everything every other kid and adult in the store that touched those things had been exposed to... People have ZERO good sense anymore... Then of course they take whatever they were exposed to home and expose everybody else they come into contact with (grandparents, neighbors, etc) to AFTERWARDS!! I gassed up the van and started doing 'pandemic fueling', put on my leather fencing gloves, operate the pump buttons and nozzle ONLY with the right hand, open the vehicle door and gas cap ONLY with the left hand, pull the right glove off by stepping on the fingertips and pulling my hand out, then do the left the same, and use the left glove to pick the right one up by the cuff and drop them both in the floor of the vehicle right in front of the seat, then hand sanitizer before entering the vehicle.

Since Mom wasn't getting out of the hospital anytime soon, we drove back to Needville. We only stopped to get gas at Buccees in Wharton en-route, and did the "pandemic fueling" thing... We got home and did a few odd jobs, we were kinda going crazy at this point so we did make a run to Lowe's for a new shower drain and some fittings and stuff, Keira REALLY wanted to go in to the lumberyard (how bad is it when a teenage girl wants to go into a lumberyard just to see people and do something LOL but I went in alone, avoided everyone else, and wore gloves to get the fittings and stuff and get out quick. When I saw a woman pushing a shopping cart with a toddler in the basket gnawing on the cart handle, I turned and went up a different aisle just to get away from her... I love kids and God loves them, but kids are tiny little disease bags when it comes to stuff like this!!! They don't know any better, it's not their fault, and it's up to the PARENTS to protect them and keep them safe from themselves! PLUS protect everyone else from their body excretions they spread everywhere licking and touching and putting their hands all over everything and picking up everything they can reach, etc... I worked at JCPenney in Houston for awhile after high school... one of my jobs was cleaning ALL the windows floor to ceiling in the back "package pickup" entryway foyer and full length double glass doors every morning... one day I JUST finished getting the windows sparkling clean and they opened the store, and this Mexican woman comes in with her little disease bag trailing behind her, I sh!t you not the [email protected] little brat LICKED THE DOOR HANDLES and then smeared his face and tongue down the ENTIRE LENGTH of the foyer glass windows AND the double glass entry door to the sales floor of the store itself, including THOSE door handles! I could've throttled the little sh!t... BUT that's what kids do... When I drove a bus, I caught kids licking boogers off the windows and seats, picking up stuff off the bus floor AND EATING IT... I was like, "don't do that-- You know I rode THIS VERY BUS my junior year in high school 25 years ago-- do you have ANY IDEA *how many kids* have THROWN UP on that floor over the years?? And we DON'T wash it... just a dusting of cherry-scented sawdust gets thrown on it and swept up after it dries out!" Kids can't help it but stick their fingers up their noses, in their mouths, and up their butts, and touch everything or stick it in their mouths... it's how they discover the world... yet people prance through the stores with their little unsupervised brats licking and touching EVERYTHING and gnawing on the shopping cart handles in a pandemic like NOTHING... IDIOTS!!! Then when you point that out, you get defensive libtard types shrieking your some kind of nazi because they're probably single mothers with no babysitter available and nobody to watch their kids or something... it's nuts! Saw an entire family one day in HEB when I had to make a med run for mom, just out for a "Sunday stroll" because they were tired of sitting at home! NUTS!!!

Anyway, we fixed the shower drain and did some other odd jobs-- figured Keira could get some "on the job" training in plumbing helping me out under the house, and stuff like that. Mom was supposed to get out of the hospital in a day or two, so we loaded up more hay for storage in Shiner and made another trip back, non-stop. After a few days at the farm, they pushed her getting out back AGAIN for a few days, so we decided to come back home for a few days. Again, only stopped for gas at Buccees, didn't go in, and all gloved up at the farthest pump. Stayed home didn't go out at all. We made that trip about 3-4 times over the 3 weeks Mom ended up being in the hospital, got the hay storage pen brimming full at Shiner, which is good, particularly with the cheap gas prices due to the pandemic!

TBC... OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Cont'd... SO, FINALLY after nearly 3 weeks in the hospital, with NO visitation after the second day, only calls to the nurse's station, they called us asking if we could "come into the hospital for 'training' on how to get mom up" that Friday before she got out... we said "sure" and made another trip to Shiner, figuring this time we'd have to stay for the 'long haul'. Basically, the "training" served two purposes-- 1) they wanted to make sure that we were actually going to STAY with her when she went home, not do a "stop, drop, and bye see you next week!" type thing, and 2) excuse to get us in the hospital to settle her down and get her to get with the program-- by this point she was getting 'hospital psychosis' and wanted OUT, but she was refusing to do her PT and giving the nurses and physical therapist a hard time... She STILL had a huge goose-egg on her forehead and was barely walking, and she complained they "didn't let her do anything" and all this... she was on oxygen and they had tried to wean her off it unsuccessfully, and they told us they couldn't turn her loose til she walked to the nurses station (with the fall belt on and the PT guy beside her and nurse behind her with the O2 bottle and wheelchair to "back her up" so she could sit down if she was tired and had to rest a moment. Everybody in the hospital was in masks and gloves FULL TIME and with no visitors, well, I could see how that would upset a person, particularly one not liking being in a hospital to begin with-- never see a human face or a human touch ungloved... NO family or visitors, and we could only get her on her phone once or twice in three weeks... I had told Betty "I know my mom, and we're gonna have to play a little "good cop, bad cop" with her to get her off her butt and WORKING toward getting out of here!" When the nurse and PT guy were done and she was griping about them not letting her do anything and how much she didn't like the PT guy, I told her, "you want out of here, you gotta get up and WALK and walk past that nurses station like they said... you want to be home, we want you home, but YOU GOTTA be able to get up out of your chair and get down the hall to the toilet and back-- we CAN'T carry you and do all that FOR you... We can help you and cook for you and take care of you, but you GOTTA be able to walk from your chair to toilet and back..." I was the "bad cop" (which she usually thinks I am anyway so I'm in character) and Betty was the "good cop" encouraging her and "look on the bright side, they're trying to help you" lil Miss Merry Sunshine stuff which I don't do well LOL

They called us back Monday to come back; she's on a "strike" and won't eat or talk to the nurses, and we come in and calm her down and get her motivated... Much to their shock and amazement, she walks with the PT guy and nurses's backing with the wheelchair and O2 to the nurses station, past it, nearly to the back door of the hospital, which I jokingly said she was "making a run for"... her O2 levels were okay, so they released her. I wrenched the h3ll out of my back, had to basically PULL her into the van to go home, but we made it. Drove around the farm and looked things over, and used Dad's old wheelchair he bought to wheel her up the ramp into the house. Even took her out on the back porch near sundown a couple days for some fresh air and sunshine. Tuesday she was starving for a good chicken fried steak from Daily Treat in Moulton (next town north of Shiner) and so I called in an order and drove over and picked it up for us all... DARN good CFS!!! Anyway, she enjoyed about half of it (she never eats more than half of anything at one sitting) and put the rest in the fridge for her. She did well for about 3 days, then started going downhill... she couldn't make it all the way to the bathroom, so we used the wheelchair to wheel her down there, then she could manage to get into the wheelchair from her lift chair in the living room and then from the wheelchair to the potty and back, but after a few days she was struggling more. It got to where bathroom trips were a 45 minute to an hour long odyssey... Betty stays pretty much on "school hours" year round, getting up at 5:00-5:30 and going to bed around 10-10:30 at night. I'm a night owl, I typically go to bed around 2-2:30 and get up around 10-10:30 am, if I'm not doing farm work requiring getting up earlier, and Keira is something of a night owl as well and with no school, she was staying up all night and ended up crashing at 6-7 am after being up chatting with her friends all night, and sleeping til 2-4 in the afternoon. Betty had a lot of zoom meetings with her teacher compatriots and school principal/leadership to set up the e-learning and all that, and then she and Keira had online schoolwork to do, "office hours" for kids to zoom meet with Betty to answer questions or help them with their work, etc.

We took helping mom in shifts... Betty would get up about 5 or so and sit with her til about noon when I got up, then she'd do her zoom meetings and office hours. I'd sit with mom while she did her zoom meetings and "office hours" for kids in the noon-4 or 5 time frame, then we'd both be with her til about 10, do the cooking, cleaning, help mom as needed when she needed a bathroom trip, etc. Betty would go to bed about 11 and I'd sit up with mom til about 3-4 am, when I'd be passing out and go to bed, and Keira would sit in the chair in the living room and do her chats and computer learning stuff while mom *usually* slept during that time frame-- if mom woke up and needed a bathroom trip or whatever, Keira could come wake up either me or Betty to come help do it, depending on who's time it was closer to. Not ideal, but it worked.

Well, I had been really emphasizing protecting her from the virus during all this; Jay and Leslie were still self-quarantining, as Jay is a partsman for the drainage district, and he has been and still is running all over creation on parts runs every day-- even during the worst of the lockdown... He stopped at five different places in Houston in ONE DAY during the lockdowns getting parts, and was in Victoria the next day... basically just the "gloves, mask, and hand sanitizer" routine for protection. Julie, Tommy, and the boys were pretty much locked down at home in their home in Needville in town itself, and we were at this point living in Shiner with mom and not going out any more than absolutely necessary. Uncle Ronel was still at dialysis every other day, and Aunt Becky was still at school every other day, and they were babysitting their kindergartner granddaughter nearly every day while her mom, my cousin, was at work at the Caterpillar plant. They finally DID minimize their shopping and eating out routines, well after the outbreak was under way, so I was basically hoping they WOULDN'T want to come out to the farm to see Mom after she was home and discouraged that to the extent possible. BUT, with mom's condition worsening, I finally sort of had a change of heart... knowing with each passing day it was looking more and more like she'd have to go BACK into the hospital, after discussing it with my siblings we decided it was probably best to have everyone visit her, because we KNEW that 1) NOBODY would be allowed to see her in the hospital, since it was in lockdown, and 2) we didn't know what the outcome would be, or if she was going to keep going down and pass away...

SO, Thursday and Friday everybody came up in turns and got a good visit in... Jay and Leslie came Thursday, Julie and Tommy and the boys came Friday morning, and Uncle Ronel, Aunt Becky, cousin Courtney, and little Nalia came Friday afternoon.... we were having to use a invalid power lift (electric engine hoist, basically) that Dad had bought years ago for when he would fall, because he was 525 lbs at his heaviest and one time Jay and I both straining our guts out, with him still able to help get up, nearly dropped a nut getting him up, I told him then he was gonna have to start calling 911 when he fell, because 1) I wasn't 25 anymore and couldn't dead lift a Chevy 350 engine block anymore, and 2) he was SO heavy it would take an entire football team to get him up! SO he bought the power lift thing. Dad had passed 3.5 years ago and it hadn't been used for some time prior to that, so I had to charge the batteries for 2 days and go buy another patient sling seat to use it, and roll it up like a "horse collar" (thing you put under your arms and around your back, like they use to lift the astronauts from the ocean into the helicopters back in the old Mercury/Gemini/Apollo days) to get mom up out of the chair, as she couldn't stand by this time. She'd run out of steam and Betty and I had managed to get her sat down in the bathroom floor a couple days earlier, and I about busted a gut getting her back up with Betty's help. At that point it was back into the Depends, and she couldn't stand long enough for us to clean her up, and I had to hold her up for a day or two til we got the patient lift thing working, then we could use it to hold her up, but it was very hard on her-- no upper body strength and having the sling pulling up on her ribs and shoulders to hold up her weight was painful.

TBC... OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Cont'd... SO, we put her back into the hospital after a week at home... We figured she probably had a UTI or some other infection that was setting her back. She didn't have pneumonia, which she commonly got in the hospital or which put her in the hospital several times over the past 5-6 years, which was good, but she was going backwards and unable to stand, let alone walk. They found out that basically they couldn't keep her heart regulated with the meds... she was basically on the strongest thing they had and it wasn't working, or wouldn't KEEP working-- up one day, down the next, etc. Couldn't get it regulated and STAY regulated... she had a UTI and an infection on a sore she had on her bottom for awhile, they put her on antibiotics and after a week, basically the antibiotics weren't really working and she wasn't healing up and her heart wasn't stabilizing. They called me one night about 11 because she was crying and worked up, and refusing to eat or drink or talk to them or take her meds, etc. I talked to her about an hour or so and managed to calm her down-- she wanted us to "call the lawyer" to FORCE them to let her out of the hospital, because they were "trying to kill her", we basically told her we were working on it so she could come home... I tried to get her mind on to other things and mentioned a friend of hers at church had sent her a card and asked how she was doing, and she started crying again, she was so touched... I finally got her calmed down and she agreed to take her meds and try to eat something and "wait for us to get her out"... Basically they called us and said we had to make a decision-- insurance won't keep them in the hospital, and basically they'd done all they could *medically* to help her, so basically we were looking at "skilled nursing" (meaning a nursing home) OR bringing her home on hospice...

Dad had had hospice when the third chemo infusion had basically thrown his system into a tailspin and his heart was giving out after 2 years with the bile duct cancer he had which had started growing again after 2 years of chemo pills- he had a lot of health problems too, including post-polio syndrome and neuropathy which basically was making him an invalid, along with heart failure and diabetes... They had done a wonderful job helping him and us and made his passing as comfortable as possible 3.5 years ago...

I didn't want to "give up on her" but at the same time an honest appraisal dictated that her situation was coming to an end... they couldn't stabilize her heart, she was on the strongest heart meds they had (as Dad had been) and it wasn't working, nor was it GOING to work (they told us with Dad that basically the meds he was on was the 'last resort' meds usually given to someone with a traumatic injury, used to stabilize them for a few days until their system stabilized naturally-- the drugs ONLY work for about a week and then quit having ANY effect). The antibiotics weren't working-- it wasn't a staph infection (that REAL bad one that tends to run rampant in hospitals and nursing homes that's drug resistant) but it was a coccidial infection that the antibiotics were "holding back" but not eliminating, and she wasn't healing up anyway, so it was just a matter of time before the antibiotics stopped working and she got a fatal septic infection or something anyway...

SO, the choice was "skilled nursing" in a nursing home, which of course are all in TOTAL LOCKDOWN and basically she'd never get to see ANYBODY again-- even if they DID manage to "prolong her life" given that those drug-resistant staph infections are RAMPANT in nursing homes, as well as the covid thing now, it was virtually a death sentence IMHO sending her to a nursing home anyway, and she would DIE ALONE with no family allowed in. OR we could do hospice, where at least she'd be at home, we'd take care of her and she could see everyone one last time or two and say goodbye, and not be tended to by mostly uncaring strangers in masks and gloves with nobody familiar around. SO we brought her home on hospice... She had a good visit from everybody the day after she got home, including Jay and Leslie who stayed a couple days, and Uncle Ronel and Aunt Becky, her only brother and SIL... Julie and Tommy and the boys came up one day and went back home, and Julie came back later in the week with Ian, her youngest son, 3 weeks younger than our daughter Keira. Tristan, their oldest, is a senior in high school and had a bunch of final exams and college level tests to do online and couldn't come. She had a nice phone conversation with her favorite cousin Troy up in East Texas near the Louisiana border, and her second fave cousin south of Dallas... She and I had a nice conversation in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, she was worried I wasn't getting enough sleep, and worried about the boys, and Keira to a lesser extent... We've always raised Keira in an "unsheltered" way; I felt it best to simply answer her questions directly and honestly as she grew up, not "whitewash" stuff or shelter her overprotectively from the realities of life, both good and bad... her cousins, on the other hand, are far more 'delicate' and sheltered in their upbringing-- Tristan has Aspberger's syndrome, similar to autism, and Ian has some emotional problems, speech impediments which he's outgrowing, and is rather withdrawn and very sensitive... Keira, on the other hand, has always been athletic, capable, strong, and very mature for her age... she's might right arm, on the farm and in life generally... Mom knew that and didn't worry about Keira as much as the boys. Anyway, we had a nice chat for awhile and then she went to sleep and I went to bed awhile later, and after that she didn't talk much at all, didn't eat or drink (had only sipped at stuff before that anyway). She lingered a few days and Thursday afternoon at 4:30 she passed away... we all sat by her bed and Ian had gotten Tristan on the phone and they talked to her as she passed away... I think she was holding out to hear Tristan's voice one last time-- he was "her baby", first grandbaby and she kept him every day for almost two years after he was born because Julie was SO busy in school... she's always had a special place for Tristan and Ian in her heart. Always bothered me a bit that she wasn't as concerned about Keira; I don't know if it was because she was a girl, or strong and capable and mature for her age (unlike the boys) or because she was *my* daughter, and I was the 'least favorite' kid... She doted on the boys and left Keira "out in the cold" from our perspective more than she should have, but that's water under the bridge now...

Anyway, she passed May 7th. We had her funeral in a pounding thunderstorm graveside on the following Tuesday. She and Dad had done pre-arranged funerals years before, but they "cheaped out" on some things that Mom then added for Dad's when she made his arrangements, which added a BUNCH to the cost, but given the number of co-workers and friends he had come, it was a good thing she did. We had agreed between the three of us NOT to add on anything this go round... she didn't have any really "close friends" and her cousins are all in poor health on the east side of the state a couple hundred miles away, and while the funeral regulations weren't "onerous" here like in some places I've read or heard about, they DID require 'social distancing" and so the graveside funeral was fine... Fortunately Shiner Public Cemetery built a small steel roofed stone-sided funeral pavilion about 15-20 years ago, with roll up shop-type doors all the way around and a bier for the coffin in front, a stained glass cross window in the front, and an extended concrete slab all the way around, so her funeral was held in there-- they did away with the old "tent and chairs" routine in favor of the "chapel" shelter pavilion... There was seating for the family and everyone else brought lawn chairs or stood "social distancing" in the back of the pavilion, and managed to get in out of the pounding rain.

I had chosen not to speak at mom's funeral, as did my sister and brother. We offered to let the grandkids or my uncle speak, but they chose not to. Mom and I had an "interesting" relationship which I might go into more later, interesting in the "Chinese sense of the word"... I made a rather emotional soliloquy at Dad's funeral after the eulogy, as did my brother and sister, but I just didn't feel that way about making a speech at Mom's that wasn't really "in my heart" and I'm not into stretching the truth beyond belief or outright spreading fertilizer around "just because"... We made our peace and what needed to be said had been said, so I just decided for myself to leave it at that. I think Julie and Jay felt pretty much the same way. It was a nice funeral with maybe 20-30 people in attendance. The worst thing was, the funeral home TOTALLY BUTCHERED the obituary; the funeral director has some health problems and had pulled Dad's file when we went up there, since the prearranged funerals were in his name, and he'd done his 3.5 years ago, and we went over everything STEP BY STEP with him as to her details, family, extended family, etc. A lady at the funeral home actually did the obit and she wasn't in the room, and he apparently 'didn't give her the details" and had a doctors appointment or whatever and she made a royal hash of it... Betty called once or twice and Julie called once or twice to help straighten it out, but it was STILL a hash when it was printed in the paper, her only brother was listed as a BIL and Dad's sister was listed as her sister, and a lot of other stupid stuff... That kind of irked me because 1) if SHE was going to do the obit, why didn't SHE sit in the room with us when we were making the arrangments?? and 2) it wasn't like she wasn't called THREE OR FOUR TIMES to get it straightened out ahead of time... instead it was ALL wrong-- the obits, the funeral notices, the cards they handed out at the service, ALL of it! We decided to have our new preacher from Rosenberg come do her funeral, and we had a zoom call with him one day to discuss everything and give him her life story and details and stuff, and evidently he didn't make notes or whatever because he ended up taking all the details from the obit or funeral home stuff and so his EULOGY was all wrong on the details... just crazy! It wasn't really his fault so much-- if the funeral home people had done THEIR JOB right, it wouldn't have happened... oh well, done now...

Later! OL J R


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

I'm sorry to hear of your families loss. Send me a PM anytime if you want somebody to talk with. I'm sure I'm not the only one to hope to see your posts on Haytalk more often, but hopefully about more cheerful subjects. Tim


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

So, while I hate to use the term "blessing" in regards to this terrible mess inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic and all that has accompanied it, things could have been a LOT WORSE for us...

I remember the verse, "God worketh all things together for GOOD for them who love the Lord"... That's probably the best way to sum it up... This pandemic has been a total mess, really screwed up everyone's lives in some form or fashion, and we're just at the tip of the iceberg of the fallout from all this mess and what all we have to endure to come from it (economically and otherwise I'm afraid) but things would have been a LOT WORSE for us if Betty and Keira WOULDN'T have been out of school in all this-- I couldn't have take care of Mom alone, no way, and they couldn't have taken THIS MUCH time off... We stayed healthy through it all, despite the fact that Fort Bend County has basically plateaued at about 2000 cases, versus Lavaca County which has 6 cases, so needless to say we've been spending MOST of our time there and doing as much of our shopping and stuff THERE as we possibly can, and avoiding going out in Fort Bend county as much as humanly possible... We have to get our prescriptions refilled and occasional grocery runs, and Betty had to go to school today to clean out her room, which is only by appointment at a set time with NO help or contact with anybody else... Heck even the hick town of Needville itself (about 2200 people) has over 20 cases, so we haven't done anything in town here for about 6 weeks now...

I truly feel for families who've lost loved ones in this mess... with the hospitals and nursing homes on lockdown, depending on the area and how stringent the regulations are, they might not have been able to see their loved ones AT ALL. My niece had her third child April 1st in Indiana, and they told her ahead of time only the DADDY would be allowed in and couldn't stay past visiting hours, not sure if they could return or not... The Yoakum hospital DID tell us they were allowing family in after the screening and masking process for "end of life" situations, but otherwise, NO VISITORS ALLOWED... (well, unless you're being "trained" in how to help up a person out of bed/chair to get to the potty, who's being a pain in the butt and having a little "medical mutiny" for them to deal with). A LOT of places probably don't even allow that. I feel for the people who have passed away, surrounded not by loved ones or familiar faces, but surrounded by cold masked figures in gloves and masks, devoid of any human touch for fear of spreading the virus... and those who didn't get to say goodbye, who didn't even get the comfort of a decent funeral service to say goodbye to their loved one... It's just so terrible... so sad. And, in a lot of ways, SO unnecessary.

This whole thing has been, in large part, a kneejerk overreaction that came TOO LATE to really do much good... Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL IN FAVOR of SENSIBLE and PRACTICAL precautions... we were taking them basically from the moment it became a "serious thing", even shortly BEFORE the gubmint decided to shut down everything-- except "essential services" like abortion clinics, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc... H3ll they even closed the BEACH down here... crazy! I mean, issue directives, have the usual beach patrol out, remind people to only stay in family groups and stay 10-20 feet apart from all other groups... we're not talking about the friggin' NJ boardwalk or Pensacola or Miami Beach or Long Beach in California or whatever where there's a GAZILLION people @ssholes-to-elbows crowds, we're talking rural beaches in the middle of nowhere like Matagorda beach, etc... not even Galveston... I remember watching the Fla gubner and some of his stormtroopers standing there on TV with him glowering at the camera like Gestapo agents, as the gubner threatened to arrest all the spring break college kids that were swarming the place (like normal) the week after the high school spring break here... because they weren't "social distancing" on the beaches, which were CLOSED and they were flooding the bars, which were SUPPOSED to be closed... I thought to myself then, "How many GAZILLION bucks is THIS going to cost them??" The economies of beach destinations like Florida, Pensacola, Galveston, Corpus Christi , California, etc all DEPEND on tourist bucks, and a HUGE chunk of that comes from college spring breakers, blowing their parent's money on partying, drinking, and chasing tail during spring break on the beaches and bars and clubs... I told Betty then, "I give it a few weeks, month or so at most, and the gubmint will begin to realize just HOW MUCH this is going to knock the economy into a cocked hat, and they'll come on the TV and be like "everything is fine, go back to work, and for pity's sake GO BUY SOME STUFF-- GO SHOPPING and BLOW SOME MONEY to get the economy going again..." That's pretty much what's happening... I mean, lets face it... our economy is SO fragile and brittle nowadays that even an OFF CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SEASON can throw the economy into a tailspin and cause a recession... yet here we are, shutting down the ENTIRE COUNTRY for WEEKS ON END... do you have ANY IDEA how that's going to screw things up?? Every "economic indicator" is going to be thrown COMPLETELY out of whack-- from earnings reports, unemployment, defaults, bankruptcies, trade, energy, you name it... ALL in a cocked hat, ALL AT ONCE! I told Betty and sat down with Keira one night and told her how I lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, how "the worlds most powerful evil empire" collapsed virtually overnight and within a year the wall had come down and the Soviet Union broke up into the Confederation of Independent States (CIS-- is that even a thing anymore is it just "Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Georgia, etc. all independent countries??) Anyway, NOBODY thought that could happen. Basically, the US had "spent" the Soviets into bankruptcy with the Star Wars missile defense program, which the Soviets had to match, and their economy had been in shambles for years anyway... The old Soviet system worked well when they had everybody believing in the "new Communist man" and "the coming universal worker's paradise of the proletariat" when everybody fell in line and did their part just out of sheer patriotism and belief they were contributing to the coming "new age of man" that communism was to usher in (if you've never read Boris Chertok's books "Rockets and People" about his life in the Soviet Union and history of their space program, and the ultimate deterioration of the Soviet system, you should! He was an unrepentant communist and believed in the communist ideals that were the foundational dogma of their system, despite the obvious self-admitted mistakes and abuses that ultimately led to their downfall, when his country was "hijacked by gangsters" after the Soviet collapse...) When years of privation stretched to decades of privation and the next generation came along that didn't really believe in all the hype of the "new man" theories of the coming "worker's paradise", and when Stalin and his thugs were gone and the fear of being thrown into the gulag for years until you were dead, or being shot in the back of the head in some nameless forest was gone, their system slowly, inexorably ground to a halt the more time passed. Even then, I said the US was only a step and a half behind them... our unprecedented spending that paid for the "Star Wars" program and huge defense buildup of the 80's that bankrupted the Soviet Union has set the pattern that NOW is SO FAR out of control that it's just a matter of time before our entire economy collapses... When you have people running for President wanting, with a STRAIGHT FACE, to promise EVERY adult in the US $1200 a month "guaranteed minimum income" for life, WHAT do you THINK will ultimately happen??? You can't just print money to solve your problems but that's all our gubmint knows how to do anymore... The economy stumbles-- do a stimulus package, bailouts, qualitative easing-- print money willy-nilly and THROW it at the problem it it goes away... for a little while, til it comes back twice as bad... like a junkie looking for his next fix to make the pain and problems go away, for a little while, a little bit less time between pain and problems each time, and they get worse every time, til they can't do enough junk to stay alive... That's about where we're at now, or soon will be...

Batten down the hatches, it's gonna be a bumpy ride... OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Wethay said:


> I'm sorry to hear of your families loss. Send me a PM anytime if you want somebody to talk with. I'm sure I'm not the only one to hope to see your posts on Haytalk more often, but hopefully about more cheerful subjects. Tim


Thanks... writing is a coping mechanism for me LOL I appreciate it! OL J R


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## RockyHill (Apr 24, 2013)

So sorry for your loss. It is good that you've been able to deal with the relationship with your family in the way you have. You sound like you have peace with that which is very important.

When I first heard about all the restrictions being placed on people being together the first thought I had was about all of the end of life events. Unfortunately that became personal to me. We lost my mom's oldest sister (101) and went through the ordeal of separation. Not being able to be together with loved ones is terrible. Here in Kentucky the governor has this big "light up your homes/buildings green for compassion for the families that have lost loved ones to Covid-19", that really strikes a nerve with me. Yes, I have sympathy for those families but no more than for all families that have lost loved ones.

Again, you have our deepest sympathy.

Shelia & Jeff


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Luke we missed ya around here.

Sorry about momma. I lost mine 5 years ago and we were close, so it was extra tough.

Hang out here for a while.


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## NebTrac (Aug 12, 2014)

Glad to see you back writing. Thanks for the update and we are sorry for the loss, but glad you were able to be around there. Prayers sent.

Troy


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

My condolences JR.....the dust will run out of all of our hourglasses one day, you made the right choices....may she Rest In Peace.


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## clowers (Feb 11, 2011)

Glad your back JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

RockyHill said:


> So sorry for your loss. It is good that you've been able to deal with the relationship with your family in the way you have. You sound like you have peace with that which is very important.
> 
> When I first heard about all the restrictions being placed on people being together the first thought I had was about all of the end of life events. Unfortunately that became personal to me. We lost my mom's oldest sister (101) and went through the ordeal of separation. Not being able to be together with loved ones is terrible. Here in Kentucky the governor has this big "light up your homes/buildings green for compassion for the families that have lost loved ones to Covid-19", that really strikes a nerve with me. Yes, I have sympathy for those families but no more than for all families that have lost loved ones.
> 
> ...


Quite true... I grieve with you in your loss. Take care and God bless! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

somedevildawg said:


> My condolences JR.....the dust will run out of all of our hourglasses one day, you made the right choices....may she Rest In Peace.


Thanks... sometimes there's just no "good" solution, just the best one you have available.

My relationship with my mom in particular was very strained, almost nonexistent, for part of my life, but later in our lives I forgave her for what she did to us growing up, and we came to terms. I considered my Grandmother to be more my mother than "mom" was, but it was what it was. It wasn't all her fault, she had some issues and things that I think truly were undiagnosed mental illness, particularly earlier in life. You'd never know it talking to her, to outsiders she was "the sweetest woman in the world"-- at home, with us, though, completely different... at one point she was more like a monster. BUT, we put it all behind us the last 15-20 years or so, and "smoked the peace pipe" in the terms of my ancestors... but like one great uncle in East Texas said one time of a period of strife he had with his brother and sister in law, that they eventually forgave each other for, "I can forgive, but I [email protected] sure can't forget!" Not in a "I'm gonna hold this over your head forever, and remind you of it at every opportunity"... that's not TRUE forgiveness... No, he was talking about remember in a way that "I know what you did, I know what kind of person you really are deep down, what you're capable of, even if we're at peace now".... sorta "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME" kind of thing.

I asked Dad one time WHY he worked all those overtime hours and left us to her "tender mercies" (which were none too tender I assure you), WHY he "abandoned" us when we needed him the most, and buried himself in his work... He was silent awhile and looked slightly stricken; I don't know that he had ever really thought of it that way, that him working 16 hours a day 7 days a week and providing a big paycheck for her to blow, but only being home long enough to sleep, shower, eat, and change clothes wasn't what we needed the MOST... He just said he "did the best he could at the time" and "did what he thought was right at the time"... Guess that's about all the answer I could ever get... she made his life a living h3ll for a LONG time too, which is why he worked so much overtime.

Well, it's all water under the bridge now... I know I wasn't a model son, but which one of us was the child, and which was SUPPOSED to be the responsible adult?? My wife and family know ALL the stories, and my wife said it's amazing we all turned out to be good, responsible people, IN SPITE OF everything that happened to us growing up... I'm amazed myself sometimes that I never ended up on a rooftop with a rifle somewhere, because I caught it EVERYWHERE... school was in some ways WORSE than home, and home was h3ll most of the time I assure you! My only "outlet" was farming... I'd climb on a tractor at 4:30 when I got off the bus and stay in the field til 9:30 or 10 at night... day after day after day... It's all I had. I get a little wan listening to other people talk about their "childhood" and "normal" relationship with their mother, and I wonder what that would have been like. I didn't have much of a childhood, and what I did have was simply awful. I had to grow up fast... and I remember that parable about "too much weight on a young back" and believe me I've got the scars, that you can see and those you can't see...

At one point she pointed a loaded .357 pistol in my face and cocked it. A few years earlier when I was about 12 or 13, after a particularly savage beating, I sat on the steps sweating my @ss off in the heat and "licking my wounds" and found myself contemplating how to sabotage the steering of her car to cause her to wreck out and hopefully get killed. I realized just HOW MESSED UP that was, and Grandma agreed to let me move in. Dad wouldn't hear of it and tried to make me come home, but I finally pulled him aside and told him what had happened, what I nearly did, and that this wouldn't end well... either she'd kill me, or I'd end up killing her, because I was just about at the breaking point, so I had moved out because it was the only thing I COULD do. He was quiet awhile and simply nodded his head and said I could move in with Grandma.

I was angry, VERY angry, for a LONG time, mad at her, mad at the world, and mad at myself... I hated her for a long time, hated the world, and hated myself... but I finally realized after a long time and after having a .38 revolver at my temple contemplating suicide, that I could either let her win, or do my best to enjoy life IN SPITE of the things she did, and the things that happened to me. Life is tough, we're not promised a rose garden or easy time of things, but "God doesn't test us beyond what we're able"... I could either sink into the abyss of self-hatred and self medicate with drugs and alcohol and shattered relationships, give in to hatred and self-immolation, OR I could do the best I could to enjoy life as best I could each day, do what was right and let the rest sort itself out... "Living well is the best revenge!"

We all suffered something in the past, but that doesn't mean we have to be a prisoner to the past... we CAN CHOOSE to move past it, to overcome it and live life the fullest we can IN SPITE OF IT... One path is the path to destruction, the other path leads to redemption and forgiveness and peace and some measure of happiness. That's why when I hear about these morons like the trenchcoat punks shooting up a school or rich idiots shooting into crowds from a hotel room, I have ZERO sympathy for them... they CHOSE the wrong path, instead of STRUGGLING and WORKING and CLAWING to pull themselves up onto a BETTER PATH... they took "the easy way out".

In spite of everything, I did the best I could, I have no regrets. I stood by my parents and grandparents, took care of them and the farms, helped them as best I could, took care of them in their infirmity and illness and did the best I could, and walked them to the grave. I fulfilled my obligations to MY FAMILY, even when I perfectly understand WHY some folks move 3,000 miles away from their family and parents and only see them maybe once or twice a year for a few days, if that, maybe call them once a month. After Dad passed, I called mom *almost* every day, and days when I didn't or couldn't usually Jay or Julie did. Just because it was the right thing to do, and she needed it. I always did the best I could for them. I wasn't a perfect son or grandson, but I did the best I could.

Anyway, in the end, that's all we CAN do. Like my sister said after the funeral, "we're all orphans now" so it's time to move on to the next phase of life.

Later and take care! OL J R


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Well said.....it's all we can do, nothing more. It's the hand we are dealt and we have to play those cards...even a shit hand can be salvaged with the right moves and a little luck. 
My mother passed on Jan 6, 2020 after taking care of her for a long time....(less time than she took care of me  ) I'm glad we got to miss this debacle, just by the hair on our chin....thanks have to go to God for not allowing us to go thru this ChiCom mess we've been having to deal with....I woulda been in jail somewhere soaking up the ChiCom....wasn't anyone gonna tell me I couldn't see my mother, I had moved her back home anyway so it wouldn't have affected us, thankfully we didn't have to go thru it.

Enjoy your family JR


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## Ox76 (Oct 22, 2018)

That part about finding yourself contemplating on how to kill an abusive parent? Yeah... me too. I was that kid. At 12 years old. Except I had two I had to stop - the asshole and my evil stepmother. That's a messed up thing for a kid to be thinking about because it seems that's the only way out of it. I feel ya on that one. And with the beatings. Yep. Me too. Never had a gun pointed at me and cocked but was knocked out in the front yard with a 2x4 one day. Yep. The "good old days". Spent a lot of time outside and out of sight. Even then I was screamed at and accused of "not wanting to be part of the family" when every time they saw me it triggered some sort of hatred or something. Bizarre stuff.

All I know is I was brought into this world as a "fix" to his first marriage (he's on number 3 now) because he was unfaithful and "another baby will fix everything". Well, all I can figure is that I was a constant reminder of his f&*#ups and that was why he hated me and my dickhead older brother could do no wrong and was the golden child. He is the biggest liar that side of the Mississippi and whispers in his ear just what the old man needs to hear. Makes me shudder with the cringiness of it all.

Sorry to hear of your loss, bud. Glad writing helps you. Please stick around and tell us more stories!


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

I guess I can count myself lucky; I have a great relationship with my parents, but I was unfortunate to have married a narcissist. I endured plenty of mental abuse from my ex; it led to an attempted suicide. Lucky for me, I walked out with an empty gun. It gave me time to really think about how precious life is, and I will never allow anyone to send me down that road again. Mental illness is a bigger problem than most people realize.

I am sorry for your loss.


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## Ox76 (Oct 22, 2018)

That's the silver lining behind these clouds - those of us that make it through are stronger than the average person can ever be.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

luke strawwalker said:


> Thanks... sometimes there's just no "good" solution, just the best one you have available.
> 
> My relationship with my mom in particular was very strained, almost nonexistent, for part of my life, but later in our lives I forgave her for what she did to us growing up, and we came to terms. I considered my Grandmother to be more my mother than "mom" was, but it was what it was. It wasn't all her fault, she had some issues and things that I think truly were undiagnosed mental illness, particularly earlier in life. You'd never know it talking to her, to outsiders she was "the sweetest woman in the world"-- at home, with us, though, completely different... at one point she was more like a monster. BUT, we put it all behind us the last 15-20 years or so, and "smoked the peace pipe" in the terms of my ancestors... but like one great uncle in East Texas said one time of a period of strife he had with his brother and sister in law, that they eventually forgave each other for, "I can forgive, but I [email protected] sure can't forget!" Not in a "I'm gonna hold this over your head forever, and remind you of it at every opportunity"... that's not TRUE forgiveness... No, he was talking about remember in a way that "I know what you did, I know what kind of person you really are deep down, what you're capable of, even if we're at peace now".... sorta "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME" kind of thing.
> 
> ...


I'm married to a woman, 25 years now, who grew up in a family somewhat like yours. Her dad avoided home because the mother (my MIL) drove him crazy. He finally wised up, divorced her and found a younger woman. Fast forward 35 years and I'm stuck with the MIL now.  She's a real handful. I can't even describe how crazy this person is and the strain it puts on us. My wife's brother and sister haven't talked to the mother in years and want nothing to do with her.

Luke, I'm real sorry for what you went and are going through. Nobody should have to endure that... I got choked up reading your story.

I hope somehow you can keep your life of story sharing and positivity going. I for one will say I always enjoy reading what you have to say, You have a story telling skill and gift.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Ox76 said:


> That part about finding yourself contemplating on how to kill an abusive parent? Yeah... me too. I was that kid. At 12 years old. Except I had two I had to stop - the asshole and my evil stepmother. That's a messed up thing for a kid to be thinking about because it seems that's the only way out of it. I feel ya on that one. And with the beatings. Yep. Me too. Never had a gun pointed at me and cocked but was knocked out in the front yard with a 2x4 one day. Yep. The "good old days". Spent a lot of time outside and out of sight. Even then I was screamed at and accused of "not wanting to be part of the family" when every time they saw me it triggered some sort of hatred or something. Bizarre stuff.
> 
> All I know is I was brought into this world as a "fix" to his first marriage (he's on number 3 now) because he was unfaithful and "another baby will fix everything". Well, all I can figure is that I was a constant reminder of his f&*#ups and that was why he hated me and my dickhead older brother could do no wrong and was the golden child. He is the biggest liar that side of the Mississippi and whispers in his ear just what the old man needs to hear. Makes me shudder with the cringiness of it all.
> 
> Sorry to hear of your loss, bud. Glad writing helps you. Please stick around and tell us more stories!


A fellow survivor.... Sorry for you but my congratulations at the same time.

I wish I had an answer or a cure for it, but sadly I don't. All I can do is try to encourage others to make the best they can of life and do what's right. All any of us can do I suppose.

I had some kids on my bus that I suspected were being abused, or at the very least neglected (almost as bad). They were sweet kids, for the most part... the oldest girl was 14 and could have been a model she was SO pretty and soft spoken, very kind. The middle sister had flunked a few grades and was way behind in school, kind of a hellion, but she pretty well knew the limits and respected them, to a point. The baby brother was in elementary school and he was kind of a mess at times, but generally okay. They were the last kids to get off my bus, and had about a five or so minute ride from the next to last stop and theirs... I asked them if they'd put the windows up in the bus to the second notch (leave them cracked to let the 140 degree heat out of the bus sitting in the sun all afternoon before the evening route, at least a little) and I'd get them a treat every week... They agreed, if I got them all "hot cheetos and sprite" each. We agreed. They were quite self-motivated and soon as the next to last kids got off the bus, they started making the rounds putting all the windows up. I'd stop into the mini-mart on the way to the school every Friday and pick up three bags of hot cheetos and three 20 oz sprites. Well, one day the oldest girl came and sat behind me and said, "Your SO nice Mr. Roberts... If you didn't give us those Cheetos and Sprites, we wouldn't have had anything to eat last weekend..." I was like "WHAT??" The she explained her Mom's latest worthless boyfriend-of-the-week didn't work, and didn't want their mom to work either; she was a cashier at a convenience store, and that he ate up all the food in the refrigerator... I was like, "That's not right..." The other two moved up to the front seats and confirmed the story. SO, the following Monday, i went to the school nurse at the junior high and talked to her, asked her if she knew the girl and/or her siblings, and told her the story. She said the oldest was a real good girl and tried really hard in school, and of course by law she had to pass the story on to the building principal and social services authorities as possible child abuse or neglect. She said they'd probably call me, which they did. I told the social services woman the same story, and she said she'd investigate, and let me know. Well, the following week they called me and said that she'd investigated, and while the house was a mess, the refrigerator did have some food in it, and there wasn't really any other evidence of neglect, that the mother probably WAS allowing the boyfriend of the week to control her life too much, but there was nothing they could do about that, so that was the end of it... Wonder whatever happened to those kids?? They shifted my route the next year and the year after that and of course canned me with my blessing back in 2013...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

JD3430 said:


> I'm married to a woman, 25 years now, who grew up in a family somewhat like yours. Her dad avoided home because the mother (my MIL) drove him crazy. He finally wised up, divorced her and found a younger woman. Fast forward 35 years and I'm stuck with the MIL now.  She's a real handful. I can't even describe how crazy this person is and the strain it puts on us. My wife's brother and sister haven't talked to the mother in years and want nothing to do with her.
> 
> Luke, I'm real sorry for what you went and are going through. Nobody should have to endure that... I got choked up reading your story.
> 
> I hope somehow you can keep your life of story sharing and positivity going. I for one will say I always enjoy reading what you have to say, You have a story telling skill and gift.


Thanks I appreciate it!

Man I feel for ya... I went through that for YEARS with my mom, before she FINALLY basically got too old to be such a PITA anymore... she always liked to fight, and if you look up "narcissist" in the dictionary, you'd find her picture under it! She was ALWAYS convinced she was getting the raw end of the stick, everything was against her and ABOUT her, and everybody was always out to get her... and she was convinced she was the most loving and altruistic person in the world... (how she came to that conclusion I'll never know!) I think she was basically bipolar or schizo or something, maybe some weird combination of the two... For YEARS her favorite pop-off was "I'm gonna stomp you to death!!" or "I'm gonna STOMP you!" She loved to give you the evil eye, too LOL That and she'd grit her teeth and growl at you, "I. SAID. NOW!!!!!" when you weren't doing something fast enough to suit her. She called me "sh!tass" more than she did by my given name.

She was COMPLETELY around the bend when her change of life started... she was always "bad" before, but I swear there for a few years she was literally psychotic, just ANYTHING would set her off into a frenzy of screaming wall-eyed pitching fits... She had this stupid leather cattle quirt that Pa-pa had used on us one time when she was laying in bed watching soap operas and had been yelling at me and my sister and brother to clean house, and we weren't doing it... So she called Pa-pa (her dad) and he drove over 45 miles from Eagle Lake and stood over us all day like a plantation slave master, making us pick up the foot deep garbage in the floor of the house, and ANY time we slacked up even the LEAST little bit or did or said something or h3ll just LOOKED at each other or anything else the wrong way that HE didn't like, he'd hit us, HARD, with that [email protected] quirt... We all looked like a $2 plow horse by the end of that day, and whatever "love" I had for that sorry old [email protected] died in me that day... Maybe if he'd have used that [email protected] thing on his good for nothing daughter, things might have been different... (nah, probably not, probably was the cause). Anyway, when he died in '91, I felt sorry for Ma-ma, because she was taking it SO hard (Pa-pa married her at 14 and he was 25, but that was common in the piney woods of Deep East Texas back in the 30's... h3ll one time my cousin from up there and I were hanging out with a buddy of his, and we hiked to through the woods to his house, which was this little run down shack in the middle of the woods, and we were sitting around talking, and his 13 and 14 year old sisters woke up and came out to visit with us... Well, the brother was kinda ticked because, well, you know, "baby sisters under foot" and he was about ready to go, but we sat and talked a bit... Of course I was about 17-18 and the older one was awfully cute I thought, but of course, well, you know-- FOURTEEN is just way too young LOL Anyway, after awhile, we left... They didn't even have electricity-- we lit the Coleman lantern when we got there and hung it in the center of the room! Well, the following year at the family reunion, I asked my cousin about his friend, and he was telling me about what they'd been up to, and I asked about his sister... "Oh, she got married here a few months back!", said like he told me she went to the post office and walked to the corner store for a bottle of pop... I was flabbergasted... This was 1988-89, not 1938 or 39!!! Crazy!) Anyway, I felt sorry for Ma-ma after he died, but basically I didn't feel much else-- could have been burying the neighbor's dog that shat on our yard for all I cared...

Well, Mom got that quirt after he died and she kept it on a set of deer antlers Dad had up in the middle of the house, and anytime we did or said anything she REMOTELY didn't like, she'd reach up and grab that quirt and just pop the sh!t out of you with it! Well, by this time I was about done with high school and had been living with Grandma for years, but I'd come over every few days for a couple hours to visit Dad and Julie and Jay... and mom (when she was speaking to me). Well I was sitting on the couch visiting as Dad was eating getting ready to go to work and we started joking around and horsing around a bit like kids do, and she got PO'd and grabbed that quirt, and popped me one. Well, at that moment, I remembered a story that Grandma told me about Grandpa Leon, who died when I was 12, and I basically took over the farms after he passed. He was raised as a ranch kid out around Westhoff and Orange Grove, Texas. His mother died when he was 6 months old of complications from childbirth, so he was raised by Pappa, who was widowed at the time until he remarried "Nonna" later on. He was kind of a h3llion himself for awhile there... played football back in the no-pads days when all you got was a leather skull cap to keep your brains in LOL Very rough and tumble boy. Anyway, he went to a one-room schoolhouse out near Orange Grove that had a mean old woman teacher running it, and she carried a little quirt that she'd pop a kid with any time they said or did ANYTHING she didn't like... Well, they all got pretty sick and tired of that, but what could you do... Well, Grandpa was doing his school work one day and evidently she didn't like what she saw, or something, because she hauled off and whapped him with that quirt... He got mad and growled, "Don't you EVER hit me with that thing again!" Well, she wasn't having it and popped him again and said, "I'll hit ANYBODY I want to ANY TIME I want to for ANY THING I want to!" and so he jumped up, grabbed the quirt and snatched it out of her hands, broke it to pieces, and handed it back to her, and said, "Now, hit me again, and see what you get!" Well, she gulped and marched off without another word, and that was the end of the quirt in the schoolhouse...

SO, remembering this, I told mom, "Don't you hit me with that thing again!" and of course she popped me one, and said, "I'll hit anybody I please anytime I please for anyTHING I please!" and popped me again. SO, I jumped up, snatched it out of her hands, deftly snapped it in two, and handed the now folded in half thing back to her... Her lip started quivering and she started shaking and she started muttering, "that's the last thing my Daddy gave me in this world" and stomped off to the other end of the house (which she did most of the time-- you could hear her stomping off in a rage anywhere in the house and anywhere outside half the time!) and next thing I know she comes back with the .357 and sticks it in my face and pulls the hammer back and cocks it... My sister and brother sitting beside me are screaming their heads off for her "not to do it" and crying and wailing and my Dad is yelling, "what the H3LL do you think you're doing?? what the h3ll is the matter with you??" and then "Jeff, get the h3ll out of here!" so I split pretty quick... but the more I thought about it the madder I got and by the time I got to Grandma's I called him back and told him, "You better tell her, if she EVER pulls a gun on me again, i'll take it away from her and beat her [email protected] brains out with it!"

She used to cuss and scream and holler at ALL of us, including Dad. She practically lived in the back bedroom of the trailer, h3ll we all did for the longest, it was the only air conditioned room after the whole-house AC quit... and when I was about 8-10 I was required to take over the cooking... I didn't have to do a lot of baby stuff when my sister came along in '76, since I was only 5 at the time, but when my brother came along in '80, basically if he got his diaper changed, 90% of the time, I was the one who changed it! Got up all hours of the night to feed him too, once he was big enough that I could handle him without breaking his neck... Anyway, most of the groceries got kept in the back bedroom, usually dumped into the old crib after Jay was big enough to vacate it, and she'd pick out what she wanted me to cook, tell me to get chicken or steak or whatever out of the fridge for meat, and fry it up and cook the can of beans or box of mac-n-cheese or whatever else she wanted to eat for supper. I'd go to the other end of the house and cook it, then bring it all back to the bedroom and lay it out on the bed and they'd eat "picnic style" in bed while she watched soaps or whatever was on TV... We kids got our plates and sat in the floor... Well, one day she was having a screaming fight with Dad about something, can't even recall what now, and she picked up a can of green beans and threw it at him, hit him square in the forehead, and the rim of full can of green beans split his eyebrow wide open and he started bleeding... Well, he had blood in his eyes all right-- he had MURDER in his eyes, and she KNEW it,,, she stood there with this horrified look on her face for a moment, whimpering she was sorry, and he jumped off and took off after her, and she ran screaming into the bathroom and locked the door, and Dad nearly beat the door down with his bare hands and she was screaming and begging and pleading with him to leave her alone... That's the ONLY time I EVER saw Dad even ATTEMPT to raise a hand to her... He calmed down before he beat the door off the hinges and then patched himself up and went to work. Oh, he'd beat us plenty good if he got mad and "had a reason" but Mom, NEVER... I had to fix his lunch for work at the nuke plant; he loved liver loaf sandwiches with thick glopped on mayonnaise and cheese, and an apple or orange and bag of chips and a coke or Dr. Pepper or whatever... I DETESTED mayonnaise and never ate the stuff, but Jay did and I think Julie did too IIRC... Mom only ate Miracle Whip, which is what I used when I ate a sandwich or something. For a long time, we lived on a piece of toast with a slice of cheese on it folded in half... Jay could make those himself, and they were quick and easy for me too. Anyway, I made his sandwich and packed his lunch and set the lunchbox on the top shelf of the fridge as usual so he could grab it on his way out the door at about 4:30 or so, and later that night went to bed. Well, at about 7 the next morning I wake up being dragged out of bed with one hand and having the sh!t beat out of me with a belt with the other... Evidently one of the kids left the [email protected] mayonnaise out on the counter all day and it had soured, and I made Dad's sandwich with it and he got to work and was all hungry and bit into the sandwich and nearly puked... So I got the beating for it... I mean he worked his anger all out on that one, I promise you... I've forgotten more stories than I could ever tell, but that sort of thing was a common occurrence...

One of the worst was not long before I moved out... Mom worked at the hospital ER/admittance office on the night shift in Wharton, 23 miles away. She'd get home about 8-8:30 in the morning, in her little POS Dodge Horizon hatchback 4 door she drove like NASCAR... Anyway, Julie and I were supposed to get up at 7 and catch the bus at 7:30, but for whatever reason the alarm didn't go off and we overslept-- don't know if it wasn't set or the power went off or what. Dad usually worked nights too so we were alone anyway, nobody home but us chickens LOL Anyway, I woke up about 7:50 or so and realized "Oh sh!t, we missed the bus!" and got Julie up and told her to get ready for school, and I jumped in the shower... Jay was still too young to go to school, so he just played around the house all day while she slept, or she dumped him off with Grandma, can't remember. Anyway, I'm in the shower and next thing I know ALL H3LL breaks loose as mom's home early, she finds us home and she's throwing a screaming wall eyed fit and rips the shower door open and starts cussing me and screaming what a worthless piece of sh!t I am for missing the bus and she's just beating the ever loving sh!t out of us with a belt, I mean wailing away for all she's worth like she's beating back a pack of wild wolves about to eat her, screaming like a [email protected] banshee the entire time, threatening to stomp us all to death and kill us and she should have done it a long time ago and all sorts of other sh!t I can't even remember, and basically I jump out of the shower soaking wet slopping water everywhere naked as a jaybird getting the sh!t beat out of me at every turn, I grab a dirty towel off the floor and wrap it around my bare @ss as I'm having the sh!t beat out of me, grab my little sister and baby brother (who's maybe 3-4 at the time, Julie would have been in elementary school) and now she's just swinging away beating the sh!t out of all three of us screaming like a banshee and cursing at us, and I'm dragging one kid by each hand trying to hold the towel around my waist running down the hall with two screaming, crying, ducking kids as we're ALL getting the ever-loving sh!t beat out of us because she's chasing us through the house beating us and screaming at us... I run out the front door and down the steps, dragging the kids with me, and we run like h3ll... It was already one of those 100% humidity, over 90 degree mornings (school had just started IIRC, so late August or early September) and she's not interested in chasing us out in the heat and humidity, so she just stands in the door screaming obscenities at us and threatening us and then slams the door so hard I thought the wall was gonna fall off the front of the house, and I can hear her stomping through the house toward the back bedroom (where the guns were along with everything else) and I just keep running... I ran out to the pasture gap, opened it up, pushed the kids through, and then closed the gap and we ran out to the tractor barn that was in the pasture, ran around into the barn between the cotton pickers, and climbed up onto the back of the combine by the engine... The kids are still crying and squalling, Jay is in a T-shirt and diaper, no shoes or pants, Julie had pulled on a pair of pants and shirt for school, but no shoes, and I was still dripping wet and naked as a jaybird, with a towel wrapped around my @ss like friggin' Shaka Zulu or something... So we're sitting up on top of the combine, the kids are scared out of their minds and hurting from the beating, I'm hurting from the beating, and we're sweating our @SSES off up on top of the combine, as there's not a breath of breeze and it's 90 degrees plus and so humid you could cut the air with a knife... The kids and I start itching from all the grain sorghum dust on top of the combine that's sticking to them like mud since they're sweating through what clothes they have, and I'm naked save the towel, and the skeeters are starting to bite us because it's been raining for a month... I hear her stomping through the house from 50 yards away, she stomps out into the yard, and is screaming for us, and I tell the kids to get quiet and lay low... I peeped around through the lean-to's of the equipment barn and can see her stomping around in the yard, but we're all quiet as church mice and hid pretty well. She finally climbs in her car and [email protected] down the field roads out to the cotton fields behind the house, assuming we've run out there... After ripping to the other end of the farm on the field road, she tears back up the turning row down the driveway and out onto the road, I watch her tear down the highway a spell, turn around, and tear back past, and after a couple more minutes she comes tearing back up the driveway and skids to a stop and stomps back in the house, slams the door, and stomps off to the bedroom again... After a couple minutes of silence, I tell the kids we have to go...

We had a 14 acre pasture that ran in a weird sorta "backwards "5" shape" through the middle of the farm... there's two gaps in and out-- one behind our house across the driveway, and one at the end of the lane from the pasture west of the creek that connected it up to the pens behind Grandma's house. The entire pasture is bifurcated by a drainage canal "creek" that runs from the middle of the northeast corner pasture of the farm, then angles southwest across the farm and exits the middle of the pasture near the middle of the farm. There was one bridge across it, an ancient wooden "pillbox" timber bridge, but the abutments had settled and washed away from the ends enough you couldn't drive across it anymore, and the abutments were overgrown with a hedge-row of blackberry vines about 3-4 feet high and about 3 feet thick... SO, the kids and crying and hot and hungry and thirsty and hurting and the fire ants are already stinging us on our legs and feet, and wondering what we're gonna do... I tell them "well go to Grandma's... SO off we go through waist high grass and weeds in the pasture towards Grandma's at the middle of the north end of the farm a half mile away. It's hot, the sun is beating down on us, skeeters are eating us ALIVE because it's been raining for a month, fire ants are crawling up our legs and stinging the sh!t out of us, and we're still itching and sweaty from the milo dust on the combine, grass and weed gunk sticking to us, and dewberry/blackberry vines growing here and there in the pasture sticking thorns in our feet and scratching the h3ll out of us, and we're still hurting from the beating we just took. I'm leading a 3 year old in a diaper and T-shirt and a 7 year old girl in pants and shirt and no shoes and myself in [email protected] loincloth like friggin' Tarzan through all this shit and they're wailing and crying and we're ALL convinced if she catches us she'll probably just shoot us on sight and be done with it. We know we're *fairly* safe walking in the pasture-- she wouldn't take her precious car out there in the weeds and grass, and at any rate, she was too [email protected] lazy to ever open the gap on her own and close it again... where if we walked down the side of the road, well, we'd be dead meat and easy pickings out there, so transiting the pasture it is! We can't cross below the bridge because the creek had about 2 feet of brackish water overgrown with weeds and crap and full of water moccasins below the bridge, we couldn't cross the bridge itself because of the snake infested water under it, and the impassible hedges of berry vines on both ends of the bridge, and so we kept walking up the southeast side of the creek, as I'm trying to figure out how to get the kids and me across it without getting snake bit, as we're being eaten alive by mosquitoes... We keep hiking til we get to the north fence of the farm by the county road, and the ditch is STILL full of water, but the floating cattle gate the county installed was above the water... so we pick our way down through the weeds and anthills and berry vines til we get to the end of it where it joins the barbwire fence, which was too overgrown to climb through anyway, and I explain to the kids we're gonna cross it by walking on the bottom cross-board and holding onto the upright boards that made up the water gate, and holding onto the pipe it was affixed to and turned on when it floated up level in a flood to let it pass under it... The kids are scared and bleeding and their feet are full of vine thorns and they're wailing from fire ant bites and skeeter bites and milo dust itching and hot and tired and hungry and thirsty but I'm helping them across, still bare @ss save the towel, and now I'm plastered in milo dust and stickers and weed seeds up to my @sshole... and STILL having to hold the towel around me with one hand clasping the ends to keep it from falling off and being totally naked! A truck drove by and a car or two and I was embarrassed as h3ll but didn't have time to worry about it, still helping the kids across... God only knows what they thought... One slowed down but didn't stop, and we were worried and trying to stay low, not knowing if the stupid Horizon would drive up and window roll down, and a gun start emptying at us... It's hot as h3ll by now at the sun is fairly high up the sky but at least it's not *quite* so humid... we're inching our way across the water gate and I look down and a snake swam by underneath it... so we pick up the pace a little and get to the other side, inspect for moccasins, and carefully climb off, hoping there's not a nest of yellow jackets living inside the 4 inch steel pipe the water gate is built on to pivot up in floods... SO, we make our way up the banks and across the pasture through MORE weeds, vines, ants, and thorns, to the lane, up it to the barn, and over the gate into grandma's yard... We drag the last 30 yards to Grandma's back porch... the kids are muddy and crying, Grandma comes to the back door and is just in shock, and brings us in the house... I tell her the story as I climb into the tub to bathe the ants, dust, weed seed, stickers, thorns, mud, and filth off me and she grabs some towels and washcloths and ointment and takes off for the kitchen to bathe baby Jay and Julie and treat their bleeding scratches and dig the thorns out of their feet and legs... After a hot bath I dry off and get a change of "play clothes" we kept at Grandma's for when she was keeping us and pull them on, as she was dressing Julie and Jay in their change of clothes laying in her back room on the foot chest by the bed... We went in the living room and she got us something to eat, and as we're eating, we hear the car pull in the drive... the kids start to go bonkers again, and Grandma takes off through the kitchen toward the back door as mom comes stomping into the house... "What are you doing in MY house??" Grandma demands... "I'm here to take back MY kids!" Mom snaps at her. Then something amazing happened... Grandma, who NEVER had a cross word with ANYBODY, says, "You're not taking these kids ANYWHERE... NOW GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" About this time mom decides she's just gonna push past her, Grandma was taller but mom was probably 100-150 pounds heavier, and she's a lot younger... The kids are squalling and crying again by now, begging not to go and Jay's saying, "I'm not going ANYWHAWE wif you!" (He and Julie both didn't pronounce "R's" for a long time growing up) and Grandma grabbed her and SHOVED her back like a middle linebacker, I mean she THREW her back into the back room, and told her flat out in a rather menacing tone, "I. SAID. Get OUT of MY house!"

Well, that evidently got mom's attention, because *NOBODY* *EVER* stood up to HER, least of all Grandma, after she nearly stumbled and regained her balance and got this surprised look on her face, she turned around and walked out the back door, and Grandma slammed it behind her and locked it... took us back into the other room and gave the kids their plates back with whatever sandwich or whatever she'd made them right quick as she finished doctoring their feet and legs... I ate something and she doctored my legs a little while we watched TV... Later that evening Dad came and got us. I remember them having a discussion but we were watching TV and she and he went into the back room where we couldn't hear anyway...

Well, after her "change of life" was complete, she FINALLY seemed to settle down into something almost human LOL Oh she was still a PITA but at least not a psychotic one... She made Dad's life a living h3ll to be sure, which is why he worked 70-80 hours a week... they finally had to start cutting his overtime because everybody else was griping they didn't get enough overtime! Anyway, I was farming and going to mechanic's school on a full ride scholarship, Julie finally graduated and went to Texas Tech (farthest school she could go to in Texas away from home, well, maybe except El Paso but she didn't want to go there... WHO WOULD!) to be a band director, and Jay was working on the farm with me, fixing cars, and basically staying at Grandma's as much as he could himself. After a few years when I was in my early-mid 20's, we finally "smoked the peace pipe" as my ancestors would say, and forgave each other. Like I said, I know I was no "perfect son", but which of us was *supposed* to be the responsible adult, and which of us was the confused, hurt, withdrawn, and angry kid?? Grandma was good to me, but she had her faults... she LOVED to needle a person to the point they were ready to explode, which is easy for a confused, angry, and hurt teenager to do. I said things I shouldn't have and I regret it... She'd needled Grandpa when he was alive too, to the point that in '57 he bought the Shiner farm 100 miles west, and he'd come up here and work for 2-3 days or so at a time, staying in the little old "hand house" that had a garden hose bib and sink, but no bathroom, and a butane space heater and a couple beds in it... I'd go too sometimes as a kid when my folks would let me, and remember well sh!tting in a five gallon bucket that he'd dig a hole and empty it into and cover it up before we left... in about 76 he built a small bathroom onto the back of the hand house with a genuine toilet and bathtub in it, but no hot water... you had to boil a pot of water on the stove to take a bath... No TV, just a radio, but we'd go to George Machart's (pronounced "My-hearts" little country store just about every evening-- he sold lunch meat and bread and a few odds and ends, Grandpa would buy me a Delaware Punch or a grape Nehi and a can of shoe string potatoes, and he'd buy a couple bottles of Dr. Pepper and visit with George and his wife, who ran the little store, tell stories and maybe play and hand or two of dominoes, or just visit and sit and watch other locals come in and shoot pool at the pool table or drink beer and play dominoes... (Grandpa didn't drink). Then we'd go back to the farm, listen to the radio, Grandpa would read his Bible and "Gospel Minutes" papers, and we'd hit the sack... Good times... Except one time mom wrote a bunch of checks that were gonna be "hot checks" because she didn't check the balance and Dad and the kids and her came flying up to Shiner and intercepted us east of Hallettsville on the way home, flagged him down, and he stood on the side of the road with Grandpa for an hour begging him to loan him a few hundred bucks to cover the checks so mom wouldn't get arrested and taken to jail... Of course after fifty different kinds of promises of how to repay it, and Grandpa giving him the money to bail them out, within a few months mom was like "we don't owe it!" and Grandpa would have to take it out of Dad's share of the crop. That sort of thing went on for YEARS... After Grandpa died, Jay and I ended up working it off as we got a tiny pittance for our work, Dad got his "original" share when he and Grandpa were farming together, and Grandma got 3/4 as farm owner and paying all the bills... It wasn't until about 4-5 years of us working for practically NOTHING that his notes were FINALLY paid off, and Grandma talked to him about "how it wasn't right that he was stiffing us, when we were doing 95% of the work" and he finally relented, and she agreed to take 2/3 of the money for owning the farms and paying the bills, and Dad settled for 10%, so we split roughly 1/4 between Jay and I... I got a little more since I was older and did more work-- Jay liked to hang out with his buddies a lot in high school-- I didn't have any "buddies" to hang out with, I was always too busy working on the farm. We stuck to that basically until now... Dad finally gave us his 10% to split between us evenly as well after Grandma died, so we got a "little raise"...

ANYWAY... Guess I've rambled enough... Later! OL J R


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

JR, there is no simple nor filling answer to some questions in life. The verse you quoted does the best of anything I know. You as many have traveled a life of heart ache yet you allowed God to do a great work with JR. It is so obvious your care and love for others. Learned that early on here at haytalk. I doubt you have any idea the positive impact you have had just here. Your openness no doubt has touch some who have not made any comment because they could not as they recall their own experiences. One thing I told my two girls (our only children who are two great children, moms, wives, Christians) years ago still holds true, you have no idea what you have to be thankful for cause they are not part of your life. How a person can mistreat a child, helpless parent who cared for them I don't understand. All I know is God's grace is beyond limits and if we allow him he can make a new creator out of a damage life. Thank God for you my Brother, Kenneth


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