This is my experience navigating the challenges of caring for my elderly parents and disabled brother once the final shoe has dropped.

The move and the stuff

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It’s Sunday. I’m so unaccustomed to waking up without an appointment, work, or emergency. I do have a voicemail from my father, recorded at 2:41am, but it’s not urgent. He wants to make sure I know that it’s my mom’s birthday. Except that her birthday is in March. March 15th and we’re still in January. He catches himself. He seems to recognize he’s jumped the gun on the birthday without recognizing that it’s not even 3am. But I’m not worried about him. It’s all relative, right? I laugh. Out loud. At the text from Teresa from TLs, the local diner in Manteo. What a gem of a human. She texted me a few days ago; this is after the two jail times; the week in a facility; a few days in the hospital; and a stable week at Heart of Manteo Motor Lodge. Teresa wants me to know that my father has been wearing the same clothes for three weeks and he backed into a post at the gas station last night. I want to cry/laugh and say, “is that all?” Instead, I keep that in my head and thank her while texting to her that we’re doing our best. All the while, I’m deciding what to take and what to ditch from my parents’ bathroom. It’s all money, right? I hate the waste. I love helping the woman who drives an hour for a $25 mini-refrigerator. Then, she rents a truck, the next day, to buy a $20 freezer that’s been on the balcony for years. I love her. I want to give her everything. I hate the woman who dicks around for 3 days about an awesome Cuisinart for $25. Then, when she finally walks her ass the half block over to get it, and I drop a blade, she “jokes” that it must be $20 now. This is for her rental home. She hands me a $20 dollar bill and five ones, one of which is a torn piece of a dollar bill. It’s the first one I pawn off at the toll booth driving to Norfolk the next night with my mom. And they took it. I hate the woman who is a scheduling pain in the ass about picking up sheets, including new ones, never been used. I learn that she’s asked my brother to meet her where SHE lives! I berate her over Facebook Messenger. She’s the second person who’s asked to be met someplace for something FREE! Go fuck yourself. Seriously.

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