My family situation right now is currently a Mongolian Clusterfuck of a mess.
I’m a bit rambly and going on 40+ hours without sleep, so forgive any incoherency.
My grandfather recently passed away, after a really long, painful struggle with multiple strokes and at the end, dementia and gangrene. It was really better that he passed before things got too bad, and he had to have amputations, and he’s in a much better place now, I hope.
My grandmother was left behind, with her five children, including my mother. My grandmother is left in a very dire financial and living situation, which resulted in her filing for bankruptcy and there is a pending foreclosure on the house she has spent her entire life in. My mother has been doing her best commuting long distances to try and get things in order, but her brothers, who are nothing but deadbeats, abusers, and drug users, have been leeching off my poor grandmother, who doesn’t have the heart to kick them to the curb.
It’s a huge legal, familial, and financial mess, not to mention emotional for all parties involved, because it’s all family.
My grandmother and mother currently live in Connecticut, and my sister and I live in Vermont, so it’s all a really large mess distance-wise, and my mother is constantly traveling between the two states, which is no small feat with gas prices as they are.
We’ve been trying to get housing for my grandmother to get her out of the hellhole she is currently in, which is filthy and unkept because she is partially disabled and simply can no longer get around in the narrow hallways and tiny bathroom. Finding her someplace to live that she can qualify for on her social security income is difficult, because the house isn’t foreclosed upon, yet. We need to get her out of there before they literally kick her out, and she can’t qualify for anything while the house is still an asset. Plus, with her son and grandson living there, yet not contributing to her income, it makes it even more of a mess.
Filling out paperwork is impossible, because every single question they ask involves a page-long explanation with detailed notes about the living and financial situations of all parties living there. I reitarate, it’s a mess.
My poor mother’s sanity is stretched to her limits.
I currently reside with my sister, who recently bought a house. I have been helping her afford her mortgage payments while occupying a room here in the house, which has been mostly mutually beneficial. We do clash at times, and I’ve begun to feel stifled, and really want to get out and into my own apartment. My mother was supposed to also occupy the house with us, originally, and contribute to the household, but because of the earlier explained garbage, she has not been able to move in with us until my grandmother is taken care of.
I don’t have much faith in religion, but it seems like a blessing that a two-family house that is about two blocks down the same street from our current home just went up for rent. The ground floor is a two-bedroom apartment, and the owners seem very eager to rent it out ASAP. They seem to be very negotiable about cost, and since it isn’t actually a property manager that we’re going through, they may be willing to listen to our situation and come to some mutually beneficial agreement.
I’m going to look at the apartment today. If it’s decent, I am planning on moving into it with my grandmother, so that I can take care of her for the time being. The owners are also willing to do a monthly agreement instead of a year lease, in case anything were to happen (illness, injury on my grandmother’s part, or if we were able to get her subsidized housing). This will keep us covered until my mother moves herself up here and finds a job, and can take my place in my sister’s house, so we won’t all be struggling to make ends meet so much, and my grandmother will actually be able to be taken care of by family that cares for her, instead of stuck lonely and depressed by herself in a house she simply cannot adequately get around in.
If this place is a no-go, I do have a couple of backup apartments, but this one is so close that it would honestly be almost too perfect to be true, if it was in good condition and we could get in there quickly.
I love my grandmother to death, and my mother was in tears during her visit today, talking about how frustrated she was. It kills me to see them suffering, and I’m the type of person who would not consider it a chore to be living with my grandmother. She was there from the day I was born, and held me even before my mother did. She and my grandfather taught me to read, taught me to be a good person, and I’ll be damned if I will let her suffer if I can do something about it. I want to spend the last years of her life enjoying it with her, not watching her waste away, depressed and unable to care for herself while my mother makes herself ill with stress.
I wish my mom’s brothers cared enough to help out, but at least my mom is a good person, and it’s clear that she did something right raising me and my siblings, because we all care enough to stick together and try to find a solution in all of this, despite the vast majority of the family being too selfish and self-absorbed to care about anyone but themselves.
If anyone is overdue for some karmic payback, it’s my mom, and this would lift a huge weight from her overburdened shoulders.
We’re hanging on a lot of ‘if’s’ right now, but if anyone feels up to crossing their fingers, I figure a little good wishing, even on the part of strangers, can’t possibly hurt.
