When you got together and got us out to Arkansas to help my parents rather than having to go to a Bay Area homeless shelter, I promised to pay it forward and write.
Here's my latest effort at writing, and the last Red State Diary.
What we managed to accomplish here, and why we're being driven out, below the fold.
My stepfather was glad to see us and grateful for our help...for about two weeks.
Once he decided that he didn't need our help, he started trying to drive us out. And, as his dementia worsened the one thing he managed to hold onto was that we were Bad People Who Must Leave.
Well, he hit on a way. He's started calling CPS (whatever Child Protective Services is called here) and reporting us for child abuse.
This has been the staple Get Moody To Do What You Want tactic from certain family members, and one reason why I don't speak to them much.
Though he has no specific instances to cite, because we're stepchildren and not "real family" it's been communicated to us that it would be best if we just left.
So, that's what we're going to do. We hopefully have just enough to get the RV to Massachusetts, where some friends have offered to take us in.
We did manage to get him on Medicaid, so the medications that he refuses to take are paid for. We've gotten them on programs for housekeeping, respite care so Mom can get a break, and Meals on Wheels once we leave. We also got him on a waiting list to a facility that cares for dementia patients, and won't he go spare when he finds that out.
But the authorities agree with him that it's his house and his rules and if he wants the only family members able to give him the 24/7 care that he needs kicked out, then out they must be kicked.
For those of you saying we're abandoning them, I'm right there with you. But with no caretaker status, and Mom unable/unwilling to get power of attorney, and the authorities willing to enforce the whim of a man that on a good day thinks it's 1975, what else can we do?