Since coming back to Indiana I have been so busy that I have to remember to breathe sometimes. There is still a lot to do to get this house ready to sell. I’m by myself getting the place ready although our handyman does what he can in between his full time job. There is still so much that needs to be done. I keep hoping that the physical work will shut off the brain but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Follow me below the squiggle for this woman’s take on life, death, and the importance of voting.
I am still getting calls from the Republicans, Tea Party, etc. for my brother. No matter how often I tell them he is dead and get his name off of their lists they won’t do so. I have caller ID and can tell it is the same people calling. I’ve got frustrated enough that I scream at them now and make no attempt to be polite. It just reinforces what we all know that the Republican Party cares only for the money they can get and has no decency when it comes to people.
I’ve been working on my brother’s room. I just cleaned out a storage space where he had stuffed a bunch of citations he received from the Army. Mike was a Vietnam veteran who spent 18 months there. He came home with a bronze star for bravery and being told he was unfit to teach children because he was in Vietnam. Mike was a good man who went from being a liberal to being an extreme right wing Republican. Dad agreed with me that Vietnam damaged Mike beyond fixing. His last year was spent trying to drink himself to death. I think things just got to be more then he could handle. He was good at hiding so I never realized that he was this bad. His “friends” were too busy getting money from him for their business deals to let me know so I could come up and help. He would listen to me and they knew I would cut off their funds and get this house sold and him down in North Carolina with his family.
My Mom came from a family of Republicans and my Dad was a lifelong Democrat. Obviously I take after my Dad. Dad would shake his head at his head strong daughter who got involved in all sorts of political battles from picketing the Archbishop of Portland to fighting for gun control. My current battle is to get the President reelected and try and get the down ticket Democrats elected too. I would love to be able to say that my Representative is Elisabeth Motsinger and not Virginia Foxx.
As I prep this house for sale and go through everything to see what to keep and what to sell and what to just toss I can’t help but feel that I am throwing a bit of my family away. I know I can’t keep it all. I know that they would understand. My head knows but my heart breaks because they loved this house so much.
Most of all though I have to try and understand why these wonderful people were not helped more by the government they believed in. Why wasn’t there more help for my Vietnam Veteran brother? Why did my mother have to work until she was 82 before she felt she could retire? Why wasn’t there help for me as a caretaker when I had to work full time and care of Mom? It is supposed to be government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Why aren’t we helping the people who need help?
Right now the enormity of the last couple of weeks is starting to hit. I am so tired physically that I’m too tired to sleep. I am mentally exhausted. I am emotionally drained. I am too tired to even cry. All I want to do is go home to my cats. I miss them. I’m leaving next week to go home for a couple of weeks until the court will grant me the papers to go through my brother’s finances. Then I have to come back up here and do some more work.
Maybe when it is all said and done I can take some me time and just let the tears flow. Right now as the song says “I haven’t got time for the pain.”