I've always loved the movie Network and often felt like screaming Peter Finch's classic line. Right now that is how I feel. Follow me below the orange cheeto to see how the extreme right wing has finally pushed me to the brink and how I'm fighting back.
I'm the second child of five in my family and the only girl. My older brother Mike was my Mom's pride and joy. My youngest brother Jerry was the "perfect" child. Eric who came after me was the wild child and went his own way. Reid was stuck holding onto a secret and feeling neglected. I was the apple of my Dad's eye. I was the one who threw footballs with him and loved to go shopping with him even if all we could afford was window shopping.
Dad always bought me little things and sometimes big things with the words "don't tell your Mom." He was trying to make up for the fact that I was Mom's least favorite child. I was nothing like the quiet lady she wanted for a daughter. She wanted someone whose major ambition in life was to be a housekeeper and mother. I refused to hide my intelligence. I was passionate in my feelings. I believed in civil rights for everyone. I supported the Farm Workers Union when it was being formed. I boycotted grapes. I was for the rights of everyone regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexuality, or anything else.
I was the first child in the family to graduate from college and I did so with honors. When I was a child I heard my Mom telling a friend on the phone, "Mike is so smart he just gets good grades. If Michele wants good grades she has to study so hard." Mom couldn't understand that I had a Mensa level IQ.
I was always an artist. Mom could never understand my pursuit of theater and art and writing. She thought it was a colossal waste of time and money. I had Dad's full hearted support.
She was totally lost after Dad died and finally she asked if I would move in with her and help take care of her. Mike was living there but he was as helpless as always and she did everything for him. I put all my things in storage and for six years cared for her. I was the one who put medicine on her back to combat the effects of too much sunning in her youth and skin cancer in her old age. I did all her shopping. I listened to her talk at night as she missed Dad so much and just wanted to join him. I took care of her during the increasingly frequent sinus infections. I was her caregiver and in those last few years she came to realize that while I may not have been the daughter she wanted me to be that I was the daughter she needed me to be. She needed my strength and compassion.
My brother Mike was killed by Vietnam. He died in 2012 but his death started in Vietnam. It drove him to the far right wing of politics. He had PTSD but wouldn't acknowledge it. We were 16 months apart and no one knew him better than I did. He was lost after Mom died and I moved down South to help his daughter and grandchildren. He was supposed to finish getting the house on the market and join us. Instead I went up to bury him.
Mike had been falling and his quack of a Doctor was misdiagnosing him and giving him the wrong medicine. He was drinking heavily. He fell and hit his head and was on the bathroom floor for three days with a broken back. I sent his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren to a motel when I realized the house was trashed with empty wine bottles. Upstairs was wall-to-wall blood and feces. At 65 and suffering from severe arthritis and C.O.P.D. I had to scrub, clean, deodorize, sell the possessions, and get the house on the market by myself. Reid was disabled. Eric did what he could but was starting a new job, and Jerry couldn't be bothered to help.
I brought Reid out a year ago. He is totally disabled. He let his diabetes get completely out of control. He was in denial. He was at Death's door according to his Doctor. In January of this year he collapsed outside the movie theater and was in the hospital for five days. On March 1st he was doing the prep for a colonoscopy. His blood sugar dropped to 30 and he went into grand mal seizures. I was on the floor with the door open listening for the paramedics, feeding him Kayro syrup to get his blood sugar up quickly, trying to keep him from hurting himself with the seizures, and listening to 911 on my cell phone speaker. He went into low sugar crisis five more times before we got him regulated. That is six times I literally saved his life.
He was 104 pounds in January when he got out of the hospital. He is now 142 and his numbers are great. The Doctor seems to think that we will be able to get him out of the wheelchair and walking with a cane. He has flat out said it is my care that has brought Reid back from the abyss. We realized he could never live on his own again. I willingly gave up my independence to have him live permanently with me. We will be leaving this apartment I love to find a handicapped accessible house to rent.
Two of the things that have been my solace through all this stress is my art and cooking. I have sold art and won awards for my art. My Dad when he was working dined at some of the best restaurants in the world. When I visited them I would cook and Dad would take me to the store to get what I needed. He once introduced me to a couple of friends saying, "This is my daughter Michele. She is the finest cook I have ever known." My cookbook will be dedicated to him.
We have a lot of heart problems in our family and now with Reid we have diabetes. I have been working for years on my cookbook trying to come up with heart healthy and diabetes friendly recipes. It is a labor of love and a lot of hard work. When I put a recipe up it is one I have either created out of whole cloth or have researched and noted how others do it and then recreated the recipe making sure it is heart and diabetes healthy. I don't have original pictures for a lot of my recipes and use place holder pictures from the Internet. When I have made the recipe multiple times and it is just the way I want it I will take an original photograph and put it with the recipe.
Now we come to the bane of my existence; the youngest brother Jerry. He is a hard right winger. He claims he comes to his views through investigation and logic. He is snarky in the extreme and his favorite target is me. I came to my beliefs by working and fighting for people's rights. He mocks and makes fun of my liberal and progressive views making sure he lets everyone know how "stupid" I am. He has told people I wasn't a "real" caregiver for Mom. He refused to come out for Mom's memorial Mass. Mom didn't want a regular funeral but wanted to be cremated and her ashes buried on Dad's grave. I had asked her if we could do a memorial Mass especially for her family and she agreed. Jerry remembered a conversation from 20 years ago and accused Mike and I of dishonoring Mom by having the Mass. He ignored the fact that I had asked and gotten her permission. I was too stupid to know what Mom said or wanted.
According to Jerry I'm not a "real" caregiver for Reid. He refuses to acknowledge that I saved Reid's life. According to him I'm not an artist. That none of the recipes I put up are mine and I'm just putting my name on other people's recipes. When Mike died he was going to come out and give the eulogy even though I was the one who knew him best.
Jerry was always the privileged one and Mom fussed over everything he did. He was so smart but he is the only child that never went to college. All the rest of the children have degrees. He was a "real" author. Of course he paid to get both books published because no one was interested in publishing them. He mocks the fact that I write so much for Daily Kos. He refers to us as KosKids because obviously we are too dumb to be taken for real adults. He refused to link to the eulogy I wrote for Mike because he didn't want to give any publicity to Daily Kos. That didn't stop him from asking me twice to see if anyone here wanted to do an "investigative" report on two conservative bloggers who were giving him a bad time. What he wanted was for us to do hit pieces. While these conservatives were sniping at him Daily Kos was making me a Community Quilt.
Jerry broke both my parent's hearts. I found a letter when cleaning out Dad's desk. Jerry was forced to apologize. He had been going to the Columbia School of Broadcasting and had bragged how well he was doing and how they all loved him. The truth was he had dropped out because he couldn't handle it. He went to Disneyland almost every month but couldn't be bothered to come out and see his aged mother. She kept asking me why he wasn't coming out to see her.
He was the one responsible for shoving Reid back in the closet when he first tried to come out 20 years ago. Reid finally came out for good a couple of months ago. I'm afraid I messed up his big announcement with my "I've known that since you were in High School now what do you want for lunch?"
Reid is very sensitive and wrote a heartfelt message to Jerry on Facebook. He wanted Jerry to know what coming out meant to him and why he changed his political views. He wanted Jerry to acknowledge that I had saved Reid's life. Jerry's reply really hurt him. Jerry is angry about him turning liberal. He is a born again Christian who can't accept Reid's homosexuality. He is furious at me feeling that I have corrupted Reid.
I finally just got sick of it all and blocked him permanently from my Facebook account. As far as I'm concerned I have two brothers, my gay brother Reid who lives with me and my brother Eric who lives in Texas with his English wife.
I am not stupid. I was a real caregiver to Mom. I am a real caregiver to Reid. I saved Reid's life six times. I am an artist. I am a chef. I've given Jerry multiple chances but no more. I am not some snarky spoiled brat's punching bag.
Reid when he first came here.
Reid now.
My Community Quilt