Hi Kos Kommunity! It has been a number of months since I have published anything here, for different reasons, not the least of which is major depressive disorder permeating all the deep recesses of my mind. I have become acutely aware that my senior life setbacks do not materially improve with the telling. And while I have been reading steadily here still to nourish my brain, my desire to write has been in hibernation lately. But I need some help now.
It has been about twelve months of tough vehicle sheltering, and this SOS today is for help to rescue me for a little while longer, as I try to somehow complete the final delivery of the last of my family’s heirloom treasures, physical print photographs and old multi-generational family photo albums, heirloom family bibles and a few books both with birthdates and names, 8mm videotapes of my kids growing up, with cameras that play them, written family histories, children’s framed art, a couple of hard drives and two old Mac computers they connect to, old hand knit quilts, a few of my Grandfather’s small hand tools, and other irreplaceable family history items to someone, anyone, in my family that will show up to help get it. I have been trying to break the family ice jam by reaching out to the kids, but three of them live on the East coast and unfortunately only two are here in Central Oregon these days.
At the moment I am trying to get my local 26 year old daughter here to participate with some urgency, but so far she has not yet done so. I remain hopeful that might change.
I am frustratingly unable at this time to contact my ex-wife of over thirty-one years for her help to retrieve any of it. (Long and sad story that.) In late May I was forced to relocate these family treasures (long and crazy story that), from six months of free sketchy security storage, to a $117 per month 10X10 commercial storage facility, the cheapest I could find. It is in a nearby town where my ex-wife and son reside together.
I hoped then in May, and still do, that the proximity to them might help wrap this up. I therefore acquired an additional expense I could not actually afford, beginning the same month I hit 68 years old. I’ve managed to cover the rent until September 1.
I am down today however, to $9 cash and a quarter tank of fuel, I am using hiking/walking sticks because my knees are terribly painful, and I have fallen three times in the last five months, causing two leg ultrasounds and one knee MRI. Damaged and missing and torn cartilage in both of them, but no surgery while I am still in a truck shelter. The last fall a few weeks ago backward off of a curb to pavement, did not fracture my tailbone nor my bounced skull, but it felt like it had for days to come. Some days, depending on what/who-the-hell-knows, I can barely weeble-wobble into the next place I think will put two more hours in the rearview mirror somehow.
I have sold a few non-family “treasure” items to help with gas, truck insurance, cell-phone payments and a bit of food etc., but nothing the last two weeks.I have been looking for jobs that fit my background and physical constraints and circumstances, but none have materialized.
(I do have a couple of full rare collectible Jack Daniels Commemorative Oregon Sesquicentennial 2009 bourbon bottles in that storage space, but so far no purchaser has emerged.)
The journey of my family’s things since December has required two rented small trucks for two unwanted but necessary relocations, and things are safe for now until next month. I may not make it to then the way things are going, but a hopeful development the last week or so is some text message interest from my daughter, but texts are not phone calls, and messages do not a delivery make. I hope that somehow some actual needed physical presence and family assistance might finally materialize. I also hope traitor skkkrumpus will be soon in prison, but we all know how that has gone. Keep Hope Alive!!!
So, here I am and that is the story bones only, the meat is more than I have the heart to describe, it has been a complicated and difficult Winter, Spring, and Summer 2023. Should I get out of this alive somehow (bloody unlikely full disclosure), I might sell the story of “My Pandemic Divorce And The Isolation That Followed” to Netflix or Apple, as a tragi-comedy-farce of unexpected changed circumstances, once I get to the end of now, whatever that looks like.
If any Kossacks wish to help, I can use the assistance as I try to, as the saying goes “land this plane” somehow. My financial information is as follows: I have PayPal and Venmo and Zelle Accounts at: celtichart1@aol.com.
Also, I have a GoFundMe from last winter, that I may soon end I am thinking, but it is still there. No donations for months, but a few helped last Winter.
I know there are many good folks in my area, and here at Kos we have many more. I know that here and elsewhere, there are people in need for very difficult situations they are facing. This is mine, trying to finish doing the right things for my family. A few hundred dollars will help the next few weeks, a few thousand might get this to the end so I could be able to “get out of Dodge” somehow, to somewhere different but yet unknown. Thanks for reading this far, and for any help you decide to give. And a special thanks to those who helped me get through last year’s cold Winter, including some community leaders and moderators! I also hope any and all Kos members here travel our shared Rainbow to where “troubles melt like lemon drops” in these difficult days we face as as individuals, and as a community enriched by each others perspectives, thoughts, and actions… :-)
Peace…
Falconhawke
