Mom Updates

I sent Mom a food package. It’s not stuff I make. Let’s not be rude. I’ve ordered from Omaha Steaks, as once before. She lost power for days in May’s end, thanks to a windsorm. Mom always kept their box freezer and two refrigerators stocked enough to supply exploring parties coming by who need replenishing. With the power gone, so are her provisions. So I sent a small package of prepared food.

She and her boyfriend are often oblivious about what’s going on directly outside of the house. One of the standard operating rules has become, if you send a package, let Mom know when it’s delivered so someone will go out and bring it in.

Her package arrived today. I notified her via a text. I received no response back and haven’t had responses to any of the last three texts. I reach out to my sisters. Mom lives in Penn Hills, just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. The sisters live within twenty minutes of her. I explain my side and ask for a Momrep. Like me, none have heard from her. Youngest sister reaches out.

Mom responds: “I haven’t been out of bed today. I don’t feel well and I have my legs hurt so bad when I try to move. Frank can’t tae care of me. He gets too dizzy. I need dry diapers right now so it’s terrible.”

I read this and grit my teeth. Mom is 89. Frank, her live-in boyfriend, is 95. We’ve been trying to get them into assisted living for years. They won’t go. Nor will they accept assistance like nurses and caregivers. Now it’s a mess and another crises. The two of them are now averaging three crises a year. This is just June and this is already the third one fo 2025.

One sister heads over there. She reports, “Mom is on the edge of her bed getting a pad made up in her brief. Her gown is wet. She’s changing it now.”

We’re on a group text. Questions are raised and answered. “Yes, she’s eaten today but didn’t take any pain pills until now. I’m cleaning her up and having her taken to the hospital.”

We’re all relieved to hear that. They can take care of her in the hospital. We’ll sleep a little easier but it’s just one more moment in a wearying, debilitating series.

Getting old isn’t fun. Taking care of someone getting old isn’t either. Especially when you’re far away and there’s not much you can do.

June 18, 2025 5

Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m just a Venn diagram. I’m at a point where massive disappointment in my nation fills me. I didn’t expect the GOP to fight Trump. It saddens me that I’m right. They just rolled over and became the Grand Ol’ Trump Party.

Pisses me off that the Trump Regime thumbs its nose at the law, treating elements like due process as something beneath them. Unfortunately, I predicted this when Trump was campaigning in 2024. So did many others. They laughed at us. But Trump said he would be a dictator on day one. We knew that wasn’t a joke.

Politically, I’m angry, disgusted, disappointed, and a whole dark rainbow of other negative energies about what’s going on from bullshit tariffs to the damaged economy to the ridiculous and unlawful gutting of the Federal government to — well, fill in the blank.

But it’s a sunny and warm spring day. Promise is in the air. I’m getting ready for beer with friends on Wednesday. They’re intelligent, good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Preparing for a secular Easter brunch with friends on Sunday. That’ll have bittersweet toppings drizzled over it. Some of the regulars are gone. Others are in hospice.

Writing is fun and full of promise. That puts me in a very positive frame. A novel draft is finished, and so many other novels are lined up, eager to be written. But will that finished draft hold up in the next round of editing and revision? Then there’s the publishing game. That closes the damper on my enthusiasm.

Mom texts me and reminds me that she wants to be cremated. Do what we will with the ashes. Play Glenn Miller at her service. Hold it in the garden. She’s lived almost nine decades but she endures hourly pain and discomfort. Her quality of life can be categorized as miserable.

Down to one cat, my cativities are truncated from what they once were. An air of depression clouds that aspect of life.

Financially, my wife and I are okay. Viewing my health, I can be better or worse. Got all my limbs. They function well. I endure little regular pain on a daily basis. I’m not as strong nor limber as I used to be, and my hair is trekking away from my forehead. Memory still works for most of the time on most of the days.

My wife’s health is not as good. She searches for words more often and doesn’t find them. She’s developed a new habit of forgetting to turn things on or off. She’s bitter and angry with the world, especially with Trump, and the Roberts Court. She’s furious and anxious about women’s rights. Shoulder and back pain are building up their frequent flier miles with her.

So, I am here. In the middle of it all, happy and sad. Worried and hopeful. Bitter and angry. Joyful and loving. Loved and frustrated. I read of far worse situations for people. Like those in Gaza. Ukraine. Immigrants hunting a better existence for themselves and those they love. War and disaster refugees trying to find a home. People working hard and struggling harder. Sleeping in cars and hanging on for meals and help. Women and people of color hiding, living in fear, beaten and killed for who they are. People with a gender that doesn’t fall cleanly into male or female dismissed as less than equal, unaccepted by narrow-minded bigots. People starving to death as billionaires pile up more money and more property, self-pleasuring themselves with mindless greed.

We seem so far away from Star Trek‘s ideals and so much closer to Mad Max, Solyent Green, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Life is one hell of a spectrum.

April 14, 2025 1

Tucker (Pronounced Tuck-ah)

I was in the kitchen at midnight. A white flash crossed my vision’s edge.

I knew without doubt that Tucker had just bolted across the rainbow bridge. With some hot fluid boiling out of my eyes, I went in and made confirmation. Another era was over.

He went so quickly, it shocked us. He didn’t respond to any medication. All we could do is take a seat and console him and ourselves as best as we could.

Tucker was another in a long line of BFFs (Best Floof Friends). I’ve been grateful for them all and pleased that each chose to spend their time with me, sharing their secrets, insights, and love. I’m a wealthier person for them all.

And after I ached from my heart out through my chest and my face crumbled and the fluid burned my eyes more and blurred my vision, I squared up to go on. Because this is just part of the fucking roller coaster of life, up and fucking down, again and again. I hurt and will hurt for probably years because that’s just who I am. But I’ll continue moving forward, left foot, right foot, doing what I need to do.

Because all of my BFFs would always do the same. But man, I do still miss them all. Especially that last black and white handsome fellow that had to take his leave.

His name is Tucker. Pronounced Tuck-ah.

February 21, 2025 8

Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

I saw a segment on television about the Arlington National Cemetery and Memorial Day activies. Following a whim, I looked up my little brother’s marker and location. Four years younger than me, he lived for just over a few weeks. I remember the night Mom received the notification that he’d passed. Washing the dishes at the time, she stood there at the sink, a dish cloth in her hand, and cried and sobbed as I watched, asking her, “What’s wrong?”

She still mourns him.

May 24, 2024 0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: thwumpy

Thwump thwump thwump thwump

The helicopter — there’s just one, despite the traveling, echoing sound — continues its cleanup action. Good news: it isn’t black. No one rappels down from it.

Other than the chapter, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 in Ashlandia, offers up a mild and attractive spring day. 55 F, hunting for a 68 F high. Scanty clouds are mixing it up with the blue sky and sunshine.

Depressing news on the Mom front. She returned home but is suffering a lot of pain. I’m flummoxed. After days of being mostly upbeat, she’s in pain, angry, snapping at everyone.

Why is she in pain again? What’s the source? It seems to be a culmination of issues. She’s eighty-eight. Systems, muscles, joints fail. Pain ensues.

I try mounting context around her situation. She wasn’t allowed to go to my nephew’s eighteenth birthday party. Arrangements were made so she could join via Facetime to sing happy birthday. She was a no-show. When contacted, she said she saw how she looked on the screen and didn’t want anyone to see her like that.

Meanwhile, there were miscommunications and misunderstandings when she returned home. The facility offered her a wheelchair. Mom said, no, because she has one at home. The sister with her didn’t say anything but the rest of us responding, “What wheelchair? She doesn’t have a wheelchair.” So that opportunity was missed.

Her home stairlift quit functioning. Turns out that it needs a new battery. There are claims that it’s been beeping for weeks. Why didn’t someone notice that and do something about it? That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

Mom’s live-in boyfriend and my two sisters who live near Mom are emotionally exhausted. They’re struggling with their health and life matters. Mom calls for them to come help her but their balance is broken. It’s become harder for them to rise to the moment. They’ve been doing so for about five years.

A third sister leaves near Mom. Her husband has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. No other details are being leaked. They’re a secretive couple.

My fourth sister, the oldest sibling, now 70, lives in Georgia. She works, but her finances are tight. Going to help Mom would be a huge financial challenge for her from what I know.

And I, I sit across the country in my world, frustrated, guilt-ridden because I’m not there to help. I feel selfish. I want to go to help them.

I am selfish. I’m trying to pursue my long-delayed writing dreams. And I have my wife, house, and cats to take care of, along with a bunch of other issues. If I go back to help Mom and the rest, that puts a lot on my wife. She’s dealing with her own matters.

I feel like I know what I must do. Sacrifice and go. But also load it on my wife. And that causes more stress, more guilt, more depression.

Bit of a rant, wasn’t that? I know so many others have gone through like situations. I watched and helped as my wife went through this with her mother for several years. Other friends and relatives have gone through it or are going through it. This is part of modern American life.

On to music, okay? The Neurons have loaded ELO’s 1977 song, “Turn to Stone”, into the morning mental music stream (Trademark overdue). I get that. I feel paralyzed by demands, choices, and the need for decisions. Yeah, I’m turned to stone. Need to suck it up and move.

One other matter on my morning agenda. A toast to Voyager 1. NASA has restored contact with it. Launched back in 1977, a friend of mine was involved with its mission planning with NASA. He passed away from a brain tumor a few years ago. He said that he was only involved in a small degree. His expertise was measuring plasma composition in different regions of space. But even a little involvement is something. So, to Voyager, NASA, and Ed.

Be positive and keep strong. I know it can be a struggle. I’ve already launched some coffee into my body but I’ll probably add another round. Here’s the video. Cheers