I got a call yesterday afternoon from that guy who calls himself my brother. He had totaled his car, the old Plymouth Breeze he'd inherited from Mom two years ago. He thinks a magazine fell down under his feet and jammed the gas and brake pedals while he was next to the Bremerton Safeway. He ran into their sign. Chico Towing was there and taking the car to their lot. The police were there. He was okay and his passenger, an old friend, was okay. Nobody hurt. He has car insurance, which he didn't have about 3 months ago. I was laying on the guest bed reading when I got the phone call. I listened to my brother telling me what he thought happened, what was happening right then, his voice was high and "excited", adrenaline was coursing through his viens, I'm sure. I wondered when the question would come--"Can you come to pick me up?" or "Will you help me with the insurance claim?" or "What am I going to do?" But I deflected those potential questions with my own directives: "Call Geiko right away!" and "Are you getting a ride home with Tom"? Finally, he had to get off the cell phone he was using, probably his friend's, to finalize the police report.
I lay there, tried to read again, but couldn't. I just kept thinking about how it's only been 1 year since he's truly been on his own. It was last April that I found the Bremerton Garden Apartments place for him and my husband and I moved all his stuff in there, cursing at each other and bickering, because his stuff was covered in cat hair and deep dust and falling apart and his paintings were huge and heavy and there were so many of them. He didn't want to throw anything away--there were heavy boxes of magazines, books, old broken motorcycle models. He was so out of it he didn't help us at all. It took forever and I was 68 and not that strong and my husband is 11 years younger, but didn't want to be doing it. It was awful, harrowing even.
Because the apartment was too expensive for him I had to put Estate money aside to help him with the rent. I didn't know how to find apartments then, so it came down to whatever we could do quickly after Mom's house closed. For a year I went to his dirty apartment every month and wrote him a check to cover part of the rent. When the lease was close to running out I found him a new, studio apartment, because the Estate money had run out. This time I was more savvy but there were still only 3 studios in Kitsap that he could just barely afford. And this time his Special Needs Trust administrator, the miracle worker, Jenifer, agreed to move him, charging him a more than fair amount out of his trust. She arranged it all, even to the point of getting a company to come in and move away the dilapidated furniture that he couldn't fit into the studio. I helped him get "organized", taped boxes for him, advised, etc., but I didn't have to move him at all. And when he was all moved out, she hired Scrubbles to clean, something I was thinking I'd have to do.
In the year that he'd been there he had a restraining order filed against him because he was obsessed with a young woman at the coffee shop he went to. He got stopped by the police twice for a broken tail light. He'd gone to the emergency room twice, once for a deep cut on his hand. He had no doctor because his old one wouldn't take the new Medicaid insurance. He had neglected to get car insurance. His coffee pot broke and his microwave, too. His cat was limping and too fat. He stopped taking all his meds because of no doctor. But he felt and looked better, had more energy, was not sleeping all day. All in one year.
So I thought I was out of the woods with a move to a place where he'd have less interaction with people he might annoy. A place that was already rustic and that he couldn't really wreck. His trust administrator was doing a good job. He was reconnecting with some old friends. I was feeling almost carefree. I knew I'd be getting phone calls occasionally about small stuff, like he asked me last month: "Who played the female role in Spartacus?" I had a feeling that he might try to get money from me and I was prepared to say no. But I didn't think I'd get this phone call just 2 weeks after he'd moved. All I can say is "ACK"!!!!!! He has learned some things, but he is woefully unequipped to live in the real world. Sometimes I am angry with my folks for not throwing him out years and years ago.
But on the other hand, I must be doing better emotionally and mentally. I did sleep soundly last night. I did not think about my brother or his accident until I woke up. I am having to write about it now to get it down and out of my head. Funny thing is, yesterday I was saying to my husband that I should probably call my brother to see how he was doing in his new apartment. I didn't want to call him for fear he would want me to do something for him--take him somewhere or bring him something or show him how to do something. I wanted to stay off his radar. And then he called. Remember the old Saturday Night Live skits with the Land Shark? I can hear the music now--dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum--knock, knock. Who's there? Candygram.......
1 comment:
I feel your pain and have the same thoughts! Donna
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