Another Death in the Family

     Some absences are just more painful than others.

     I've been MIA these past 72 hours or more and the reason is simple. There's been another death in the family. I'd already lost my father to COVID-19 and this time, Mrs. JP lost her older sister. We don't think it was COVID-related but at this point, it doesn't matter much. It was still abrupt and untimely. Her sister Susan should have had many more good years ahead of her but they were cruelly denied her.

     This is the second nuclear family member that Barb's lost since moving up here in 2009. Some of you who've stuck around may recall she lost her mother to cancer several years ago. I made a plea for help and scores of you chipped in with amounts great and small.

     But that was years and a pandemic ago. When my own father passed away from COVID earlier this year, I made a similar plea for help and couldn't get enough for one way bus fare down to Georgia.

     Mrs. JP, however, was closer to her older sister than most in her family. She was also close to her mom and when it looked as if one holiday would be her last (although it wasn't), you guys came through and enabled me to send her down to Florida and back. And when her mom began her final decline a couple of years later, you really came through in a big way and we got her down to Vero Beach with 18 hours to spare.

     Now, we need you to help us again and to get Barb back home so she can attend her sister's funeral. When you take into your home a member of someone's family, you become a member of that family, and it's immaterial whether or not they accept you into it. You inherit a lot of unpleasant duties, such as telling your already stressed out fiancee that her sister passed way the night before because no one else in the family thought they were strong enough to do the job or literally phoned it in via text message (Yes, they actually did that Friday morning).

     One way or the other, she is getting getting down to Florida. It's the least she deserves. But my only way to do that right now is to use the rent money that's due in a few days. I'd rather not do that because our cold-blooded, sociopathic slumlord who tried to evict us over a lie earlier this year could and would make it so that she'll have no home to come back to.

     So, if it's in your hearts and/or budgets to help, please do.