Chapter 174

There are some stretches in life that seem to be part of the road that leads straight to hell. So far in the last days we have lost a major donor to the tune of $12000 annually, my dad is sicker than a dog, and my wife even more so, we have been in three hospitals in the last 24 hours, my truck quit running, and we have just run up thousands of dollars in medical bills, and oh yeah, I just had to cancel my wife’s flight for tomorrow, since she ain’t flying anywhere yet. And there is more! Remind me to never ever tell my kids that their mom is sick until after it is over and she is at home resting comfortably. 

While I love the fact that they love her and want to be helpful, crashing our cramped living situation in order “to help” ain’t helping nobody. Its making all these issues more difficult, because there is another mouth to feed, another bed to prepare, another person to accommodate, and frankly I am pretty snarly right now, running on three hours of sleep and three days of troubles. 

If you really want to be helpful do two things: 1. ask what would be helpful, 2 do that precisely no more no less. Unfortunately everybody has got to make it about themselves in the end (big sigh) and that is worse than no offer of assistance at all.

(Addendum) It was good to see one of my kids, even though it was a pointless trip. My truck is demon-possessed, as it started running properly for no reason at all. Best of all my wife is back to 100%. I am thankful for these matters from my heart.