I really can’t thank all of you enough for helping us make this trip.

Mom is in a good place with dedicated people and under 24/7 supervision. That wasn’t a ‘relief’ as I already knew my brother and his wife were making sure she was taken excellent care of.

She can’t be left unsupervised. She gets lost, has forgotten how to do things, etc. and they both work a lot. They don’t need to come home to find their house burning down because she forgot to turn the stove off or something similar.

Seeing her was a shock. For me, it was as though she’d grown old in the blink of an eye.

From this:

To this:

Mom’s always had something of a weight fluctuation going on after having four kids. She’s gone from about a size 16 to 10 several times over the past three decades, so seeing her not much larger than myself was really strange.

To be honest, between that and the rest of the changes in her, if I walked by her on a street while she was wearing a pair of shades, I wouldn’t recognize her.

She feels frail and looks about 20 years older than she is. Her hair has gone completely white. She’s fearful, indecisive and it’s a complete about face from the confident, not afraid to get in your face person I remember.

‘Heartbreaking’ is an excellent word for it.

She did recognize me instantly, which meant a LOT to me. Her mouth dropped open she said ‘Gay!’ and almost ran to me for a hug. We were both pretty teary-eyed.

My sister-in-law took us to Hollywood Boulevard for lunch and some sightseeing the first day. I held Mom’s hand most of the time and basically listened to her chatter. It was like tending to a small child, except without the curiosity that makes them dart off to look at things.

She was afraid of getting lost and kept asking me if I’d stay right there, wait for her and not leave her when she wanted to look at something or used the restroom.

I think for most of the day, she knew who I was. There were a few times when she called me by my sis-in-law’s name and once she called me ‘Momma’. A couple of times, I caught a look on her face like she was wondering where she was at and who the hell all of us were.

She seemed to recognize my son despite how much he’s grown; her first words to him were ‘My god, how tall are you now?’ but she didn’t say his name but twice the entire time. She told my daughter that she was getting big and looked pretty, but couldn’t remember her name at all when asked.

I don’t really think she remembered their names, but the girl didn’t notice. She just chatted away like she always does and didn’t blink when Granny said something odd. The boy understands what’s going on, so he walked with her a little bit and just went along with whatever she said, acting like it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

I’m rather used to having different voices yapping around in my brain, so I was able to follow along her jumps from present to past to fanciful without any trouble. Another bonus to being a writer, I guess.

The most important thing was seeing her.

I already knew Alzheimer’s was fatal. I understood that from the first moment my sis-in-law told me the diagnosis. I knew the progression of the disease in Mom’s case was very rapid and there’s been a couple of people who’ve told me some things to expect from their own experiences with loved ones suffering from it.

My brother and I had a talk the evening I arrived. He was trying to prepare me for the fact she might not recognize or remember me – there’s been instances when asked where she’s responded that he’s her only child. Prodding her a bit usually resulted in her agreeing she had more kids, but there was always the question of whether she actually remembered the rest of us or was just agreeing with him.

One of the things we talked about or rather, he talked and I reassured him about, was what to do when the time comes.

Mom witnessed both her father and step-father being kept alive by artificial means for several months, and how miserable they were at the ends of their lives. Back then it was standard procedure.

She and my grandmother were both very clear that they didn’t want the same thing for themselves. When my grandmother was in the ICU for her final days, Mom signed the DNR order for her and had her taken off the ventilator. My grandmother was going to require either mechanical assistance or, if she managed to continue breathing on her own, 24/7 care and would be living as the proverbial vegetable. Her higher brain functions were gone.

Knowing that, I agreed with him that the important thing was to make sure she was as comfortable as possible but when the time came, to just let her go. No resuscitation, no mechanical assistance to keep her alive.

She’ll be cremated as per her wishes and he’s going to bring her ashes back home to Texas to spread.

That’s not a decision you ever want to make for any member of your family, but in this case, it’s not a hard one to make. It would only be trying to stave off the inevitable and there’s no reason to do that: She can’t be miraculously cured.

The whole trip boiled down for me to her seeing me, recognizing me and that hug. That was worth all the stress, begging and everything that went into getting there.

Again, thank all of you so very, very much for making it possible.

This isn’t something I do very often, but I’m impressed with them, so here goes:

A bit over 2 years ago, I was one of the unluckiest people you’d ever meet when it came to having a vehicle.

Fourteen vehicles in 20 years of driving, people. Name a mechanical problem, and I bet one of my vehicles had had it. I had two lemons. I learned to rebuild engines and do all sorts of parts replacements. I paid thousands of dollars out on vehicles, vehicle parts and labor in some cases, just to have one so I could get my kids and myself around.

But then D found an ad for All Star and my luck changed.

I went into a lease purchase on a 2005 Chevy Classic – just a small, plain Jane sedan. It was a great little car and I seriously loved it, but…my kids, I believe I’ve mentioned I’ve bred giants before?

My son’s 15 and 6’ 2. My daughter’s 10 and 5’ 1. The leg room? It sort of disappeared for them in the past two years, and of course, there’s the trip to see my mom, who has Alzheimers, that we’re planning. That little sedan wasn’t going to cut it anymore, but I couldn’t do any kind of more money involved thing.

So I went up and talked to them, thinking a small SUV would be more suitable for me now. They didn’t have any available to put me into. They did have a minivan, but it was out on rental so I had to wait. Well, I went Tuesday and the minivan wasn’t going to cut it either because it had been pretty roughed up by the people who’d rented it.

Lo and behold, they had mid-sized SUV in and after looking at it, I said ‘Yes, I want it’.

A lease/purchase with them meant I could trade up with what I’d paid up to that point on the Classic transferred to the new choice. So for no extra cash and no jump in my regular monthly payments, they put me in a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer.

You can’t beat that with a stick: newer vehicle, already a sizeable lump paid on it and no increase in payments. Plus, great people to deal with!

So if you’re near the Lubbock area and looking for a vehicle, call All Star at (806) 698-8511 and ask for Mike or Tina. They’ll treat you right and you’ll get a good, not very old, reliable vehicle in the process without a gigantic monthly payment or balloon pay off.

Twenty-nine days. 67, 262 words.

I’m so very depressed by that. All those words and yet so few were towards my goal of finishing Hunter’s Edge or Blood Stalking. And that was plenty enough words to have done so for both!

It really doesn’t do any good to be so prolific at writing if I’m not getting that project list of mine whittled down. I only managed to finish three short stories. Talk about prolificly unproductive.

I’ve got to get better organized with my writing. Those crowding the House of Craze are just going to have to start behaving and quit inviting more bodies into the building. That’s all there is to it.

I wouldn’t count on much from me in June. My Memorial Day weekend started off with my daughter discovering a dead body (neighbor’s son committed suicide, hung himself in a tree in their backyard. She was looking out her bedroom window at our dog and spotted the body. She’s doing okay).

I’ve got to report for jury duty selection on Monday, D managed to totally fuck his ankle up last night, there’s a thing with my car I’m supposed to take care of next week and I’m trying to plan a trip to go see my mom.

Plus, school’s out! Yay!

I’m not Miss Sunshine right now, people. It’s actually a very rare occurence that I don’t walk through my days with a smile and bucket of optimism in hand.  I seem to have misplaced that bucket, so if you see it, give me a yell. I really need it back.

I’m sure I’ll be writing, because the chance of full on craziness is just flat too great to risk by not writing. But it’s likely to all be crap and end up in a file that never again sees the light of day.

I don’t like the idea of June going by without there being something for those faithful few subscribers and visitors here, so I’m thinking I might spend this weekend setting up daily posts promoting other writers. The ones that influenced me growing up, ones that I’ve met via the internet or that are current favorites of mine.

How does that sound? Good, I hope. Also hope I manage to follow through on that since I mentioned it. Heh.

And I’ll again mention this: I’m in a bind on having the funds to go see my mother, so have all my titles listed here on my site where they can be purchased directly from me. If you’re interested in my work and plan to purchase one, I’d greatly appreciate you doing so from this page.

Thanks, and sorry to be such a freakin’ downer today. I’m just waiting for that straw, because this camel’s back is bowed something fierce.

Okay, I hate doing this (and you have no idea how much I really, really mean that) but it doesn’t look like I have much choice if I’m going to get to see my Mom before she further declines.

In early 2008, she was diagnosed with Younger Onset Alzheimers. She’ll be 55 in June, and the progression of this fatal brain disease has been pretty rapid. She’s in California, I’m in Texas. I haven’t been able to do anything except call her due to the distance involved and finances (which everyone knows how that goes, right?).

One of my brothers and I are planning to go see her the week of her birthday, and it’s likely to be our last chance to do so while she can still sort of recognize us. She’s in the moderately severe to severe stage right now and already in an assisted living center.

They gave her two years when she was diagnosed and those two years are almost up. This might very well be our last chance to see her, period, unless a miracle occurs that lets us go again in another few months.

We’re driving and I’m taking both my kids with me. Not sure yet whether his wife and 2 kids are going too. But either way, after researching gas prices, motel expenses for the layover on the way there and coming home, plus food and contributing to some groceries at our brother’s place there during our stay, I’m looking at about $900 to $1,000 I have to come up with in order for me and my kids to make this trip, with a very thin ‘just in case cushion’.

I’m relatively sure I’ll be able to scrape together $500 by the 23rd, which is when we plan on leaving.

I can’t figure out anyway possible to come up with the rest except to tell people what’s going on and ask them to purchase my e-books through here. Every other venue I sell them through has a waiting period of 30 – 60 days before I receive my payout, which will be no help at all in this matter. Through here, I receive my net profit from each sale instantly.

I have 27 days to get the full amount together, of which I have $100 right now.

If you have a few bucks to spare, your purchase of one of my e-books would be sincerely appreciated in helping me & my kids to go see my mom. Or if you could pass the link to this entry on, that would also be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

NOTE: I received an email & yeah, I realize people might not want to sign up over there even though it’s free. So I’ve put up direct links and will send them manually ASAP if anyone would prefer to help out by purchasing from those instead. You can do that on this page.

I’m not putting up any type of pure donation thing for this because I’m frankly just not comfortable doing so. There’s too many other people with bigger problems for me to feel right asking for free handouts.