Well, the deal we made when you all helped us get out to my parents' place in Arkansas was that I'd pay it forward and write. Finances are getting better, but I still owe you some words.
I've made no secret that the "acceptance" phase is a long, long way off. People ask me, "If you hate living in Arkansas so much, why did you go and why are you staying? You have other options."
Well, I have reason to bring my family out here. And after the curlicue thingy, I'll tell you.
Our family has been very much a "keep it in the family" type. Because that has never, ever worked, I'm going to talk about what's going on here despite the fact that my brothers and stepfather will lose their shit when they find out about this.
When things started coming apart, my parents immediately invited us out to Arkansas. Given that the health of my relationship with my parents has generally been in inverse proportion to our proximity, I knew this was a bad sign. When they told me to go ahead and bring my D&D stuff, which my stepfather remains convinced is Satanic, I knew things were bad.
See, my parents both have MS. My stepfather has various other medical issues as well, including as it turns out moderate dementia. Perhaps Alzheimer's, perhaps MS, maybe some other cause. But when we got out here they had been eating peanut butter sandwiches because they had no food in the house, and no strength to get any. Then they both went down hard with MS, and we had to do everything for them.
Now things are getting better, and now my stepfather wants us to go. On a good day, he is aware that they have problems and realizes that they need help. Daily help, if not full-time, live-in help. On a bad day, he turns on his caregivers and insists we're all in a plot to take over his life and tell him what to do.
And the bad days have outnumbered the good ones, by far, and are getting worse.
Mom is the sole caregiver, until we showed up, and has had to deal with the burden on her own with her health issues on top of it. Hopefully soon we can get her a break and get her out of the Goddamned house for a while so she can rest. My working nights doesn't help with this, but there are weekends. The relentless heat hasn't helped.
I was getting on my stepfather for going off his medications, but as he admitted on one of his good days, the anti-dementia meds give him horrible, vivid, gruesome nightmares and I honestly can't blame him for avoiding that. His doctors are beginning to say "nursing home".
So where are my brothers? One is in desperate financial straits himself. My stepbrother is helpless seeing his father like this, but is stepping up. And one brother took my stepfather's complaints that we were taking over here as Gospel, and, well, let's just say I learned how much he hates my wife.
We've finally gotten my parents to accept that we're not leaving until they have a solid support system in place with daily visits, caregiving assistance, the whole nine yards and it has to be in place and we have to see it working. Their church has been promising to do this, but they've been promising for half a decade and we've met exactly one caregiver from their church.
So when this turns out to be impossible or unaffordable, there will be us. Living in the Ozarks, taking care of them, because someone has to.
Not what I want to do with my life. Not where I want to raise our child. But we must, because no one else can or will.