Re: Frank's still here, although but barely
Laurence W Brown via NewtonTalk <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.systems.newton.newtontalk |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Please - take care of yourself! You won’t be able to put someone else’s oxygen mask on them if you haven’t first put yours on. This is not just a slogan, or just from me - it’s from a long line of people having had to deal with situations like yours… -L.W. Brown via 6s+ > On May 18, 2019, at 16:12, NewtonTalk <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi folks, > > thanks for inquiring about me. That's what friends do, and it felt really > nice. > > Pawel was right when he said that I'm very busy, but that's not the main > reason for my silence. I've been very busy since I've started to think, > which was about six decades ago. That never kept me from taking care of > Newton issues. > > The reason for my silence is sheer physical and psychical exhaustion. My > mother died last December, and I was left with resolving her "legacy". I > spent almost three months turning a 160 square meters hoarder household into > something that might have a fraction of a chance to be sold without > potential buyers puking onto the driveway when they see it. This house is > still inhabited by my mentally challenged sister and my mother's mentally > challenged partner, who don't have enough income between them to pay at > least for the running costs. I spent almost 1500 bucks on having garbage > disposed of. About 70 cubic meters of garbage, to be exact, every single > piece of which had to be checked manually by yours truly before throwing it > away because important documents and family pictures were all over the > place. This family never really grasped the concept of organizing or filing > things, or keeping one's dwellings clean, or throwing things away that you > no longer need. I brought another 50 cubic meters of usable things to misc. > charitable organizations. Not exactly an easy task, if one's car is the > smallest model Toyota offers... > > My mother's partner is a really nice fellow, but he's a bit like a child. > You need to tell him what to do, and he does it. Sometimes. Sometimes he > doesn't. Sometimes he does things you never told him to do, causing huge > amounts of additional work you didn't expect and don't have time to do. > Although this guy is only eight years older than myself, I had to find a > retirement home for him that he can afford and that's nice enough to ensure > a halfway dignified way of spending the last years of his life. > > My mentally challenged sister, unfortunately, didn't cope with her mother's > death as well as I had hoped. When one day I drove there to check on them, > she sat in her room, talked nonsense, didn't know when she had eaten the > last time, and her personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. So I called an > emergency doctor, who committed her to a mental hospital as an emergency. > Visiting her there wasn't really fun, because in her world I was the one who > brought her there. She's been released meanwhile, but nobody knows if she > will be able to face life on her own. Will she be able to keep her job? Will > she be allowed to continue driving her car? Nobody knows. The doctors in the > hospital said that she will get someone assigned to her who has the same > right of decision as herself, and who ensures that she won't do things that > might harm her in any financial, medical or other way. > > This stupid house must be sold ASAP to get the funds that'll ensure decent > living for the two of them. Guess whose job this is... > > I do have three brothers that could help, but they don't. I won't go into > this here, but they simply don't. The majority of what they do doesn't > really help. Sometimes it causes new problems. And I'm under the impression > I'm about to make enemies of them because I try to handle all this > thoughtfully, thoroughly, conscientiously and in a way that won't require > doing it again in the future, keeping the long-term well-being of my sister > and our mother's partner first priority. Sometimes I'm under the impression > they had hoped to resolve all this within a week or so, and are really angry > that everything takes so long. > > Before all this started, my life was... well... not exactly without duties. > I have two relatives older than 80 years that rightfully expect support and > help. And the fact that I have a wife and a child, who all live on 2000 > square meters property, in a house much too small and 110 years old, doesn't > help very much, either. > > My To Do list is getting longer by the minute. All this is exhausting both > physically and psychically. My own health leaves one or two things to be > desired at the moment, regularly requiring a lot of my time to keep me > operational. Most times when I turn my computer on, I only take care of one > or two of the ten million queued-up issues that absolutely MUST be taken > care of. After that, I hardly ever find enough energy to address anything > that has the word Newton in it. There are days when I leave my car and go > straight to bed. > > I sincerely apologize for leaving people who wanted to purchase Newton > hardware or required other forms of Newton support out in the rain. I > promise y'all that you're not forgotten. One of these days I will definitely > get in touch again. But this might still take a bit... > > Cheers > > Frank > > -- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > http://newtontalk.net/ > http://twitter.com/newtontalk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://newtontalk.net/ http://twitter.com/newtontalk