The Hits Keep Coming

A friend with pancreatic cancer died Monday morning. He was pivotal to the design process of many forklift lines. He was a true oddball, snark, arm flapper, weirdo, love, genius. He was an acquired taste but I came to love him hard, as so many did. He let me barge into his life a little further after his diagnosis.

So the whole factory is grieving. And part of what I see as my job is to help heal through memory. We're pulling together all of the facets and looking at them together and going "That's him."

Like I said, he was a peculiar person. He understood what was funny about things that push the limit. So I could text him images of weird mermaid paintings, or strange vintage songs and he got it. Other than mrguy, the only person I've had that bond with is miss wartz, who is now out of my life. Or my middle sister, also out of my life pretty much. Boo. Sucks.

Anyway, I have all of these tasks that are related to a dear dead friend (we want to celebrate him and love him) and it feels like it's too much. But people are so happy when you bring the pieces back together to celebrate him. And my own way of coping was to make a wiki that collected a bunch of the weird shit / opinions he's texted me over the last few years and put it all in one place. And going to free grief counseling and crying.

Innnn the meantime, I finally coached our caregiver through the drama of being called to jury duty. She wanted me to call my mom's doctor and get an excuse (that is totally not a thing, and my mom has needs right now -- I don't want to squander Dr. time by asking for a ridiculous favor). Then she wanted to tell me (at length) why she was afraid of jury duty. Then she asked me to write down a list of reasons she could use to convince the court that she couldn't serve. Here is what I wrote:

"Here are things that you can say that are all true:

• I would not be a good juror because don’t understand English well enough. I don’t understand the jury process.
• I care for a 94-year-old woman who has Alzheimer’s. She screams and cries when I am not with her.
• I had a bad experience with police in Tonga, where I was born. They took my husband’s legally-owned handgun and wouldn’t return it."

She called in today and her group was excused. "Thank you Father God!" she said.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to blow the scene and go to a convention in a week, but I'm having trouble writing my presentation. In addition to being interrupted by all the work stuff related to celebrating my dead friend and the stuff I need to do related to moving my mom who is very unhappy, there are all of the requests from other people who are *also* presenting at this convention. I really feel I need to go do this. I haven't been anywhere for three years and I'm at my limit. I want to leave town, man a booth at a convention where people are happy, and share my thoughts with the world on Sunday. 

Excellent news is that mrguy, neph and his wife got us out of the old apartment. Also I'm buying a bunch of stickers to put on my car so that mom doesn't think it's hers any longer. I'm going to un-momify it. And if that doesn't work, new car.

Oh about all that fun I'm having -- just fielded a call from my queen, telling me she wanted to get out of "the hotel or whatever this is" and that she needs a car and they won't let her out. I can't go see her because there is a caregiver group zoom meeting specific to people who have family members residing in this place in memory care. I need their feedback for myself and for her. I'm finding that in this transition I don't have my after work time available to me that would allow me to do things I can't get done in the day, because I am doing something for mom or I'm worn out.

Wow.