Tag Archives: independence

What Will She Do With All Our Stuff?

24 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Asperger's syndrome, Autism, faith, Independence

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Within a few weeks Marie will be closing on her condo. She will be a home owner at 30.

Then the three of us will be moving together into her condo. We are starting to clean out this house that we have lived in for 21 years as of August 4.

A few years ago I discussed the issue of estate disbursement in this blog post.

https://annkilter.com/2014/03/14/what-would-they-do-with-my-stuff/

This time, the question is no longer speculative. Our real estate agent, Jean, told us that the sale will probably close before mid August. This time, we are moving out of necessity due to Ralph’s cancer. In part because we need to move to a place with fewer maintenance issues; somewhere fresh. In part because we needed to move to a place that is closer to Marie’s job. So that, if we aren’t available to take her to work (likely at some point), she can get herself there. It is 3 miles from her job, a 15 minute bus ride. She could walk if necessary, although that would mean crossing a very busy street. From our current house, it is an hour bus ride. And walking would be impossible.

The job of moving is overwhelming. Decisions. Decisions. What to throw away, what to give away, what to take with us.

Two weeks ago, Will and Patty came to the house to get their stuff before I could have a chance to throw or give it away. Will will never have a reason to say, “I could have had a fortune, but my Mom threw my Pokemon cards away.” Ralph tells the story about his mother who gave away his antique toys when he was away at college. Of course they weren’t antique then. Will and Patty will be coming back next weekend to get more stuff, and to take Daisy, our dog, and one of the cats, Chris, home to Will’s house.

When Will moved out, he took things from our house for his apartment. We also bought a lot of essentials for him like spices, laundry baskets, towels, etc. When Patty moved to her apartment, we did the same thing. But when we move to Marie’s Condo with her, we will be bringing our household goods with us. There will be no need to buy a rice cooker or a toaster. We will have everything we need, and then some.

One of the extra questions I am asking myself as we get ready to move is – will Marie ever have a need for this…or will she have to get rid of it? Marie can’t drive, so getting rid of our stuff is a hassle. Some things are going in the give-away boxes instead. I have announced my abundance of some items on Facebook. I have found a few homes for my extra yarn, and craft stuff. I will still crochet, but unless it is a project currently under construction, I think I will give the rest away.

I’ve taken three trunk loads of stuff to Goodwill so far. Many more to come. I’ll sell a few things, like the piano, the microwave, and tools. I don’t have the desire to run a full-on moving sale. In the next few weeks, if it goes as planned, I will have gotten rid of 50% of our stuff. Marie is going to buy new living room furniture for her condo (she doesn’t want our worn out stuff). So we will get a dumpster and throw those items away. 31 years of accumulation. It will take a while.

 

10615533_10152706696206381_5934439195734523380_n

 

Hope Deferred – Marie

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Asperger's syndrome, Autism, cancer, Independence

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

Yesterday, I took Marie to an apartment building in our town to look at a one bedroom apartment. Normally, this building has a long waiting list for one bedroom apartments. The rates are reasonable, and many residents are long-term. This apartment was available, I suspect, because it was being reconditioned. It is going to have completely new flooring installed. The apartment is modest, but pretty nice for a first apartment. It is less than a 20 minute bus ride to her job. Very important because Marie will never be able to drive.

Marie was going to write a check to reserve the apartment after work today. She was so excited to move into her own place.

Today, I received an urgent call from Denise from our health insurance company. She told me the local transplant center was out of network for them. If we chose to have Ralph evaluated there, our insurance company would pay 60%, leaving us on the hook for 40%, which would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. Completely out of our price range. The approved stem cell transplant centers are over a hundred miles away. We would need to travel and stay at hotels for Ralph’s treatment.

Marie will be 30 this summer. Her younger brother moved out four years ago to take a job in another city. He bought his own house a year ago. Her younger sister, Patty, moved to Ohio to pursue a graduate degree. She had to get an apartment.

Marie has been waiting to get her own place. She is the most impaired of her siblings; so her journey toward independence has been drawn out. Still, I believe she is ready. And moving to her own place would relieve us of the responsibility of driving her to her job (a precious job which took her four years to land after college.)

But she pays rent and transportation to us, which I am sorry to say is something that we need to make ends meet. Especially now that we will have to find a way to pay extra expenses for Ralph’s treatment. And we need someone to house sit our dog and our house if and when we need to be gone for a while. Our old dog is not nice to strangers. We need her at home. Yet she longs to be on her own. We need her help.

It’s not fair.

But she is willing at this point to help us. Of our children, Marie is the most selfless; like her father. I hope we can figure out a way for her to take this step sooner. And maybe this loss will turn out to be for the best.
    but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

Hope-Deferred

 

Panic – What’s a Mom to Do?

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Achievement, Autism, Independence, Transition issues

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Thanks to technology, I can know instantly when my grown children are having a panic attack. No ESP or Mom’s intuition required.

Ping! The Facebook messenger notifies me. Pop! A text message announces itself. My computer makes another noise at work as a panicky email appears, ghost like and then fades.

My grown kids can reach out and touch me in so many ways. 🙂

Will lives 70 miles away in the state capitol. In the last three months, Ralph or I have received panicky communication regarding the following:

Anguished decision making regarding whether to make a job change. After four interviews, a job offer came with higher pay and more responsibility. Will accepted the job offer. The a few hours later, I received a phone call on the way home from work. He had crashed his car. It was less than a year old. “If only I hadn’t decided to drive to Verizon to reward myself with a new phone. I was too tired, too wound up to concentrate properly.”

“Will,” I said. “Accidents happen. Are you hurt? Is anyone else hurt?” “I don’t know. They are checking out a senior citizen. Here comes a police officer. I need to hang up.”

A few minutes later, he called back. “I can’t find my registration. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.” “Will, people have that situation all the time. The police officer will know what to do.” The officer was able to look it up on his computer in his car.

Ralph went into rescue mode and drove to Will’s house, cleaned his house, cooked his meals.

The following Monday Will gave his two week notice to his current company. The next day, they came back with a better offer. Will was a mess, in a panic, losing sleep. He suffered high anxiety over a wonderful, dreadful choice. His dad stayed all week long, feeding him and cleaning house while he made his choice and he drove a rented car while his car was repaired. He stayed with his current company at twice the pay.

A few weeks later, his stove stopped working, after several attempts to keep it hobbling along. Ralph was on the phone with him several times convincing him to buy a good quality stove. Then, the day before Will had to leave for a business trip, the stove was delivered but couldn’t be hooked up due to the lack of qualifications of the delivery team to hook it up to gas. Ralph was staying at Will’s house for two weeks to take care of his three cats. So Ralph had no stove, but also was able to deal with the delivery people. They delivered the stove again, but the gas line was not up to code. Finally, after Will arrived home, the stove was hooked up.

Meanwhile, Patty was panicking during her first few weeks at Grad School. Her iritis finally went away a week after she arrived. During her first week, on the way to a required faculty party in her department, she fell while trying to catch the bus, getting some sore muscles and scratched up hands and face. She sent me an email while she sat in her office thinking about whether she would go to the party.

“Do you have to go? You could go home and tell them that you didn’t feel well.”

“I have to go. I’m an adult and I have to go, even though I was crying.”

“Well, if you have to go, give yourself a little rest.”

She walked over to the hotel, and went to the wine and cheese party. I prayed for her. What else could I do? I received a call at 10:00 p.m. “It went better than I thought. I was the only one who didn’t drink, but it was okay. I talked to my adviser; she was nicer than I thought, but a little loopy. They had food, but some of the grad students were disappointed there wasn’t pizza. We were all hungry.”

“Did you walk home?”

“No, another girl and I said we didn’t have a car, and one of the older grad students had pity on us and gave both of us a ride home.”

Patty was terrified of leading a discussion section. Her position was changed to grading only, which has worked out well for her.

She had awful, horrible cramps and finally went to the doctor, who put her on the pill. And said, given our family history of endometriosis, it was likely she had the classic symptoms. And that part of her problem was living away from home for the first time.

Last week she came down with influenza, and later this week, her iritis came back. She was frustrated that she couldn’t get through to her eye doctor. “I don’t have time for an appointment…but I have to go. I might go blind if I let this go. Maybe I’ll have to go to the ER.

“No. Don’t go to the ER. You don’t need to go to the ER. You can wait for an appointment.” At my desk at work, I looked up her doctor and called the office. I got right through. “My daughter likely has iritis and needs to see the doctor.” I made an appointment for Monday. And emailed her the time of the appointment. I sent her the correct phone number. (I look up medical providers for my job in order to obtain medical records for Medicare Set-Aside Proposals.) She called and changed the appointment and insisted the receptionist call the doctor and see if it was okay for her to start the treatment. She can take of herself, after all.

Most of Will’s panicky calls for help come to his father by phone. Most of Patty’s cries for help come via email, text, or Facebook messages.

What’s a parent to do as our kids start out on their own? Pray, give advice, and pray some more.

Help

 

 

Checking Items off the List. (and the days)

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Independence

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

“One good thing about moving away,” said Patty, “is I don’t have to eat what I don’t like.” Oh the woes of family meals.

“Reminds me of what President Bush said.” I said.

She laughed.

“Now that I am president, no one can make me eat Broccoli,” she said.

Perhaps her thoughts regarding food freedom were inspired by the “Tuesday Night Chicken,” I had just served for supper (from the Frugal Paleo Cookbook). Or perhaps from the list we have been making of all the things she will need for her apartment at the University.

It’s a long list. Despite the fact that the apartment will be furnished. She bought a set of stoneware dishes at Goodwill, along with some glasses. She has let me know some of the items she is planning to take from my kitchen. Like my hand mixer, because she says I never bake (true). And she picked out the color to suit her when I bought it a couple of years ago (bright orange). Some of my glass baking pans and some of my cookie sheets. I hope she will take more of my stuff, as I am in a continual process of getting rid of stuff so they won’t have to when I can’t. (https://annkilter.com/2014/03/14/what-would-they-do-with-my-stuff/). Grandma has some pans she would like Patty to have.

Mostly kitchen stuff this time. Toiletries. Laundry items. Towels. Cleaning supplies. Food – pantry items. Paper. Printer ink. Key ring. We keep thinking of new stuff. She would like a new laptop, but that will have to come later. For now, she can take an older one from home.

There are boxes in the window seat. We throw stuff into them as we obtain them (or find them, as in the category of stuff I am getting rid of).

Her birthday was last week. She requested small kitchen appliances from her siblings and from us. We haven’t purchased them yet because the smaller “college dorm” versions are not in the stores yet, on sale. They will be soon.

Patty has about five weeks to go until she moves away from home. Last week she opened a bank account. We hope she will have her driver’s license by the time she leaves (although she will still be an inexperienced driver).

We went out for coffee to talk. She said she is excited and frightened at the same time. She doesn’t know what kind of job she will be doing. If she will have to speak in front of students. I told her that she would probably meet with them weekly. Although she was a teacher’s assistant as an undergrad for two and a half years, the job will likely be different. She went to a small school. I went to Michigan State University, and I know how that works at large universities. She hates public speaking, but I assured her that she would get used to it.

She doesn’t know how she will pay for the first month’s rent before she gets paid or her student loan comes in. She should have gotten a job this summer, but I am conflicted. I felt better about having her around so someone was with Ralph during the day. Not that he really, really needs that now. But still. And he is teaching her to drive. They both have gone to my son’s house to babysit his cats and house sit while he was in Seattle for his job three different weeks this spring/summer. I felt better about having Patty there with him then. Especially then. Patty painted his deck while he was gone. He is going to pay her for that.

Somehow, God willing, we will get her there. With planning, prayer, and effort. And we will likely still forget something important.

11114783_10152884754456381_2048840477399682354_o

 

 

 

 

Life Without A Car

20 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Independence

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

“Where are you going to buy organic meat?” Mary stopped in the middle of reading recipes out loud to me as I drove her to work last week. She was reading out of one of the cookbooks I bought for my Whole30 diet plan. Organic meat, grass fed, no antibiotics, with no GMO food.

“Well, I bought organic chicken thighs, drumsticks, and ground beef at Costco this week.” I said. “But I don’t know where to buy organic meat anywhere else. Let’s look it up on the internet when we get home.”

That evening, we found a local meat market that sells “meat raised without the use of growth hormones, preservatives, dyes and antibiotics and raised in a humane way.” The prices were comparable to our local stores, even Costco. But then we noticed they shipped their products all over the United States.

“I wonder what the cost would be to ship meat to my apartment when I get one,” wondered Mary.

“Let’s look it up,” I said.

So we put in the zip code of her likely apartment location when she gets one next year. She could get about 20 pounds of frozen food shipped to her apartment for about $20. But then, she would have to be there to get it. She works full time during the week. It is shipped frozen, so it couldn’t just wait at the apartment complex office (well, it could for a little while).

Mary and I have been discussing issues surrounding her move to an apartment next spring. How she will get food, get to the doctor, the dentist, laundry, prescriptions, etc. Some of her answers have been to depend on us for a while for trips to the grocery store or the doctor, and that is reasonable. Who will take her to the doctor if she has bronchitis or the flu if we can’t? When Ralph was in the hospital last fall, I couldn’t provide transportation to her class. Our church family stepped in and helped us out. Maybe finding her own community of believers is part of the answer. The likelihood of us not being available to her in the future is certain.

Living without a car, being dependent on others for basic needs is going to be a fact of life for her. When I look up resources for living without a car on the Internet, the vast majority of articles are about people who have the option of driving but choose not to for some reason. I saw very few resources for people who have no option but to depend on public transportation, their own feet, and the kindness of others. Maybe she will use Uber for some of her needs, but oh my heart. My friend’s children use Uber without a second thought….but.

Much wisdom and prayer is going to go into her move toward independence. Sometimes serendipitous discoveries are one of God’s ways of leading. May we discovery the right apartment, near perhaps some of those business that will make her life easier and give us some peace of mind.

bus11