When it Rains, Buckets

Hi there. I know it's been too long since I've written one of these. I also recall that I began writing them as a therapeutic outlet when I had a lot to say and nowhere to say it.

I debated writing so many personal things about myself and then I would just say, fuck it and let it rip. Never really editing or worrying about much other than it would be there if I never needed to revisit it.

I'd like to revisit this at some point and I hope you the reader can gain something from it.

Let me get the dates right before I begin. Wally got diagnosed with emphysema in July 2022. He was my dad not the guy in California with the Jesus complex and the need to help every addict on earth but also forget to call his son on his birthday for the first 30 years of his life.

Wally taught me how to play sports, collect cards, how to read and write, how to fish, how to drive, empathy for others was taught constantly. He was a teacher for a profession but he did his best work with my sisters and in house.

He was never sick until he retired. He retired after 25 years of teaching middle school and some college programs. A master carpenter in his 20s he built or renovated 5 homes all for my mother. He met the girl of his dreams and raised 3 kids of his own (me included) and 3 adopted children.

He built those houses, taught all those kids and the second he secured his retirement pension and every home was filled with tenants or his own family, he sat in front of the TV with a laptop on his lap (to check fantasy scores) and decided to die. He never got up from the couch the drs would tell us as limbs went numb and circulation was lost month by month.

September 27th he finally succumbed after 3 years of suffering. I miss him daily.

Mom couldn't get out of bed. She had injured her leg getting Wally from bed to chair which she was told not to do by everyone.

I was living with her for the 2 weeks prior to Wally's passing. I would cook meals and we would watch our shows and she was really proud of me for the first time of her life. She would hear my calls with the Ras guys from her upstairs bedroom and say, you sound so smart. Smiling and we would laugh.

We laugh so much. We talked everyday for the last 30 years, sometimes multiple times a day. Best friends she would say but she also called both her daughters just as often and she just never runs low on conversation with us.

Day by day prior to Wally passing she would complain about how bad her back hurt, then her leg and then her hip and she would get fevers at night. I kept asking her to please go to a Dr.

My mother doesn't believe in Western medicine. She would struggle down her 17 stairs from bedroom to living room grabbing the rail so hard she would tremble with me her holding her up on the other side.

Then we would repeat this exercise with the 11 stone stairs from front yard to the parking lot under her house on the mountain. We would go to her personal accupucturist. Everyday M-F I would take her and Saturday and Sunday my sister would take over on Saturday for me so I could work.

She was so frail but we would be assured she was grieving and she just needed to put on weight and take new herbs and sleep so much more than she had the last 3 years. She was decompressing from all the stress of her husband being so sick.

Everyday there was new herbs, a new diet. My mom is easily the healthiest person you've ever met. She has consumed until November 9th zero grams of sugar, processed food or alcohol since 2022. The reason her husband died in her mind was a addiction to processed food and a desire for sugar.

She hiked daily, gardened for hours Everytime the sun showed she was outside soaking it in. She raised chickens and goats, tended to a bee hive and took the dogs on quick jogs up and down the STEEP hill of Fairview. I'm in good shape I can't walk up and down our street without stopping to catch my breathe.

Two days before Wally passed we were set to go to the hospice center and she asked for a wheel chair. Exactly 4 weeks prior she had hiked red rock canyon with myself and a friend of mine. That's 7.5 miles. I knew something was so wrong.

My sisters and I would talk and one sister would think it's just the close to death of her husband taking over, she's exhausted and the other was just call 911. Don't give her a choice. Every other day it was this debate. Then there would be small progress. Big meals would be eaten or she would have no pain in her back suddenly.

Wally passed in the morning at 4 am. A week went by and the calls to my mom's phone were endless. It was from 7am-8PM but always on speaker. Always such long, heartfelt conversations I would overhear.

Weeks went by and she just stayed in bed until it was time for accupuncture. Moms a talker, a therapist by trade but a gossiper and compliment giver at all other times. She talked less and less.

One day she called me up to her room. She didn't want to go the accupunctirist that week and asked me to read to her all her texts and tell me who called that day. It was 3 pm and there were 80 texts and 36 missed calls.

I read the texts at first and asked why am I reading these to you mom? She admitted she couldn't see them and her eyes were seeing shadows... Alarm bells.

I made her dinner and called my sister's. Another debate and I had to leave the next morning my youngest sister was taking over for a couple days. I hadn't seen my wife in 2 weeks and desperately needed a break (forgive me) and we agreed mandatory Dr visit the next week.

I left at 8 am November 4th after making Mom breakfast and giving my 17 year old brother money for his groceries for the week.

Sister arrived at 10 am and 911 was called at 10:25 against my mother's begging wish. I had just arrived home when I got the call and I was so relieved she would finally be forced to get this tendon in her right leg operated on. We just knew it was a torn tendon, it had to be.

I was to get a call every hour with a update and I did. Just waiting, still waiting, EMT came back to hospital and sat with my sister who had taken the ride with mom. She said is that weird? Maybe insurance purposes I assured her.

No call for a couple hours, no texts. Getting worried. Miami OH-Ohio game kicked off right when older sister called. She never calls, texts only.

I answer but I can't make out who's on the phone or what their saying. Screaming, crying. Hello D? Hello? Hello?

Then she finally said Eddie. Mom has cancer and it's stage 4 and it's in her bones. Metastatic. Terminal cancer.

They say one moment can change your entire life. I can attest that is completely accurate without question.

I've also lost both cousins Stacy and Eric in the last 6 weeks. I'm going to talk about them and that as well.

Hope anyonne doesn't mind but this will be my personal diary stash that won't be advertised on X or shared on other forums.

Hug your entire family. Hard, long and just go all in on them, over anything else this holiday season. For you, trust me on this.

Happy holidays to everyone and know that I appreciate the space more than ever. God bless, Eddie