Story Survival of the Not So Fittest

[Kathy in FL]

I know I am still in the middle of so many other stories but this one kicked me in the can after being so badly stuck that I had to go back to my Gus saga to try and "unstuck" the muse. I'll continue with the others. Gus 5 is all written just badly in need of editing. The others are perking, I just want to get this one out as well.

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Survival of the Not So Fittest

Part One​

“… And she lived happily ever after.”

Yeah, I’d give a lot to be through this and be able to write those words and just be done with it all and rest. Yeah, I would really like to rest, but I can’t sleep right now; and to be honest I’m not sure that I’ll get a happily ever after in this life, but rest would really be good for now but that’s not happening even though I know I should. It isn’t just that there is too much to do. There is, I just can’t do it right now, at least the outside chores. It is still light out and I really can’t move around outside until it is dark. I can’t say for sure that the drones will be back, but I can’t say they won’t either. Some of those things are really small so even setting a watch might not help. We only saw the ones we did on accident because the boys were looking for something else.

It was stupid just to leave everything in the metal barn and plan on moving it into the house only as I found a place for each item. So much for my inherited streak of neat-freakitude. Mom and Dad both were fond of saying “everything has a place and everything in its place.” While that saying has helped me, it has now also created a problem.

I’m grateful that we have what we have, but Dear Lord. No really, Dear Lord because without my faith I’d be done in right now. I feel like I could have done everything better had I known what was coming. I was raised to prepared for “just in case”. I could have just dealt with the mess as I could get around to it. Stupid thing to say. I guess Mom was right and hindsight is 20/20. I’m still a bit scorched and the younger ones refuse to let Remus and Lupin out of their sight. And neither will the others. Not a bad thing in and of itself but …

Geez. I thought writing this stuff out would help me use up this energy that can’t go anywhere at the moment, and also help me to straighten all the crazy that’s rolling around in my head. I’ve got to be careful with the stress or my numbers are going to climb through the roof again and I need to be as careful as I can. I’ve got enough insulin for my pump to last over a year, at least that long for normal usage assuming I can keep it cold, and I should be able to the way Mom insisted Dad set things up. But still, not if I’m forced to use more to keep my numbers down. I have enough pods for my insulin pump for longer than that but they only work if I have the insulin. I also have needles and syringes if for some reason the pump stops operating which it might because it is dependent on the transmitter and I have no idea if I’ll have to stop using it for some reason. I have enough Flexpens for at least another year on the other side of that, again that depends on usage and assuming I can keep things refrigerated.

Worst case scenario, assuming the world hasn’t come back from its serious dose of ipecac, after that I have Dad’s Metformin which is enough to last at least as long as what I have in insulin. I seriously don’t like the side effects of the stuff. Dad could take it with impunity while I had plenty of “punity” from it and spent my life in the bathroom when they tried me on it; but if I wanna live I’ll do what I must. [Note the bottles of fiber I have for just in case as well.] The metformin may give me another year or two on the other side of the insulin if I haven’t found a way to manage my hyperglycemia with diet, exercise, and supplements by then. “Managing without insulin” however may be impossible. I have enough of my CGM supples (continuous glucose monitor) to last three years and then on top of that I have Dad’s glucose tester, my glucose tester, enough strips and batteries that I should have several years on top of that which will at least give me some idea of what my numbers are at any given time. How I came by those supplies is another story that I’ll get to in a bit. I’ve got a ton of supplements that we’ve tested over the years, some of which had no effect and some of which I take because they kinda sorta have a good effect as long as I keep up with everything else, including my diet and exercise routine. Worst worse case … I gotta make it so that Ethan and Ezra can take over well before the worst worse case happens.

My brothers are only twelve and fourteen years old. In two years – assuming I haven’t figured out something by then - they’ll be fourteen and sixteen. Eden, who is eleven, will only be thirteen and she’s more tomboy and hates anything to do with “girly” activities. Even the boys can cook better than she can. It is like she has a block, possibly intentional, and can even burn water. She cannot be left unsupervised in the kitchen or there will be a disaster. I ought to make her go hungry just to teach her a hard lesson … but I can’t. She’s hardheaded enough that she’d starve before she gives in. Maybe her hormones will kick in at some point … Lord help us all. The twins, Elijah and Esther, are nine and that will make them eleven in two years. My name? Eve. Do not ask me why my parents got the stray hair to name us all with E’s. I guess it was kinda cute with three kids, but by the time there was six of us? No. Uh uh. And to make them Biblical names on top of that. I mean sure, our family is one of those “of faith” but that shouldn’t dictate naming practices. I mean seriously. Then again, it might have been because of the names their parents cursed them with … Daniel and Grace.

That “of faith” thing. I mean yes, we have an “of faith” worldview and all that. And I’m not being sarcastic or blasphemous or anything else either. It is a fact of life and is what helped us build our boundaries and morals, it isn’t just something we “do,” it isn’t just our “lifestyle”; it is who we are by choice. And it got us labeled. People are so weird and strange. We live in a country that was founded on Christian morality and the principles there of. Everyone is expected to obey the laws that are based on rights expounded in the biblically inspired influences of The Constitution[1], our founding document. Even the most progressive, ambiguous, and left-leaning individual has the expectation that people will act in a moral way, morals that are based on traditional Christian principles. Yet, people who acknowledge they are biblically inspired to behave in certain ways are being labeled, ostracized, and in some cases criminalized. Of course, right now everything is nuts but some of the insanity is because of the oxymoronic effect of people denying what they still have expectations of for others. That’s all part of why we are where we are, but I digress.

The doctors told Mom and Dad that I would be the only kid they would have, and they were lucky to get me. Mom had some weird female problems ever since she hit puberty … PCOS, fibroids, cysts, and lots of other TMI things that I’ll leave between my parents. So, I was born twenty years ago. My parents are bebopping along all happy and satisfied that their quiver would only have one arrow in it. Family all got along. All of us weren’t exactly the Brady Bunch, but my Dad liked his in-laws and Mom liked hers and the grandparental units made a point of showing me and my cousins the same amount of attention so no one was jealous or anything. Everyone shared the same worldview and, while we didn’t attend the same church all the time, the churches we did attend shared beliefs and mission statements making them almost interchangeable. It made for a great big bunch of getting along people. My dad had two siblings with two kids each and my mom had three siblings with one to three kids each. My parents were both the babies of their families with my father being the youngest by several years. I wound up being the youngest kid of the youngest kids. Made for some age differences and for my grandparents to be a little older, but hey, nothing is insurmountable, right?

Life shuffles along. Maybe we were complacent but I don’t think so. There was just a … normalcy that kinda laid thick and heavy on us … all of us, even if we did believe that something could happen and that we should prepare for just in case. Then just in case happened, or a version of it.

I started first grade just fine. Then I had a run in with a bully who pushed me down the school’s granite front entry stairs. I was learning a lot in school but how to fall safely was not something they taught. Not only did I wind up with a broken leg, broken arm, and bad concussion, I had some trauma to my abdominal area that wasn’t detected immediately. I was in the hospital, and it was a good thing too. I wound up with pancreatitis, something really rare in kids. They got the pancreatitis healed, my arm and leg as well, but my energy just wasn’t coming back. I was tired all the time, lacked an appetite, and was losing weight. I had been a chunky little kid, which was partly why the bully targeted me, and the weight loss was significant and noticeable. They did all sorts of tests and then admitted me to the children’s hospital for some kind of brain scan because they thought maybe, based on some of my symptoms, that the concussion had some lingering effects. For being a good sport about it all, I was given some ice cream. I nearly fell into what would normally be called a diabetic coma. I was diagnosed with a metabolic issue. It wasn’t Type 1 Diabetes because I was still making insulin, just not enough. And what I was making my body wasn’t using properly. They call it Type 3c diabetes if you want to get doggone technical about it. I don’t bother as it confuses too many people who only know about Type 1 and Type 2. If it comes up, I just admit to having diabetes. The infection also left me with IBS-M. Not to be too graphic but this means that my bowels can swing in both directions, sometimes chronically … diarrhea and constipation. Fun, fun it is not.

Most people look at me strangely because I don’t fit the stereotypical body shape for people with diabetes or any kind of chronic condition. I’m athletic. Not naturally and not because I really want to be, more because I want to live a long life … which means that being a couch potato or desk jockey is just not something I should be.

While all this is going on Mom thinks she might have forgotten to take a BC pill … which she took more for keeping her period in check than she did for contraception because, hey, the doctors said she couldn’t have any more kids. Well Ethan is proof that they call it practicing medicine for a reason and doctors don’t know everything they think they do. You should have heard the family squawk about it. First my diagnosis and then Mom’s diagnosis. But the family pulled together because that’s what families are supposed to do. Right?

Well Mom and Dad figure since the docs had been wrong and they had Ethan that maybe we weren’t just one off’s. Sure enough, two years later they have Ezra. Mom goes back on birth control pills to help with her female issues, and they didn’t help quite as well as they had before Ethan but that was the treatment that did the most to help her. Sort of.

Eden was another whoops and Mom got her tubes tied after she was born to make sure there wasn’t another whoops. I mean four kids and all that and one of them “medically fragile” wasn’t quite what they had expected life to hand them. They weren’t resentful but Mom admitted to me one time that they did wonder why things happened the way they did. They still had their faith, but they also had days they felt a bit like Job the same as anyone else would in such circumstances.

I need to back up just a sec to explain that Dad had gotten really bent at the school for allowing a violent mainstreamed kid to run loose with no boundaries, or an Aide to monitor him, and not warn the other parents about it. The kid’s “permanent record” was over a foot thick, and he was only in third grade (should have been in sixth and over at the middle school). Other parents at the school kinda did know but the new parents usually had to learn the hard way that some of the school’s students really should’ve had their own wing, if not their own school, where their needs could be met and not just expecting them to swim at the deep end of the pool before they were ready. Parents learned that if you did make noise, you were labeled racist or some type of -phobe, and your children could be given a harder time than others as payback.

My parents didn’t blame anyone specific exactly, but they did lose a whole lotta trust and respect in the people they should have been able to trust their kid with. They also lost trust and respect for the other parents at the school for trying to hush them up and force them to “not create problems for everyone.” So, between that and the fact that I was on an insulin pump, my parents decided it was best to home school me … and then my brothers and sister when they came along.

My parents decided if they weren’t going to have us in a school building that they weren’t going to replicate school at home. They chose to take an eclectic approach that was primarily made up of two philosophies … the Charlotte Mason approach[2] and a Classical Education[3]. I did well with this approach, but I’ll admit that my sibs have had the occasional problem. Eden can be a hot mess without a firm schedule. She’s a lot better than she used to be when she was little. We used to call her the Tasmanian Devil and I may yet agree to the threat my parents made at one point of deep freezing her until she turns 42 when I’ll be too old to care if she makes a mess. Add to this she’s one of those people that what she does has to have meaning. Busy work? No siree Bob. Nope. And Lord help us if she gets bored. The craziness she can get up to is terror inducing. Thankfully she and the boys get on well and can work together as a team to use up whatever kind of energy you want to call what Eden has.

The life my parents were building also went along with the fact that my grandparents were … well … calling them survivalists isn’t completely true. Calling them preppers was a better word for them but at the same time it wasn’t for zombies or the end of the world or anything like that. It was more for … well … for just in case. They didn’t especially expect things to go bad, but they also didn’t exactly expect what my grandfathers both called rainbows, Skittles, and unicorn farts.

And then just like that, we hit the brick wall known as just-in-case hard and that lifestyle was no longer just something we chose to do, we had to live the lifestyle to make ends meet and because the world was turning against us politically and socially. Being a person “of faith” could get you targeted not just by the government, but by your own neighbors and employers.

Then Mom’s female health took a weird turn as it had done a few times in her life. She wound up having to have her uterus scraped and some cysts removed. What no one realized was that when they were cleaning up the cysts and fibroids they kinda undid the tube being tied on one side. Whoops. Along comes the twins. And for real Mom and Dad were positive their quiver was full, and they didn’t want more kids. Essentially there are six of us because there was not going to be seven. They refused to regret any of us, but going from four to six was more than a small shock. Especially when people didn’t want to believe that my parents hadn’t done it on purpose. Some of those people included family which was not nice for my parents. And then they were jealous I guess that my grandparents refused to give up on my parents and … blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t really change the story all that much, it just means that while our family used to be extremely close and supportive of each other … that support network shrank in direct proportion to my immediate family’s growth.

So there I was, ten years old, occasionally doing the pre-teen thing of being angry about life events no one can control and that aren’t anyone’s fault. (I can’t have ice cream, I can’t have candy, I can’t have all the spaghetti I want, I can’t eat this, that, or the other because because because. I can’t have certain friends because of their parents’ choices or because their parents are wary of me and my family’s choices. Etc etc etc). It wasn’t like I was the only person in the family with health issues … Mom had her female stuff, one grandfather had high blood pressure, my other grandfather had diabetes, one of my grandmothers had COPD from growing up in a house full of heavy smokers, my mother’s mom had heart issues, then Dad gets diagnosed with diabetes but his is easily controlled with a common and inexpensive medication. Unlike mine which cost about two grand a month between the pump, the continuous glucose monitor, and the insulin itself. And that was with insurance. I felt guilty (not because my family said anything) and was also kinda feeling sorry for myself on top of getting left behind by my cousins who had started to find my pump and monitors, dietary restrictions, and my parents’ behavioral expectations embarrassing. Other family stuff wasn’t helping either. Our family wasn’t exactly fracturing, but it wasn’t like it used to be. I was getting depressed. Mom decided that wasn’t a good place for me to be in.

Rather than send me for counseling, which is I guess something they could have done, they decided to teach me I had at least some control even when I didn’t think I did. As part of my science curriculum I learned a lot about hyperglycemia, IBS, and metabolic issues and learned what I could do to control it rather than letting it control me. And the subject wasn’t just in science. Home Ec and Health had it in there. In social studies I learned about famous people with diabetes[4]. In language arts I read biographies about people with diabetes. Yeah, I know it might have seemed a bit heavy handed, but Mom wanted me to understand that while diabetes might be part of what I am, it isn’t the sum total of who I . Yet I still struggled regardless of Mom’s efforts.

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[1] The Bible-Inspired Influences on the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights - American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc.
[2] What is the Charlotte Mason Method? - Simply Charlotte Mason
[3] 20 Pros and Cons of Classical Education | Ablison
[4] Famous People with Diabetes

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Two​

I mentioned that my grandparents were “preppers.” Well, actually the entire family was, or at least the adults of the family were. Or claimed to be. Back then they were anyway. Most of them, though some of them only sorta I guess. I know that sounds incredibly convoluted and stupid but what people say, what they believe about themselves, and the actual facts don’t always align. But our branch of the family was every bit of the “prepper” mindset as my grandparents were. On top of everything else, Mom got me involved with that and said it was a good thing because with Dad also being diabetic, we needed to figure our way through things. We couldn’t eat much of what was on the typical food storage list. We also had financial restrictions to deal with. We did all sorts of canning and food preservation and stuff like that on top of having everything ten deep in the pantry and garage. The one day Mom got fed up with my tweenage attitude. After nearly having a fight with me over participating she asked what my problem was. I think it was just one of those high hormonal days for both of us … me going into it and Mom leaving that part of her life behind.

“Why?! Because I’ll never use any of this stuff! When the world goes off the rails,” I said using one of my grandfathers’ favorite phrases. “And the electricity turns off and we can’t get my insulin … I’m toast. You’ll have one less kid to feed.”

Let’s just say hormonal ten-year-olds can be unintentionally cruel and thoughtless and we both wound up crying … and me having a high glucose event from the stress that almost sent me to the ER. Suddenly it wasn’t just Mom seeing what I was going through. My father got involved. Oh boy. Then my grandparents got involved. Everyone was so “understanding” and so “purposeful” in their understanding that I felt under attack which didn’t help anything at all until Grams finally reached me and made it real by saying, “Sweetheart, don’t you think I worry about the same thing? What happens if or when I can’t get my heart medication? Your grandfather and I are trying to get out ahead of what I need and I’m also learning about supplements and the like. I don’t want to be a burden, and as wonderful as I know it will be, I’m not ready to just go to Heaven. I’m also not ready to just give up, I feel like I still have purpose. As the old song says, I’ve got a lot of living left to do. I want you to feel the same way. Let’s see what we can do together.”

Okay, no cueing the heavenly choir. There was no miracle. All the diets and supplements in the world didn’t fix my pancreas. I still needed insulin. But we did find ways that I didn’t need as much insulin and ways to keep my glucose numbers better balanced. We did find what worked for me in particular and the things I could do to make myself feel better … physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I found what supplements helped and which were little more than placebos for me even if they worked for someone else … and some which not only didn’t work but made me a little sicker. I found exercising didn’t lower my glucose but could make it spike … so I had to find the right exercise that gave me the best return with the smallest spike.

I learned that I needed a good sleep schedule and that I needed to intentionally deal with my own stress level; not easy for an adolescent to accept and apply. People don’t always know how to take me, or they perceive me as a cold person. If not that, they think that I must be unfeeling because I don’t react and respond to things going on around me with much emotion or drama. I was a “weird kid” for my age, detached, distant, indifferent, frigid, and any number of other adjectives. None of that is true. But stress if a big trigger for me and I’ve had to learn how to cope so I don’t have a glucose spike. Other people can get angry or having a crying fit and it is purgative and actually clears their system and lets them move forward. For me that sort of thing can become a health crisis with my glucose spiking into the 400s and 500s. I freely admit I can take it too far, be too controlled, perhaps be intentional oblivious to an unhealthy level. It is a tightrope I’m still learning to walk which requires me to address my metabolic health with everything in the arsenal.

I eat a low-carb, low fat diet after trying and having a strict KETO and strict Carnivore diets fail me, mostly because of the high fat directive even if they are “good” fats. Now, it worked for Dad, but his diabetes was because he had a genetic predisposition aggravated by a few extra pounds. Once the pounds came off his numbers went way down and he almost didn’t need any meds. He tried no-meds, but the numbers crept up even though his diet and carb choices were good.

My other grandfather with diabetes … Dad’s stepdad, the only dad he’d known but no genetic connection … had diabetes that was worse but that’s because he ignored reality and thought he could just handle things with diet and exercise alone. He really hated medication almost to the point of having a phobia about it. And needles gave him a horror. In the end he caved, and a better diet helped him as well, except he’d already had some bad things happen like neuropathy in his feet and hands and he had ulcers on one of his legs that were very slow to heal. His eyesight was compromised as well.

I loved Grams for that alone – her attempt to create some kind of bridge between us that was important - and for the fact she was always so supportive of Mom. Regardless of her plans and everyone else’s expectations, I didn’t have her for much longer, but for the time we did have, a lot was packed into it. I still think about her and the things she would say and do … and taught me how to make do with when what I wanted just couldn’t be for whatever reason. When I was twelve, she laid down for a nap but never woke up. Healthy choices, and meds or no meds, her heart just stopped beating. And so apparently did the heart of the family. It was a shock for everyone, especially my Mom and I. Grief is a process for everyone. We’d done a lot together; however, life continued just without some of the light that had helped us to see in the dark times. Our grief was compounded by things going on in the world, in our country, in our community, and in our family.

When I was fourteen, I lost my other three grandparents in quick succession due to age and their own health issues. My father’s siblings were all a good number of years older than him and were approaching or entering retirement age, though most found they had to “unretire” when their prepping didn’t include enough for the lifestyle they hoped to keep up. My cousins on that side were older as well and frankly they all just seemed to drift away. Without my grandparents to act as glue, both sides of the family seemed to … not evaporate exactly but like they say, tough times come, and you find out who is really on your side or who is just a casual observer.

Another problem arose when my Mom’s dad passed, their kids all found that they’d “skipped a generation” with any kind of inheritance. They’d survived their tax burden by “gifting” stuff to their adult children every year they were alive and decided that’s all they received. I found out that their yearly “gift” to my mother had been used to offset medical expenses, set up an educational account all of us siblings could access when the time came, and to continue the prepping lifestyle my parents had chosen by following their example. After my grandmother died, my grandfather just hadn’t had the heart to actively do any of that anymore and he gave Mom all of Grams’ “stuff” … the two freeze-dryers, all her canning equipment, the dehydrators, all the old-fashioned gizmos they had for in case the power went off, etc. etc. He tried to split it with Mom’s siblings but they either claimed to have their own or weren’t interested enough to come get anything. All her siblings had started moving away from the area which is why I suspect their so-called prepping lifestyle was also something they were moving away from since they preferred the more affluent lifestyle they’d created for their families. And while I’m not judging their souls, I’m pretty sure how they expressed their worldview had started to change as well. I know some of my cousins made different choices, if not flat out turned their backs on the way we had been raised.

Well, when Gramps passed, Mom’s siblings and their spouses tried to tune up and wanted all that gifted “stuff” put back into the kiddy to be divvyed up to their preference, or put in an estate sale … because of “fairness” or so they said. But Gramps’ instructions in his will put the kibosh on that and it burnt some biscuits, especially when there was a codicil revealed by his lawyer that he added after Grams passed that made it so that if anyone tried to take the estate to court to divvy it up any other way, it would cause the entire estate to be put in a Trust until the youngest grandchild was 30 years old, and only then would there be any distributions. I had an adult cousin at the time ready to do that, if for no other reason than out of spite, until the rest of them ganged up on her and her husband and told them to knock it off, that they wanted their slice now, not after they were near the grave themselves.

What they had to complain about I have no idea. Grams and Gramps had owned property as they had collected it over the years in dribs and drabs as their own inheritance from family, and as a way to make ends meet. There was the original homeplace that had come down to them all but unchanged since my great grandparents’ day, there was the Big House in town where they lived, there were a couple of fields they rented out to local farmers for pasture or for growing hay on, and then they had a small cul de sac of trailers they had turned over to a property management company when they got too old to want to fool with being landlords. All but the Homeplace was put up for sale. Took almost a year but the rest of the properties were sold, and that money was then divvied up with the cousins from Mom’s three siblings. Before even Grams had passed it turned out they had put the Homeplace into a Trust on its own. During that year is when those relationships turned into Christmas-cards and the obligatory once a month call to catch up with each other. Most of them weren’t spiteful or mean, just the relationships were never the same. My grandparents’ passing was like some cataclysmic event that changed all of us to some extent or other.

What happened to the Homeplace? Yeah, that’s probably what really created problems. See I didn’t know it at the time, but everyone was worried what my future looked like. At various times no one was sure if I even had a “real” future like everyone else does with career, home, and hearth (and kids). So, my grandparents decided to put the Homeplace in a Trust with me as primary and my younger siblings as secondary. My parents were named as trustees, but the rest of the family wasn’t to know that. They also weren’t to know about the money that my grandparents had left in the Homeplace for its updating and all that. Nor about the fact my grandfather had moved all the prepping stuff that hadn’t already been divvied up, as well as several family heirlooms to the Homeplace. That was in a letter to Dad from his father-in-law. He wanted to make sure his youngest daughter didn’t get run over by her siblings.

So, there I was fourteen, nearly fifteen, and I had no clue what was coming.

 

[Mr Bill]

Off on another adventure for sure. Thanks

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Three​

The Homeplace was a bit of a mess. Nothing had really been done with it since my great grandparents had lived there and even then, it was really out of date and needed serious work because it had belonged to a great something or other great uncle who they’d inherited it from. Structurally it was better than sound but in just about every other way it was in need of more than just spit and polish.

We still lived in what everyone fondly (or not so fondly) called Old Town and my parents intended to keep it that way, but they took my grandparents’ wishes and ways seriously. This was my future and maybe my siblings’ as well, at least for a time between moving out of my parents’ home and creating one of their own. At the same time, it was going to be used as a BOL (bug out location) if the just-in-case that they prepared for got worse than it already was. And our world, and country, was looking a lot like it was about to have a more serious attack of “just in case”. At least it was to those that had eyes to see and ears to hear.

So, my parents took that money that my grandparents had secreted in the property and used it to “renovate” the old homeplace, but with an eye to making it self-sufficient, easy-to-maintain, and low-cost for my future. They left the power … and powerlines … up and active for almost two years while they did most of the work that could have required electricity, after that they were removed. The electric co-op had no problem with it because the Homeplace was the last property on that line that was badly in need up updating/upgrading. Taking the Homeplace off the line gave them more time … or so one of their technicians told us.

First task – after emptying the contents of the house into crates and storage bins and putting it in the barn – was to rewire and replumb the house. My parents saved a ton of money because that was the kind of stuff Dad did anyway. He was a maintenance tech for a food processing plant. He did it all even though technically he probably shouldn’t have since he didn’t have all the various state licenses that was required. Plant owners didn’t care about that though because it meant they could have him as an in-house employee rather than having to work with outside contractors and companies which would have made things at the Plant (and for them) more expensive.

We also finished off the basement and expanded and shored up the old root cellar and pantry that were down there as well. The windows and doors, door locks, and fixtures throughout the house, were all upgraded. The front door was already this fancy solid wood monstrosity and the rear door was metal in a metal frame with a window that looked delicate but was actually doubled paned, thick, and covered with hurricane film like all the other windows. The transom windows inside were fixed so that they worked and weren’t just for looks. The floors got sanded and refinished. The fireplaces were reopened and those that weren’t repairable were fitted with wood stoves. The one mandate we always followed was that we could and would renovate and update things, but they weren’t to look like things had been upgraded. In fact, they took away the old 1960s vibe the house had and gave it an old Victorian appearing décor … only with modern upgrades that didn’t show.

The biggest thing they did was also the most expensive, however Dad was able to offset that somewhat by buying into what the Plant owners were doing. The owners didn’t mind because Dad traded work equity for the supplies by installing the stuff at their homes on the sly and they took it as a business write-off. What was it? Well, it looks like a metal roof, but it has built in PV panels for solar energy collection. He practiced on the Plant owners’ cabins and homes and then took his perfected skills and replaced the roof on the Homeplace.

Thankfully we’d already emptied the attic because it made it much easier to rebuild some of the roof. The rafters needed to be stronger, and he added collar beams as well. They covered over the old roof planks with plywood and added a lot of insulation. They also sprayed insulation into the walls that hadn’t had any since it was built well over a hundred years ago.

My parents made sure that I was part of every little thing they did. Part of my schoolwork … math, science, history, geography, all of it … was to document the work, track progress, track expenses and budget, track where materials were sourced from, estimate future expenses, learn to do repairs and maintenance, and on and on. Dad and Mom treated me like a contractor in training. Their reason was the Homeplace was going to be my home, my inheritance, and they wanted me to appreciate it and be able to take care of it. It was also our place of refuge as the world around us became a struggle to live in. And since I was the oldest kid, it was simply my place in the family.

The economy was getting rougher. There were lay offs at the food processing plant. It made Dad’s status as an essential employee challenging because his co-workers were jealous and sometimes outright nasty. He came out after a long day at work more than once to find a tire slashed or his truck keyed. He had to be careful not to draw attention to himself but not to bow to bullies either. He also couldn’t appear to be “one of those religious people that went around judging everyone and everything” when they had no right. Mom’s work from home job continued but, the people she was doing customer service contacts with became more unpleasant and she was expected to work really odd “on” hours. I even picked up some online work, but it wasn’t for money, it was for gift cards. Talk about learning to multitask. I was signed up with so many different services that I had to track all the surveys, games, and tasks that I participated in that Dad questioned whether the time I was putting in was worth it. It was but it was sometimes one of those “gotta spend money to make money” things that I had to be careful with. I learned to use coupon programs and penny saver apps like FreeCash and KashKick. I even participated in clinical trials online at sites like GoodLabs to try and earn free medical supplies, discounts at pharmacies, and free doctor visits.

Additionally, the situation with the extended family continued to deteriorate. There was no open aggression after everyone finally accepted the reality of the estate’s probate, but even Dad’s sibs and our cousins on that side started drifting away between one reason or another. Unfortunately, some of them for lifestyle choices that my parents (and me as I grew old enough to have my own informed opinion) couldn’t agree with. Some of their spiritual choices fell outside our worldview as well. They supposedly would be part of these churches that were all about love and acceptance and getting along but it seemed that applied only to people that believed the exact same way they did. If you fell outside of what they believed in, for whatever reason, you could be branded as prejudiced, judgmental, and any number of other nasty things.

Shelves in the grocery stores, and other places for non-food items, were getting thin. You’d walk into a store with a list of five to ten items you needed to pick up and you’d walk out with maybe two or three of those items. Sometimes it was because of price and your budget but at least as often it was because those items just weren’t available because they hadn’t been restocked, or they had been “discontinued”. And discontinued was usually just a term meaning for economic reasons the company was no longer producing the item or the company that produced the item went bankrupt or was no longer shipping to your area.

The effort to move everything to a digital economy just made everything worse as did the price controls that the government tried to enforce. My gift card job helped offset some of the shortages. It became my job to provide things for my younger siblings, not because my parents expected or demanded it of me, but because I made the choice. The insurance to cover Mom and I was expensive. My medications were expensive. On paper we made too much money and had too many assets to qualify for any of the offsets that some people could get. I wanted to help and that was the easiest way for me to do it. It was an offset and gave me a great deal of motivation to keep doing what I was doing.

Speaking of offsets, that is what my parents turned me (and themselves) onto. To “offset the increasing cost of feeding the family” we had gardens at the Homeplace and potted food plants at the house in town. We had some fruit trees in the yard in town that were there when my parents bought the place and there was an old orchard at the Homeplace as well. We expanded the orchard and put in several bramble hedges. To “offset the potential of wasting water” we put in watering systems that used rainwater stored in barrels or cisterns that got funneled into drip irrigation systems.

To “offset the cost of gardening and planting” we added what’s called foraging to our family activities … picking wild fruit when in season, learning which “weeds” and “seeds” were edible, and growing edible flowers or harvesting them if they grew wild. And sometimes Dad would get access to cheap boxes of fresh food at the Plant … like seconds that weren’t pretty enough to go to market or had been bruised or damaged in some way, or couldn’t be put through the processors to be canned because maybe their shape or size was wrong. Sometimes shipments would be returned because something was “wrong” with the can’s or package’s label or the container was damaged in some way. Sometimes he even got that stuff for free, but usually he bartered work for it. Dad taught us kids to hunt, and a neighbor taught us all, even Dad, how to build snares and make fish baskets and things like that, which is where most of our meat came from. Or we traded work with some people that had been friends of our grandparents for pork or beef or goat or honey or eggs or raw milk. Many of those people were getting too old to do all the work themselves and they more than welcomed a bunch of kids to help them with their chores at different times. They also enjoyed teaching us their skillsets.

For instance, Ezra became enamored of beekeeping really young. For whatever reason he just loved bees. My parents encouraged it, and the plan was for him to eventually apprentice to that family but he also started his own hive which turned into hives which eventually turned into the primary way that our gardens and orchards get pollinated. It also turned into the primary sweetener that we used in the family. I still had to avoid it except for rare occasions, but that was just another way to stretch what we had to make it go further. Yes, doing all that trading and bartering took time away that we really needed for the Homeplace and other things, but “offsets” work both ways on some occasions.

Another example is to “offset the cost of our medical care” we continued to practice the best ways to address our issues and learn as much as we could. Sluffing off was never an option, and sometimes we had to drag the family along with us, even if they kicked and screamed how unfair life was. They didn’t say it for long because I always explained how “unfair” life could actually be, so be glad they didn’t have my or Mom’s issues.

Diet was a huge factor for both Mom and I. We both had “triggers” that aggravated our conditions, and we learned to avoid them when possible. We both had to stick to high fiber and lean meat as the infrastructure for our menus. Heart healthy was also important. There was little to no processed foods in our home which meant finding the time and resources to cook from scratch but that was okay because we turned it into a family activity. Mom and Dad both thought it a good learning experience for us kids and it also lightened the load by sharing it. Feeding a family of eight wasn’t exactly a breeze, especially when the cheap stuff … er pardon, I mean the more budget friendly options … weren’t really good options for members of our family. We canned a bunch, and we kept those freeze driers of Grams’ going all the time which meant they were kept at the house in town. We had a stand-up freezer, but only so we could pre-freeze items for the freeze driers and to hold food only long enough for us to process it for longer storage in some other way.

To offset the cost of everything in general we shopped, when we couldn’t make it ourselves, at yard sales and estate sales. That’s where Dad got most of the screws, nails, and all the other whatnot for the Homeplace renovations. He kept his shop in town and the one he set up at the Homeplace scrupulously organized. He recycled what he could at work with the Plant managers’ blessing because it saved them the recycling or disposal fees the government had started requiring. Most of our schoolbooks were from yard sales, thrift stores, estate sales, friends of the library sales, free cycle give aways, and printed from online. Our school supplies came from the beginning of the year sales and anyplace we found them. You would not believe the amount of office supplies to be found at yard sales and estate sales. Instead of notebook paper we had reusable Rocket Books[1] and refurbed tablets with any app we could need (parental controls firmly in place), all of which also came from places like thrift stores, clearance sales, and estate sales.

For two years the entire family put all our spare time into the Homeplace and the lifestyle we built … and then life took another turn.

---

[1] Rocketbook | Reusable Notebooks & Planners

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Four​

I was sixteen and just starting to drive on the open road – I drove around the Homeplace plenty – when my mother cried, “Eve!”

It was a day we were in town since Dad was on swing shifts that week. That day had been a “night” and we were all already in our night clothes and preparing for bed. I was doing Esther’s hair.

“Eve!”

I’d never heard Mom use that tone and I tossed Esther to Eden and then pushed the boys back when they went to follow me at a run. I knew Mom hadn’t been feeling well and knew she’d be embarrassed if it was a female issue.

She wasn’t in the bedroom but in the master bath. There was blood everywhere. I rarely saw Mom speechless but she was nearly in a panic. I later found out she was trying to figure out how to drive herself to the ER while I stayed home to watch the younger ones. Well that was a huge nope.

I don’t really remember getting Mom to the car while getting my sibs in the back and buckled in. I called Dad and he met us at the ER entrance, and it was he who carried Mom in and through security. They thought she’d been shot at first there was so much blood. It had soaked through the blanket Mom had insisted on putting on the seat she’d been sitting in in the car and I never did get the stain completely out.

That night was a nightmare. I had to call my aunts and uncles and not one of them said they were coming. I’ll admit that I hardened my heart towards them from that point forward. I called a couple of people at our church, and they came right away. I held up pretty well … until I didn’t. I’d been scheduled to change my insulin pump that night and had meant to do it after I was finished with Esther’s hair then forgot about it. Three in the morning the thing starts with the alarm ringing that won’t shut off and … geez, between embarrassment, stress, and lack of food I nearly face planted while thinking thoughts of ripping off the pump and finding a medical incinerator to toss it in.

Lucky for me Ethan had grabbed the twins’ bag, and I always kept an emergency pod (sealed and with a needle included) and I had a flexpen in there that I syphoned the insulin out of to fill the pump with since the hospital would have charged a blasphemous amount of money for the same amount of insulin. I got the pump filled and reset and same for the CGM. I was about to come out of the lady’s room when Eden came in to get me.

“Daddy is freaking out.”

“Don’t start Eden. I …”

Then she burst into tears and grabbed me to bury her face in my stomach. I picked her up (I still could back then) and hurried back out to the waiting area.

“Dad?”

He was jittering badly. I looked at Pastor John who had shown up with one of the deacons to help as needed and he said, “Your mother wants you. We’ll watch the others.”

I was totally freaking out inside though I was trying to stay calm on the outside. It seemed to take forever for Dad and I to get to the room where she was and Dad didn’t make a single sound until we got outside the room.

“Eve …”

I saw tears in his eyes and that scared me more than just a little. I walked in and Mom was the same color as the sheets she was lying on. There were tubes and monitors and the lights were turned low.

“Eve …” Mom’s voice was quiet, weak.

“Mom?”

“Listen, I need you to take Daddy and the others home. Feed them and get them to rest.”

“Of course, but … but … did they find out what happened? Was … was it a cyst?”

My mother looked at Dad and said, “Daniel, this is going to … to take a bit. Go be with the children. Let the pastor pray over everyone.”

And he just turned on his heel and went. That more than anything warned me something was definitely not right.

“Mom?” I asked sounding a lot calmer than I was.

She sighed. “We’ve had more than a few talks about … about my female issues.”

“Yeah … I mean yes ma’am.”

“Pull up that chair and … and I need to explain a few things.”

I did as she asked and by the time she was finished I felt like passing out again. Yes, it had been a cyst rupturing. Well, it had been several cysts rupturing. The cysts were called endometriomas and had been full of blood but there had also been an infection. They’d gone ahead and done an emergency hysterectomy because they hadn’t been able to get the bleeding stopped. The problem was that when they did the surgery they found cancer. Metastatic endometrial cancer. It was bad. Metastatic endometrial cancer is cancer that begins in the endometrium, the lining of the uterus, and spreads to a different parts of the body. They were already doing tests to see what stage it was at, and the doctors had told her and Dad that it was at least Stage 3 just from the little bit of exploring that had been done during the hysterectomy. Depending on the stage is what would determine what if any treatment would occur.

“What do you mean if any?”

After a pause Mom answered, “It means that there may not be anything that can be done.”

“No.”

“Eve.”

“No. Absolutely not. You’ve never let me give up with this stupid diabetes and my retarded pancreas. You … you and Grams … wouldn’t let me just give up even if the world was coming to an end.”

“Eve … Honey …”

“No. You … we … are going to fight this. So you had to have a hysterectomy. So chemo or whatever is going to suck. Maybe you lose your hair. Well, we’ll all be there to help with the suckage and I’ll cut my hair and they can make a wig for you until yours grows back. So no. No giving up. Absolutely not allowed.” When she smiled and then gave a quiet chuckle, I imagined I was right and God was going to fix everything if we just worked hard enough.

Mom was around to watch me walk across the stage at our church during a home school graduation ceremony kind of thing. She was weak. She barely weighed anything. She had lost all her hair … and her eyebrows and eyelashes too. She was in almost constant pain … but she’d insisted on being there. Three days later she entered Hospice at the hospital when the social worker assigned to Mom’s case said I wasn’t qualified to look after her any longer. Within a few days she was just gone.

Mom had already insisted on planning her own funeral and how she wanted to be buried. She said she’d had enough chemicals put in her body and didn’t want to be embalmed, nor did she want to be cremated. Luckily the church’s cemetery was equipped to handle it and she’d chosen a special casket that biodegraded as well. Some people made nasty comments about the family “going cheap” and it being disrespectful not to have a viewing or more than a graveside service, but it was Mom’s choice and Dad wouldn’t hear anything else about it.

The twins were catatonic and just wanted to go to bed and go to sleep when we got home from the cemetery. Eden … I don’t know if there was a word for what Eden was. I know a part of her wanted to be angry, but Mom had done a lot of talking to her leading up to her going into hospice, but she was still obviously feeling pain. The boys? Ethan and Ezra? They were sad of course. But I think it was seeing Dad the way he was being that scared them more than anything.

Dad was heartbroken. He’d never really come back from that place he went inside himself when we first took Mom to the ER and she got her diagnosis. Oh he was Dad, and he was all in for Mom. Whatever she wanted or needed was Law. But something about him faded in direct proportion to Mom fading. I was worried for him. Mom had told me that I needed to do what I could for him, but I wasn’t honestly sure what that was going to be. I could make sure he ate. Make sure he had a lunch for work. All of that but … what to do for him I didn’t have a clue.

“Eve?”

“Yeah Dad?”

“Your mother wanted the other kids to have those books the two of you made while she was sick. I guess this is the time to give them to them. You do it. I … I …”

“Why don’t you go sit in the rocker on the back porch? You’re tired. Or I can figure out something from all the casseroles and dishes that people have dropped off.”

“Not hungry. I … I’ve just … I’m going to sit in the rocker. Just give the other kids those books. That’s what you mother wanted.”

Daringly I said, “She loved you Dad and would not want you to fall apart. You need to eat and …”

He rounded on me and for the first and only time in my life I was afraid of my father. It was gone in less than a second, but I think he saw it in my eyes, and it must have broken something else in him. He quickly walked to their room and quietly shut the door. He shut it in a way that I knew he didn’t want to be disturbed. Would refuse to be disturbed until he was ready.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Five​

I got the books from my room and decided giving the twins theirs could wait. I walked into the living room to find the boys and Eden just sitting, staring at nothing. I thought, “Mom wouldn’t want this. She didn’t give up. She accepted things, but she never just gave up.”

I gathered my siblings and showed them the memory books Mom had made. They were sort of like baby books for older kids. Fancy scrapbooks that covered their lives with Mom and what she hoped for them as they grew older without her. There was advice in there, Bible verses particularly for each one of them, family stories, funny pictures, sweet pictures, things she didn’t want them to ever forget. Especially was the fact that she had loved each one as individuals.

The twins had woken up and needed comfort and so they too got their books.

All five of them fell asleep looking at them.

It was a couple of hours later. I knew we couldn’t finish all the food that had been brought by people from the church and from Dad’s work before it started to spoil so I took both sets of the freezer trays and set some of the food to pre-freezing so I could start the freeze driers before I went to bed. I started cleaning, doing all the chores that had fallen by the wayside that last week Mom had gotten so weak and the pushy social worker taking decisions away from everyone. It didn’t matter what her intentions were, she’d rushed everything and made Mom depressed that we were running out of time to get everything done she wanted to.

It was evening and I had just closed the doors on both freeze driers when I heard a step behind me. “Ethan … you need to stay in bed … oh … Dad? Are you hungry? I’ll …”

He sighed. “Come sit down.”

It reminded me too much what Mom had said that day.

“Dad?”

“Just sit down Honey.”

I did and he then put a thick D-ring binder on the table. “You helped your mother make those books for the others, but she wanted to make this one herself for you.”

“When? I was there the entire time.”

“When you went to the grocery. When you waited for her in the lobby while she took her chemo treatments. At night when she couldn’t sleep. Just dribs and drabs of time here and there. She wouldn’t let me help. She said this was between a mother and a daughter … the oldest daughter.” He sighed again. “There’s things you … you need to know. And you need to know that I know. What your mother wanted. What your brothers and sisters are going to need.”

I told him, “Mom and I talked about this. I can’t be a mother to them. I mean I’ll be everything I can be but …”

“I know. And I understand better than maybe you’re going to think I do. I wish I could figure a way around this but … I can’t. I have to work. I’ve taken off just about as much time as they’ll let me. I don’t regret using all my sick leave and even more. I don’t regret and won’t regret that time with your mother at the lake that used up my vacation days. But I’m being honest here, I can’t afford any more time off. The days that I’m not getting paid for is going to hurt. Losing your mother’s income is going to hurt.”

“I was going to take her spot. We weren’t going to say anything to the company until I turned 18 and …”

“I think … I know someone reported it to the company.”

Outraged I demanded, “Who?!”

“Don’t worry about it. God will take care of it.”

“Dad, was it Mariam?” I asked, naming one of my cousins, the same one that had threatened to bring the legal action over Gramps’ will.

“Why would you ask that?” he asked.

In brutal honesty I said, “Because she’s just that kind of person. Her husband is at least as bad. She used to babysit me and was so nice. I don’t know what happened to her but she’s not that person anymore. Doing that seems right up her alley.”

He looked at me, troubled. “I want you to stay out of it. When seeking revenge you should dig two graves. I’m not ready to lose you … you or the others.”

“As if she could.”

Sadly honest he said, “Yeah … yeah she could. You might be close to 18 and legally an adult but the others aren’t.”

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to snarl just to let her try. But looking at my father’s face I knew. There are some battles you might be willing to fight, but not all those battles could be won.

“Fine. So what do we need to do to keep Ol’ Miriam out of our business?”

“Not a lot we can do if she is determined. We just need to give her as little to work with as possible.”

“So Mom’s company said definitely no about me taking over her slot?”

“They were real apologetic, but they can’t hire you in your mom’s place. There’s … more. Your mother’s treatments … they’ve nearly maxed out the insurance. I know you and your mother talked about this … about you needing to get a job as soon as you can to get your own insurance. Your mom and I did some talking as well. One of her doctors is willing to write a prescription for your insulin and fill it at the pharmacy at his practice. He also gave us a few places to get ahead with your insulin pump pods and the rest … his wife is a rep for a big pharmacy chain. I’m going to work on this cabin they’ve bought on my days off. It’s going to mean me staying on site to get the most done in the least amount of time. Those nights … I want you to take the kids and go stay at the Homeplace. The boys and I are going to finish the gates on my next day off. That will keep Miriam, or anyone else, from realizing that I’m not there with you because they won’t be able to get close enough.”

“Dad?” I was worried. He was talking about things I hadn’t considered but suddenly needed to.

“Your mom wrote you some things … in that book there. Until the others get older its going to mean you … you giving up your plans. It’s going to mean growing up faster than we had wanted you to have to. But if you don’t stay home the others are going to have to be put in school. And …”

Definitively I said, “No. That’s not happening. Mom and I talked about this. I know what I have to do. I’ll keep up with my gift card gigs. When I turn eighteen, I’ll try and find a legit job that … that will help the family out. But I’ll make it something online even if that means doing two online jobs. I’ll homeschool the others so they can pass the yearly test and Miriam or whoever won’t be able to say anything about it.”

He slowly nodded. My father had become an old man in a matter of days, and it was hard for me to bear witness to. “And you’ll go to college.”

“That can wait,” I told him.

“No it won’t. And I mean that. Your mother and I talked it out. I’m not saying it will be easy but … we are going to make sure your mother gets what she wanted. And she wanted you to go to college as planned. Now … you … you look at that book and read what your mother wrote to you. I don’t have a clue what all is in there.” He shook his head. “She could be a stubborn woman. She wouldn’t let me help. I … I’m going to eat that plate of food you fixed me earlier. I need to … to keep up with things so I don’t get sick. I’m all you kids have. I’m … I’m all you kids …”

He never finished what he’d been going to say. I’m not even sure he knew what he was going to say. He just went to the microwave and took the plate in there and walked slowly back to their room.

The book Mom had made for me was bigger than the books we’d made for my siblings. Theirs was neat with funny pictures and drawings and art she did with her own hands while she’d still had the strength to. The one she made for me was rougher, made with notebook paper, handwritten notes, hand drawn diagrams. Pictures taped in or stuck in pockets. Index cards with holes punch in them fitted between paper on the rings. Very little of it was “pretty” even though she did try in some parts of it, especially the early pages. The contents of the book was part autobiography, part family history, part instruction manual, and full of advice, some a repetition of what she’d already told me and some I would come to need but hadn’t been old enough to hear just yet.

It gave me clues on how to help Dad get through his grief, or at least deal with it. There were topics with instructions as they appeared in the Bible and suggestions from other books written by people with the worldview we shared. It gave me insights into each of my siblings and how to handle them that best suited their personalities. It gave me insight into various family members … and how to handle them if it became necessary. She even gave me “material blackmail” in case I ever needed it against certain people … some family, some not. She included Bible verses and quotes that I’ve found useful. There was lots of advice on everything imaginable. Things I rely on nearly every day. Things I’ve shared with the others like stories she’d heard from her parents and grandparents and about all manner of things.

There were pictures, recipes, instructions on how to fix buttonholes, how to patch a hole in the wall in case someone isn’t being as careful as they should when playing in the house, how to recognize not only the man I was going to fall in love with but how to recognize if he could be trusted with that love and what to do with that knowledge. It was full of things she wished she’d told me, things she was worried she’d run out of time to tell me, and things she never would have told me if she hadn’t gotten sick. I think she even told me things she hadn’t meant to but that had slipped out as the cancer had taken away some of her mental and emotional boundaries.

She told me she was so sorry she was leaving me with so many responsibilities. She told me that youth was a wasted commodity and that we should be born old and then grow into our youth so it could be appreciated and enjoyed … and afforded. She told me of the private things that sometimes females have to find out on their own. She wrote to me of taking care of myself so that I could have a good life, and making sure to do things so that the diabetes didn’t take away my life and quality of my life. And some of the things she wrote made absolutely no sense, I suspect were a result of the things the chemo and other drugs did to her as the cancer spread.

I think mostly she was worried that I would run away from the responsibilities she was heaping on my head. That hurt. Until I realized it wasn’t because she didn’t think I was capable, but more that it was her job not to just look after me – something she’d done so well – but she worried that she knew she wasn’t going to have the same amount of time with the others, and she was trying to give them herself through me. I’m pretty sure that’s why she had me help her make their books. She was trying to tie herself to them through me, trying to leave part of herself to them through me, or something like that.

I’m sure there is a lot more psychobabble in there but whatever anyone else may think of it, I decided that I wasn’t going to give up. First Gram had helped me to see that life was worth striving for, even when it was a struggle. Then Mom had shown me how not to give up even when you have to accept the inevitable. And now I was deciding for myself. I didn’t fool myself that it was going to be easy. Had I wanted to believe that Eden would have brought me back to reality right quick. And there were days that yes, I resented not being able to experience life in the same way my friends were doing. There were days that I resented Dad expecting me to pick up where Mom had left off more than I had already been forced to as the cancer had stolen her time and ability to function. He seemed to almost expect me to become Mom. There were days that I resented all the energy and time that my siblings needed from me, all the attention they wanted and needed. I had to be Mom without having Mom’s authority. But that wasn’t most days. It wasn’t even many days. It was just some days. But some days were enough, especially when the some days were really challenging. I didn’t have all that much time to worry at it though. There was so much to do.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Six​

I was seventeen when we lost Mom, but I’ve come to understand that it was only a physical loss. So much of her was still around that there were times I could almost hear her voice. The books weren’t just memories of the good times, they were road maps of how to move forward without having to leave her behind.

My days were filled to the brim. Taking care of my siblings and teaching them even more than they’d already learned to be part of that process. Geez, I don’t know what I would have done if Ethan hadn’t matured and grown as fast as he did. He didn’t take Dad’s place, no one could, but he was a male role model and helped me with Ezra, Eden, and Elijah. Esther was and is “all girl” and she and Eden don’t always get along. They learned to leave each other alone but it wasn’t easy. They’re close enough in age, yet their personalities are so different. Ethan was better at playing mediator, all I had time for was to play rule maker and consequences dealer. Despite Ethan being six years younger than me, he and I were partners. Dad was still Dad and still in the picture, but he worked so much we had to learn new ways to operate as a family unit.

We cooked. We cleaned. We did school at the dining room table … they at home school, and me at college coursework. Mostly my classes were virtual … digital rather than in a classroom. I did have to take a couple of classes on the physical campus, but I arranged them to be night classes that were for three hours one night a week rather than during the day a couple times a week. Dad was home most nights so I would make sure everyone was fed and watered and reminded them of our safety rules and why. And what the consequences could and would be for all of us if they broke those rules. I would leave and Dad would normally pull in not long afterwards and he would spend some time playing with my siblings and being Dad the way they needed. I missed having that.

When Dad and I did talk, most of the time it was about budgets and responsibilities and how I needed to kick it up a notch … like Mom. Or it was a checklist … did this get done, did that get done, did the bills get paid on time, were there things my siblings needed, were we still on track with the work at the Homeplace, how was the inventory going, review of my glucose readings and when I had spikes what caused them and how not to let it happen again … that it couldn’t happen, that I had to stay healthy because I had responsibilities. And then he added all the restrictions on socializing, especially at college with “boys”. That I couldn’t afford that … not yet. That I needed to remember my priorities, what and who came first, my responsibilities, the example I was setting for my siblings. I just let him talk and tried not to take things too personally. I know – because Mom explained it in my book – that a lot of that was an expression of a type of fear. Fear for me and fear for my siblings. Fear of things he couldn’t control. Fear of things that he needed my help to control and deal with. But there was also a selfish fear in there that he’d be left alone to take care of my siblings and that he knew he couldn’t do it alone. There were too many of us and the younger ones were just too young to operate even partially independently.

Understanding that didn’t always make it easier to take, especially the part about “boys”. If I was having a hard time all I forced myself to do was imagine how much harder my life would be if Ethan wasn’t there or decided that he was going to be something other than what he was … the big brother my younger siblings needed because I couldn’t always be just the big sister, I had to be the Mom stand-in. It helped me understand where Dad was coming from. Because of that I tried to make sure that Ethan (and Ezra and Elijah who were his shadows) got to all their Trail Life Troop meetings and activities as well as their activities at church. It wasn’t always easy and even for Ethan I had to have rules, like no activity unless schoolwork goals were met for the day. I rarely had to push that but sometimes Dad would say no to some activities for whatever reason, and I got the blowback from their disappointment, especially when I couldn’t explain it except to say, “Dad said so.”

“I’m not sure I approve of them spending all that time … and your time … with that Trail Life stuff.”

Trying to understand I told him, “You used to love working with them and the troop.”

“No time for that now. And you don’t have time to waste either young lady. Certainly don’t have time to spend socializing with all them boys.”

Oh brother, not again. “Dad! They’re all way younger than me! And I wouldn’t anyway! Gross!”

“Hmph. Not just talking about your brothers’ friends. There’s grown men who …”

“Dad!!!”

“Don’t raise your voice to me Eve. Your mother would have explained that stuff to you.”

“I’m not being disrespectful, and she did. That’s why I’m always careful with my own reputation and our family’s reputation. And you know why and so do I. I normally drop the boys off and have Eden and Esther with me so when I do stay to keep an eye on what the boys are up to, I’m not alone and I certainly wouldn’t … ew. That’s so gross.”

Like he’d only heard part of what I said he commented, “Keeping an eye on what they’re getting up to. What’s that mean? Is there a problem?”

“No Sir and there’s not going to be a problem. I know just because the Troop meets at the church and most of the boys go to that church … and their parental units too … it doesn’t mean that I’m so naïve as to think shenanigans can’t be gotten up to. Mom explained all that.”

“She did?”

“Yes Sir. Not to mention the men are all way older than I am … and married. As if I would.” I couldn’t hide the disgust in my voice, or my hurt feelings.

“Not all of ‘em,” he said, ignoring what to me was obvious.

“Dad, c’mon. The youngest guy there that isn’t a troop member is Cade Burke and he’s 29 and Pastor John’s nephew and stricter than you are. And married even if they are separated again.” Confession time. “I’ve been staying the last few meetings so I can watch his little girls so he can actually work with the boys like he volunteered for. You know how much you need to play with the kids when we go to the Homeplace. I suppose it is the same for Cade.”

Again ignoring most of what I’d said he asked, “And where did you hear that? You and him talk much do you?”

“Dad, really? Sister Bea is always in the kitchen prepping for Friday food distribution during the meetings and you know she dishes the TMI like crazy. She’s the one that asked me to help watch Hannah and Sarah so she could get her work done.”

“Uh huh.”

“Ask her if you don’t believe me. I mean I knew something was up when he started bringing the girls with him again. They’re so young they don’t really know much but you could tell they were upset and he was trying to make them feel better and he just wound up going in circles. Esther said she’d play with them, and they started having a tea party of all things. Eden built them a ‘castle’ with the duplo blox from the nursery and then I nearly lost my teeth when she played dolls with Esther and the girls and kept an eye on them so I could get some volunteer hours in for that stupid requirement they now make us meet every semester. Prepping for Food Distribution Day qualifies because Sister Bea signs off as her social worker title, and not as a church member.”

“Hmmm. Well maybe I’ll speak with Cade just so I know … and he knows … what the boundaries are.”

“Dad!! He’s a sheriff deputy!”

“Think that makes him a good man?” he asked, as if daring me to have an opinion.

We went round and round but in the end Dad got busy and never did “have a talk” with Cade, and his wife Mary Ellen came home and they reconciled and she even agreed to counseling that time.

I knew Dad was just “expressing his love and fears” but I could have done without that particular worry bothering him. I knew what my priorities had to be and dating or anything that even kind of looked like it wasn’t one of them. Especially not a married man who had ten years on me. I didn’t care much for Mary Ellen [McDaniel before she got married] though I had once upon a time. She was so pretty and used to be a really nice girl and so had her parents. But they’d taken a dislike of the church – and Pastor John in particular – not long after Mary Ellen and Cade got married when Mary Ellen’s brother first decided he was gay, then trans and even I know the two aren’t the same thing. Then they’d moved to another church, then another, then became agnostic then atheists. And the reason I knew that bit of TMI is because Mary Ellen’s parents broadcasted it themselves after becoming social activists, or so they called themselves. Why I still don’t understand. None of it really makes sense to me, especially the way most people seem to handle it. What was worse was the person that had been their son surgically transitioned and then a year later committed suicide.

The McDaniels tried to blame the suicide on everyone else, but the truth is Richie had problems starting when he was a little kid and just made his own choices and then when those choices didn’t make him as happy as he expected he’d make more choices that just led him further down that road and … eventually there weren’t anymore choices for him to make to cover up his past ones. The surgery was pretty final. Even in his suicide note he claimed other people were making him kill himself because they weren’t cooperating with his needs and refusing to understand or something like that. I heard a couple of different versions of what was supposed to be in the letter as it changed as time went along. I think the McDaniels tended to remember things the way they wanted to, or perhaps needed to so they could live with themselves and their own choices where Richie was concerned.

Mary Ellen was getting pulled apart by her parents and even before she and Cade had their first kid they started getting in the middle of her marriage even worse. Cade being a deputy didn’t make it any easier and him being the nephew of a pastor and regular church attendee and insisting any kids they have being raised in his worldview until they were adults and could make their own choices also made things challenging. Cade walked a fine line between his job and his moral compass and his in-laws. Mary Ellen said she wanted to walk that line with him, was happiest when they worked in sync, but she wasn’t the strongest person, and her parents exploited that.

I’ve run into situations like that a lot, even in my own family. By the time I was nineteen we had negligible contact with either side of the family though I remained vigilant. Miriam would sometimes pop up at the weirdest times and circumstances. She’d say things like, “Oh I was in the area and was just checking on things.” Yeah, right. You just never know about people.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Seven​

As busy as I stayed the year Mom was so sick and the time after that, this past year has been ten times worse. Dad insisted we “kick it up a notch” to get out ahead of what was going on. Kicking it up a notch started to kick my butt, and my glucose numbers reflected that. So did the amount of insulin that I needed. My endocrinologist used to see me every three months, then the started to stretch that to every four and told me I had to make my insulin supply last. When I reported that I was having to use a flexpen to bring down my numbers on occasion I got a lecture on that and they almost wouldn’t put in another order for more flexpens at the pharmacy. My numbers swung wildly on a daily basis. Dad’s glucose wasn’t much better, and it took a lot of effort to get things to settle down enough that my spikes and dips would flatten out, or at least flatten out some.

I insisted that I have time to exercise, but instead of doing them at night to “relax,” I got up and went for a walk first thing in the morning before breakfast to set the tone for the day and to rev up my metabolism. I would come home, fix breakfast with the family for the family, but I only had a protein shake that hardly had any added sugar or carbs. My favorite brand is Premier Protein[1] but they aren’t cheap. They aren’t the expensive fad brands, but they aren’t the cheap store brands either. I’d get Dad off to work with a lunch I’d packed the night before and then us siblings would work on school and hopefully get most of the day’s goals accomplished before lunch rolled around. Between my morning assignments I would either start a load of laundry, start a load in the freeze drier, work on my online jobs (I had several including a transcription job that paid for my insurance), or would help the others with their schoolwork. In fact, we all helped each other, because we all had different talent areas.

Ethan is a science whiz, Ezra is a math geek, Eden is a master of physics (and that isn’t always the great thing it sounds like because she can build things and manage to create even bigger messes than our brothers). Elijah is a bit of a grammar and spelling nazi … Oh. My. Lord … not to be sacrilegious or anything. He also enjoys logic problems and picture puzzles. Esther is a storyteller and manages the house library … both the physical volumes and movies, as well as the digital ones and for a kid her age she’s always been good at it. We all like history and traditional skills, just different ones. Ethan is the builder with Eden as his assistant if he can keep her focused. Ezra helps build and is also into animal husbandry. Elijah tinkers and can pull Eden into helping him which she is more inclined to do than not. Esther loves flowers and growing things. She is also a caregiver like Grams and our other grandmother though she was too little when they passed to remember either woman. We all cook – except for Eden – or help with clean up and toting and carrying things if need be. We also all clean our home, and work on the landscaping at the home in town and at the Homeplace.

Me? I’m the researcher and if one of us didn’t know an answer right off, I help to find it. I’m also the planner and organizer. I have a couple of large write-on, wipe-off boards that I use to keep things flowing as smoothly as possible. One I used black tape to make a grid so that two months show at the same time … the current one and the next one. The other is a daily schedule like in those fancy (expensive) DayTimer books. There’s also a large paper desk calendar (Dad picks a new one up each year from work.) where we write in things for the entire year. As each month is finished, I tear it off and put it in the big portfolio that I keep for our “school”. Each of us, even me even though I’m in college, also has a portfolio that acts as a “permanent record” in case the School District gets a stray hair and requires us to show proof of what we were doing. Each of us had a list of books that we read by date, a list of our curriculum used by grade, a list of field trips by date and the purpose of it and how it fitted into our studies. I kept examples of all their schoolwork (mostly print offs) and pamphlets and flyers when we went places. The boys kept copies of their Trail Life ranks and activities. For Eden and Esther I tried to include lists of “life skills” since neither was inclined to join any of the social groups for girls though both enjoyed going to the town library or helping to find gold in the chaff when I went shopping at thrift stores and the like.

I had to be careful of how I tracked our church activities. I kept a list, I just kept it separate rather than risk anyone from the county getting ahold of it and making something of it. In public school they were starting to get into families’ business and make parents show proof that kids had access to “healthy secular activities” rather than just “religious training”. Until about the middle of the year that Mom got sick we’d belonged to a pretty good sized homeschool support group. We stopped going when we figured out one of the reasons Mom was always sick with a cold or fever was because we were bringing home germs where we would get together with the other kids and families. They also started dividing kids up by those that were vaccinated and those that weren’t. Not long after Mom went to Heaven, when Ezra wondered if the group was going to have another science fair, I went to Dad and asked if I should sign back up to rejoin. He wasn’t against it and Research Girl started looking into it. What I found out scared me.

“Eve, how much do you need in the house account to join OTHP?” OTHP stood for Old Town Homeschool Program.

I told him, “Nothing.”

“Young lady, I thought we discussed you spending money out of your account for things like this.”

“Dad, don’t … don’t get mad. We … we just aren’t going to join.”

He sighed. “That expensive?”

“No Sir. They’ve … changed.”

“Changed.” He must have seen something on my face and for whatever reason I think that was when he started treating me more as an adult than just one of his kids. “Don’t beat around the bush. Explain what has you upset. They … er … say something about your mother not being around anymore?”

“No Sir. They’ve … they’ve just changed. I caught Deacon Marlow’s wife in the nursery to ask her who I needed to contact. She started acting all funny and then asked me to come into the Food & Clothes storage closet … you know that small room they keep that stuff in for handing out to people in need. She shut the door and then … Dad it was weird. She listened until she was sure that no one was around and still whispered like someone might hear us and even asked me to keep my voice down or just listen and ask questions at the end.” I looked at my father, willing him to understand how it had all made me feel.

“What did she say? Something … er … inappropriate go on in the group?”

“Not the kind of inappropriate I think you’re wondering about. They aren’t … well they aren’t a Christian group like they used to be. I mean they never called themselves that – it created too much trouble – but they acted like they were one. I mean no one was ever excluded but it was understood you were expected to behave a certain way … you know what I mean?” At his nod I added, “Now … Dad … they’ve changed the name to COEXIST only everyone but people with a Christian worldview are welcome. And members must show proof of vaccinations, members must sign forms they call Transparency Commitments which from what I hear are really just promises that they are going to tattle on anyone … a member or not … that does ‘inappropriate practices’ at home or breaks any of the gazillion new bylaws the group has. I mean that sounds all good and stuff until you read those bylaws and it mostly sounds like they are Christian-bashing and don’t want anyone to have free speech and they are tattling on people about guns in the home and even what kind of food they are feeding their kids. And they have people they call Monitors and Organizers that have a lot of say in what is going on and it has nothing to do with education and everything to do with monitoring members’ ‘social and environmental footprint’ and other really weird stuff like that. A bunch of the old members … Dad, they had the cops and CFS called on them, and all sorts of other weird stuff happen to them. I even heard a couple of the parents had to quit their jobs because they were being hassled so much by people calling their bosses and … Dad … it’s like Miriam on steroids or something. Even the Marlows got hit with some of that stuff and you know they are pretty moderate and open minded even if Mr. Marlow is a deacon and Pastor John’s cousin’s son.” I whispered to him worried that my sibs would hear, “I mean it’s almost Biblical and stuff.”

Nothing more along those lines was really discussed, though it was alluded to sometimes. Not long after that OTHP, or COEXIST as it had come to be called, disbanded because there were rumors the cops got called in over some things that were going on. Supposedly age-inappropriate things being encouraged so the kids could all “experience different worldviews”. I never did hear what, and it could have been rumor, but a lot of people that had taken over the group’s leadership moved out of the area pretty quickly, and not all of them got to take their kids with them.

But I guess, even if Dad and I didn’t talk about that stuff going on out in the world, he still worried at it and for whatever reason – I never have figured out if anything specific set him off – he demanded we do the “kick it up a notch” thing.

Every few weeks he’d come home with a box that he wouldn’t take out of his truck unless it was pulled into the garage at night. That’s usually how we knew he had stuff, because he normally left the truck in the carport. He started bringing home even more “seconds” boxes of food from the Plant and I wasn’t allowed to carry anything into the house from my own shopping expeditions except after parking in the garage and having the big door down and the blinds and curtains closed. About once a month he would bring in a small box and tell me to keep it in the fridge and then take it to the Homeplace and take it down and put it in the cold room. The box usually held extra insulin for me, sometimes a vial and sometimes a flexpen or two. He also got extra pods for my insulin pump or had an extra bottle of his own medications. Sometimes the box also held the kind of medication that usually required a prescription like antibiotics or decongestants and expectorants. Sometimes the box held first aid supplies. One time he brought home what must have been a really expensive surgical kit and another time a wilderness pack full of stuff I was horrified at the idea of having to use on anyone in my family.

“Dad, where did it come from?” I would ask on occasion, concerned at what he was having to do to get it.

“Don’t worry about it. Just do what I tell you to with it. And read the booklets and stuff I’m bringing home. Have the boys and Eden do it as well.”

“But …”

“Eve, do what I tell you.”

It’s not that I was refusing to do what he said, I just wanted the reasons behind it. I wanted a reason not to worry. That never happened and when those times came, I learned to accept and just move on to the next thing filling my time. I learned to live by the Socratic method[2].

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

My faith and that prayer helped me to stay balanced and navigate a life that was getting way too complicated for me to deal with.

---

[1] Protein Shakes
[2] Reinhold Niebuhr: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.' — The Socratic Method

 

[Mr Bill]

As the people spin. Thanks

 

[moldy]

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

It's that last part I really struggle with.

 

[Jeepcats27]

interesting story! Thank you for the chapters!

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you Kathy.

 

[Landcruiser]

Definitely another good start. Loving it so far.

 

[CGTech]

Whee! Another Kathy story! I can see why this one is gnawing at you, with the world the way it is right now..

 

[teedee]

Thank you dear lady!

 

[kaijafon]

as someone who is diabetic and gives herself a shot only once a week; well I learned a bit I did not know. But let's just say something "things" have now fallen into place

Thank you

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Eight​

Oh, I’m getting tired, but I need to stay awake. Hopefully the kids will wind down and get some rest so I can without worrying what they’ll get up to if I’m asleep. I’m also waiting on someone, but I don’t know if they’ll show. I’m not there yet so let me explain a few more things.

The “cold room” at the homeplace is pretty awesome. It was something that Mom read about in a book when she was a girl and had always thought about. And she’d gathered all the plans and stuff and had put them aside, thinking that they were unobtainable … which they had been at the time. Then came the Homeplace and … she just wanted it. Wanted it to the point of being obsessed. She drove Dad and I a little crazy about it to be honest. But he always wanted her to have what she wanted, and he finally figured a way to get it for her.

First, he took part of the basement that is the old root cellar and basically a room that was carved out of the granite that holds up one of the outside corners of the homeplace. That room was kind of icky until we cleaned it up, including putting a drain in the floor that ran to a dry-barrel septic tank we dug and put in outside the house for any runoff and condensation from the room to run into and then disperse through a “septic field”. That was the “easy” part of the project.

Next, where Dad got them I have no idea, but it was probably something from the Plant. They were three “portable” coolers … like refrigerators only they open like a chest freezer. They can be run out in the field using a generator, a car battery hook-up, or solar power. The problem is they pull a lot of juice. What Dad did was two-fold. First, he divided the old root cellar into two rooms. On one side he lined the walls with commercial grade polyurethane insulation and over that he put shelves made out of flashing. The shelves were very uniform with a channel in them and that was for a reason. That was also the side that had the drain in it. He also insulated the other side the same way except instead of shelves he put the three portable coolers and ran the power for them through conduit up through the ground and to a specific set of solar panels. These panels he set up with a Fresnel lens. What that lens does is magnify the power that the solar panels collect. That is what powers those portable coolers and provides three “refrigerators that we used for only the most important of our necessities, like our refrigerated medicines including my insulin. We have back up power for them through a propane generator, but the object is not to need it by not depleting the batters that the solar panels are charging.

That other room was to become a walk-in freezer. Unfortunately, it has yet to make it year-round. More like the ice houses of old that lasted most of the year but that eventually had to be replenished once it got cold enough for water to freeze again. Those shelves made of flashing? We would freeze blocks of water and set them on the shelves. Dad found these cool insulated doors off a set of old walk-in coolers they were upgrading at the Plant and used them for the doors on those two rooms. Also, the cold air from the “freezer” side can be piped over to the “cooler” side so that the coolers don’t have to work so hard.

Now there are some rules. We don’t go in those rooms any more than necessary. When we do go in, we try and get in and out as quickly as possible so that the cooler and cold air doesn’t escape, and hot air doesn’t get in. There are plastic flaps on the inside of the doors that also help to keep the cold air in. Another point is that what we put in those two rooms needs to be cooled off first so that something hot doesn’t require the rooms and equipment to work harder than necessary. Because of the dampness those rooms also must be kept scrupulously clean so no mold or mildew develops.

Once the homeplace had been re-roofed and all the delayed maintenance taken care of, Dad and Mom had other ideas they wanted. The finished part of the basement was hidden from the rest of the house and could be converted into both living and sleeping areas by using murphy beds. It was kinda insane all the hidden spaces the homeplace is now made up of.



And we filled those hidden spaces as much as we could. I’ve mentioned we had the freeze driers mom inherited from Grams running almost constantly. We freeze dried a lot of meat so that Dad and I could stick to our diets. I kept that up even after Mom went to Heaven and in the last year Dad insisted we use one of the freeze driers for meat exclusively, sometimes both of them at the same time. We freeze dried domesticated meat like beef, chicken, goat, turkey, and Cornish hens. Lean pork like ham, Canadian bacon, and tenderloins. We freeze dried wild meat as well like venison, rabbit, pheasant, duck, and goose. If I didn’t have meat going, I had vegetables high in fiber and low in carbs like bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, asparagus, celery, tomatoes, squash, cauliflower, radishes, brussel sprouts, garlic, snap peas, cabbage, and onions. I also did the more traditional vegetables that were higher in sugars and starches but only for my siblings to eat so yeah, there was a ton of them as well.

I dehydrated fruits and vegetables for adding to things like soups, stews, meatloaf and homemade breads that I would bake for the others to eat. Sometimes I would also dry and powder them. Against my better judgement I also freeze-dried candies and treats and put them in mylar bags and hid them away so no one would ask for them and they could be treats they received at the holidays and things like that. I freeze dried watermelon[1] and tropical fruits as a kind of “healthy” candy. I canned citrus fruit[2][3], candied the peel as yet another kind of treat, and freeze dried the fruit and peel to use that way. I even did things like freeze dried ice cream[4] and sherbet if I could get it on sale, or make our own using the small batch ice cream maker I’d picked up at an estate sale.

I canned everything that I freeze dried and dehydrated plus things like ground beef, ground sausage, hot dogs, kielbasa, smoked sausage, convenience items like soups, stews, chili, salsas, and sloppy joe mix. I canned meatballs every way I could manage … with spaghetti sauce, sweet and sour sauce, plum sauce, BBQ sauce, in a broth base to make stroganoff, and all the other etc you can think of. When I could get flavored sausage in flavors like chicken-apple, caramelized onion and cheddar, mango jalapeno I also canned them; sometimes whole and sometimes in “bites”.

I canned bacon[5] because my brothers all think it is a food group all its own. But doggone that stuff is expensive, or at least the good stuff is, so I learned to make our bacon[6] from the pork belly Dad would cut from the feral hogs we hunted. I also made a lot of jerky[7] because even Dad and I could eat that as a snack or treat a couple times a week. I canned fish[8] and seafood like crab[9] and shrimp[10] and clams[11] because buying those little cans at the grocery store just wasn’t happening and because the Plant owners would sometimes give Dad frozen boxes of seafood for some under the table work.

Based on Mom’s notes and my own research I figured out how to store pastas for long term storage[12]. I also continued her practice of storing whole grains[13], dried beans[14], and nuts[15]. I made the family bread from whole grains and sometimes freeze dried[16] that as well as flour-less crackers like zucchini cheese crackers[17]. The most common bread I made was Ezekiel Bread[18] so I stored all the ingredients for it in bulk. I freeze dried rice and some rice dishes but not in any quantity because rice already lasted a long time so long as it was stored property. I freeze dried stir fry mixes which is what I planned on Dad and I eating a lot of. I freeze dried eggs[19] and cheese[20]. If I couldn’t get to the eggs fast enough and they became a surplus (not often), I would can pickled eggs[21] in all the flavors I had recipes for. We made our own condiments[22] on top all the rest because I could control the amount of sugar in them.

I couldn’t freeze dry butter because of the oil content but I could can[23] it. Same for milk because of the fat content; I couldn’t freeze dry it but I could can it[24]. I freeze dried yogurt[25]. I even tried freeze dried cream cheese[26] and sour cream[27] and which I was thankful for when the experiment worked. I preserved much more food than we would eat any given day. Dad insisted. The freeze driers ran every day we were in town. The dehydrators ran every day because I had them both in town and at the homeplace. I ran at least two canning batches every day, usually more, and it didn’t matter whether we were in town or the homeplace because I had equipment in both places. In town the food primarily came from the food boxes Dad brought home from the Plant or from my grocery store runs where the first place I stopped was the clearance bins. So long as a piece of meat wasn’t out of date I would buy it and either freeze it for later use, or use it to make a big batch of something for dinner that would have enough left over for a full load of jars in the pressure canner. Certain times of year I would also hit up the state’s farmers market at the fairgrounds and it was rare for the Dollar Bags of stuff that were passed their prime to escape me. At the homeplace the food mostly came from hunting, gardening, and the bartering we did.

It sounds like all I did was cook and preserve food between homeschooling the sibs and taking my own college classes. If that had been all, I could have done it standing on my head but that wasn’t all I did.

---

[1] How To Freeze Dry Watermelon | Freeze Dried Guide
[2] Canning Oranges
[3] Canning Lemons ~ Three Ways
[4] How to Freeze Dry Ice Cream
[5] Canning Bacon: How To Can Bacon At Home
[6] Homemade Smoked Bacon - Hey Grill, Hey
[7] Beef Jerky Recipes (75+ Homemade Jerky Recipes) (75 recipes)
[8] Canning Fish: Salmon, Blue, Mackerel, Trout...
[9] Canning Crab Meat Recipe: How To Can Crab Meat At Home
[10] Canning Shrimp
[11] Canning Clams at Home: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners
[12] How to Store Pasta for the Long Term - Off The Beaten Grid
[13] Storing Grains and Storing Flour Long Term
[14] How to Store Dry Beans For The Long Term
[15] How to Store Nuts Long Term
[16] Can you freeze dry bread? - Chef's Resource
[17]

View: https://youtu.be/4QSbOSgMcO0

[18] How to Make Ezekiel Bread - Food Storage Made Easy
[19]

View: https://youtu.be/0JOE7hGyvZM

[20] How To Freeze Dry Cheese - Freeze Drying Mama
[21] https://www.cooks.com/rec/search?q=pickled+eggs
[22] https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/homemade-condiment-recipes/ (35 recipes)
[23] https://gubbahomestead.com/food-preservation/the-ultimate-guide-to-canning-butter-at-home/
[24] https://ladyleeshome.com/how-to-can-milk/
[25] https://harvestright.com/blog/2015/delicious-freeze-dried-yogurt-drops/
[26]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGpWK10BBMI

[27] https://freezedriedguide.com/how-to-freezer-dry-sour-cream/

 

[Jeepcats27]

Darn, I was just getting over writer's cramp, I guess I will be starting over! Thank you for the new chapter!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Nine​

Mom and I had already started the next storage activities, but this past year I had to really put on my thinking cap. Stuff was getting so expensive. We lived in bargain bin clothes … hand me downs, stuff I would find on clearance, stuff from yard sales, stuff from thrift stores, and clothes I would sew myself or at least make over myself. My own wardrobe is full of Mom’s clothes and even some of Grams’ clothes as the three of us were the same height … short. I tried not to make it too obvious so it wouldn’t bother Dad, but I also tried to wear them on days he wasn’t going to be around to minimize how it might affect him. About the only thing new we ever have is our underclothes. At Christmas we would get a new set of sleeping clothes as one of our gifts, two new pairs of jeans, and a new pair of sneakers. Anything else would depend on what was on sale and what we could afford. Money was already tight with Mom working and me helping out. After Mom went to Heaven things got even tighter, especially as the cost of health insurance kept going up and the stuff at the stores got thin on the shelves.

At Easter we got a new Sunday church outfit from the skin out, and new church shoes. This past year I had to sew everyone’s dresses and shirts and thankfully got them all finished during my semester’s Spring Break. The boys got new-to-them slacks, but they came from a consignment shop though they looked brand new. Summer I tried to make sure everyone got a new swim suit, a new hat, and new garden gloves and clogs. The swimsuits weren’t actually new as I got them on end of season clearance the previous year, but they didn’t care. It was just something no one else had ever worn and they were happy to have it.

Dad mostly lived in his work uniforms or a variation of them. But I did try and make sure that his church clothes and other stuff stayed nice. He didn’t really care. He’d stopped caring about a lot of things when Mom went to Heaven and sometimes it was a struggle to get him to do anything but by habit and absolute necessity.

We have work clothes, play clothes, and church clothes. When the sibs outgrow their church clothes I pack them away nicely in the labeled bins that Mom put in the attic of the Homeplace until the next kid can fit into them. Mom and Grams developed a system that is full proof though some people will probably find it a little silly. First you clean the clothes and making any needed repairs. Then you freeze the clothes. Wait, I’m not finished. I know it sounds weird but it works. Then you steam the clothes with a clothes steamer or a clothes press. I mean hot, hot, hot steam. Then you fold and put them in a bin with natural aromatics like cedar and lavender. I’ve yet to run into moths or silverfish on clothes that have been stored this way.

Each bin is either for a boy or girl and a specific size. Work clothes and play clothes depend on how beat up they are and whether I can mend them enough to make it worth saving them. Usually by the time Elijah and Esther are finished with them it is time for them to go in the trash. Not because they are particularly rough or careless with their clothes, but because they’ve already gone through two or three kids before it got to them.

Mom had instructed me to start finding patterns and materials so that I could sew things when things were needed I couldn’t buy. There’s a room at the homeplace that has cedar cabinets all down one wall and there’s enough material, batting, yarn, thread, lace and buttons, notions, and stuffing stacked in there – some of it from my grandmothers who both sewed and quilted – that I can’t imagine ever running out, but I still kept to Mom’s instructions and was always on the look out for that sort of stuff when I was out bargain hunting. That’s also the room where the sewing and knitting machines are. I’ll eventually get around to better organizing it in there, but for now it is a mess that makes me itch so I keep the cabinet doors clothes.

I stay ahead of the sibs growing the best I can by finding clothes in sizes bigger than they need and bringing them home, washing them, and then adding them to the storage bins. If I can find socks and undergarments on clearance, I get a couple of packages for storage as I can. I live in skorts and jean skirts that can take heavy use for the most part. When Mom knew she was going into Hospice she herself directed me to go through her clothes and she told me what to get rid of and what to keep. Oh man was Dad furious when he found out, but she must have talked him around somehow as I never heard another thing about it.

She made me take hers and Grams jewelry and put it in the safe at the Homeplace but there is a list in there in her handwriting of who she wanted to have what. Gramps had never worn male jewelry, but he did like pocket watches. He set aside one for each of us and when none of them were in their home in town when my aunts and uncles were going through things, they just assumed he’d sold them to put more money into the estate. Nope, but that’s one of those things we don’t talk about. We don’t talk about the guns that “sank to the bottom of the lake during a storm” either.

Dad said to let him handle getting our hunting supplies. I never asked and he never volunteered where the ammo came from. I do recognize that most of what is in the gun cabinets down in the basement are reloads. It makes me think that Pastor John – an avid hunter himself – might have helped Dad acquire some of it. It used to be that Pastor John would make some money selling reloads as he had all the equipment to make them, but when the federal regulators became a problem, he closed up shop. Or did he?

My side jobs paid for the boys to have snare wire and fishing gear. I prefer bow hunting and used to win trophies at the Fish & Wildlife tournaments for my age bracket, but I don’t compete anymore. I’d teach Eden but she doesn’t have the patience for it yet though her arm and hand strength are good. All of us, even Esther, have good aim with a slingshot and I plunked decent money down for ammo until I found out on accident that the man that owned the U-Pull-It yard didn’t mind if the boys and I “harvested” the ball bearings out of old junker cars if we didn’t make a mess. It was one of those “barter bargains” that I know for a fact we got the better end of the deal on. One year I’d simply asked to clean the fruit off the mulberry trees at the back of the lot and he was so happy to avoid the mess they made he tried to pay me. We settled on the trade, and it has been like that for three years. I’ve also gotten a lot of crabapples from the same place and for the same reason.

What gets expensive is cleaning supplies and paper products. That’s where estate sales sometimes come in. If it is unopened I’ll definitely buy any leftover cleaning supplies. But I’ve been known to buy opened containers too. Our laundry detergent looks like snot because there’s so many different brands and colors mixed together. I don’t care. I’ve got the supplies to make our own – Mom saw to that – but so long as I could get the other, I did. Fabric softener was the same way, unless I ran out (rarely) and then I would just use white vinegar. Same for all our cleaning supplies. I did have to know – and taught the sibs – which chemicals could be mixed, and which would create a deadly gas[1].

Fridays and Saturdays were our shopping days. Depending, we would walk into a grocery store with two carts. I would take Esther and Eden and go one direction with part of the list and Ethan would take Ezra and Elijah and another part of the list and go a different way. Luckily Ethan is tall and filled out more than most boys his age. He also has a presence that makes him seem older. I also only have them pick up certain items that won’t get them looked at funny. The girls and I do all the “personal items” type shopping. Hygiene items I rarely buy anywhere except the store. Dad preferred us to pick his up from the Mennonite store the way Mom always did but no way could we afford to do that for all of us.

Mom always made our toothpaste[2] because she was worried about all the chemicals in everything. But I’d found other recipes[3] and instructions for that sort of stuff and bought the ingredients to make them in bulk when I could get them. Cleaning supplies[4], mouthwashes[5], hygiene items[6], feminine care products[7], and shaving supplies. I don’t wear much, but if I want to wear any, my make-up[8] must be all natural and homemade. Mom insisted. She also insisted on homemade deodorants[9] because of the chemicals in most store-bought ones.

The next item might be a little embarrassing to some; I know my friends have all thought it mega weird to downright gross, but it’s just the way I was raised. Mom had so many female problems that she just couldn’t use tampons and couldn’t stand store-bought feminine pads because most of them leaked. When she was a teenager the gynecologist she had to see recommended she use cloth pads. Grams did the research, and they learned how to make them[10] and Mom never looked back. It is what she taught me to use and what I’ll teach Eden and Esther to use when it is their time. It is really no different than using cloth diapers for babies – which Mom also used, and I learned to help with – so I don’t know what people get so cross-eyed about. So you have to do a little private laundry. Big whoop. Can’t be any worse than people leaving skid marks in their underwear. Which, by the way, is why everyone has to pre-wash their own undies because to me that is grosser than the other. Even Dad does his own work clothes if they are really disgusting which they sometimes are, like when he has to repair a plumbing line or something. Everyone knows where the Bac-Out[11] is and how to use it. It is an enzyme cleaner and works on nearly everything, even the worst stains or stinks.

Life has been a real roller coaster for a while, but especially the last year. But for as rough as it has been, the best times were when we worked at the Homeplace. That’s where we were freest and where Dad seemed to relax some even though he missed Mom more at the Homeplace than he did in town. In town there were memories in the house of the hospital bed and in-home nursing. She’d always been better when we were at the Homeplace and all together.

---

[1] 20 Common Household Cleaning Products You Should Never Mix
[2] https://livesimply.me/homemade-kid-toothpaste//#recipe
[3] How to Make Toothpaste (7 All-Natural Recipes) | The Nourished Life
[4] 67+ Homemade, All-Natural Cleaning Recipes
[5] 17 DIY Homemade Mouthwashes To Maintain Oral Hygiene – Wellness.guide
[6] Easy Homemade Beauty Products That Work! | Whole New Mom
[7] DIY Recipes for Homemade Feminine Care Products
[8] 10 Planet-Friendly Homemade Makeup Recipes
[9] DIY Natural Deodorant...That Actually Works!
[10] How to Sew Your Own Cloth Pads (And Why You'd Want to!)
[11] https://www.amazon.com/Biokleen-Bac...qid=1727934197&sprefix=bac+out,aps,164&sr=8-1

 

[sssarawolf]

Break time, and I got to read. Thank you.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Ten​

Life was rolling along even if it seemed to want to jump the rails every now and then. Then just before Thanksgiving things started getting really, really bad. There were riots and some of them happened in places they never had before. Dad said, “the contagion is spreading.” Okay, that was really strange coming from him. He didn’t normally talk that way and that alone weirded me out more than what I was hearing on the news. On top of that Dad changed the parental controls on our router and when I asked him about it … I ran into a problem when I was doing a course assignment … I got the 3rd degree about what I was looking at to the point it was really embarrassing.

“Dad, it’s a history class. I was supposed to watch a news program on mainstream media and see if I saw any parallels with any 19th or 20th century events.”

“You don’t need to be watching that trash.”

“It was for extra credit. The professor grades on a curve and …”

“If you are making the grades you are supposed to you don’t need any extra credit.”

“Dad, I’m nineteen and not to toot my own horn but I’m way ahead of most people my age when it comes to mature subject matter.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” he asked in way that let me know I needed to tread carefully as I was being viewed as stepping outside of my approved spot on the chain of command.

“It means that you and Mom raised me to have a reasonable number of brain cells and morals and that I won’t melt if I see or hear something inappropriate. I know how to use good judgment and use the off button and volume knob if need be. I also know that I’m a firewall for Ethan and the younger ones so I’m careful what I listen to and watch when they are around … and when they’re not because I don’t want to be a hypocrite. But I’m nineteen Dad. Nine … teen. And next month I’m going to be twenty.”

“Yeah, you’re old all right.” And I knew just where Eden got her sarcasm gene from.

“You know what I mean. I’m an adult with adult responsibilities, including not wasting the money on college classes I’m not being allowed to pass because … because you’re trying to protect me like I’m Esther’s age.”

“Young lady, you may, as you say, be a little more mature than the average kid your age … but you are still a kid no matter what the law says. Furthermore you are my kid. And it is my job to protect you and if I catch you … or the boys … trying to get around those parental controls you don’t want to know what is going to happen. And the subject is closed.”

Then he turned and headed to his shop in the backyard and the back door closed with more force than normal, and it didn’t have anything to do with the wind that was blowing at the time.

I picked up the basket of laundry I had been carrying when I’d made the mistake of asking Dad about the router and stepped into the utility room to find that Ethan was moving the towels from the washer into the dryer. The bath towels and our “private laundry” are the only things we used the dryer on. Everything else went on the clothesline.

“Thanks,” I told him.

“Mmph. Esther and Elijah laid down. That cough syrup you gave them is working but it made them sleepy. Let’s shut the door so the machines don’t wake them up and then we gotta deal with the crankies,” he said right before he toed the utility room door closed.

I looked at him and then just kept loading the washer. He poured in a scoop of the week’s batch of “snot soap” and turned the machine on.

We just looked at each other and he finally broke down and asked quietly, “What’s up with Dad?”
“What’s up with all the secrecy? Don’t want Ezra and Eden to know you’re asking?”


“They know.”

“Then … ?”

“Dad and his security cameras and you know what I’m talking about. So, in case he’s ‘keeping an eye on us’ spit it out already before I get caught asking.”

I did know what he was talking about. Dad installed the cameras when Mom got sick because he didn’t trust the health care people that sometimes came to the house.

Trying to explain … and maybe rationalize it a bit … I told him, “Dad is … look, he’s doing the best he can. Yes, I think something is going on to make him a little wiggier than normal, probably the riots, maybe something beyond that. He and Mr. Barlow and Pastor John and a few other men like Cade Burke sometimes … talk or whatever … about things that are going on in the world. If I find out, if I hear anything, I’ll pass it along.”

“Promise?”

“I said I would didn’t I? Have I ever given you reason to question my word?”

“No. And you’ve never given Dad any either, that’s why I asked what is going on. Dad is being … uh …”

“Just keep the ‘uh’ to yourself. I’ll figure it out and then figure out what, if anything, we need to do about it.”

We walked out of the utility room with a small basket of things that needed to be hung out about the time that Dad walked back in.

I set the basket on the table and told Dad, “Let me check on the twins and then I’ll be right back.” He made some noise that they were just taking their naps and I had to remind them, “They’re the youngest of us, but they aren’t that little. They don’t nap in the middle of the day anymore Dad.”

“Well maybe they need to.” I heard the threat and all I could think to myself was, “Please don’t start messing around with things and creating problems that I’m going to have to be the one to fix so you don’t get your feelings hurt.”

I went to check on the twins only to catch them not asleep but doing that we’re-getting-out-of-the-way-so-Ethan-can-find-out-stuff thing they sometimes do. I’ve caught Ezra and Eden doing it too. Not often, but more often lately than they had in the past. It worried me. I didn’t want it to become a them-against-me thing … or them-against-Dad-and-I thing … with either me or Ethan stuck in the middle. I didn’t know whether to nod or wink … either could be taken the wrong way. So, I just looked at them and willed them to understand and then quietly shut the door on the room they were almost getting too old to share.

I came back to the kitchen to find Dad looking fit to growl and Ethan looking like he was willing for there to be a fight. Ignoring what would have been obvious to a blind-deaf-mute I told Ethan, “You were right. But they aren’t hard asleep. Probably won’t be long until they get up. Just keep things down and try and get Ezra and Eden to do more than just look at the chore list. We’re supposed to take a load to the Homeplace after church tomorrow and we won’t if that stuff doesn’t get done. Dad isn’t going to be able to go this time and that means you and the boys are going to have to do more heavy-lifting than normal.”

“Why?”

I ignored his tone that was an echo of Dad’s. “Because he switched shifts with Mr. Cunningham so he could take his mother to have her cataracts worked on.”

His ruff went down and he told Dad, “I’ll load the baskets in the suburban after Ezra, Eden, and I pick up those limbs like you want.”

Dad nodded and then watched Ethan walk down the hall. He looked at me then shook his head, maybe a little sadly. “He’s starting to remind me of your Uncle George.”

“The only way he is like Uncle George is because Uncle George and you would brangle when he acted like you weren’t as old as he was and he always knew better.”

That got me a raised eyebrow but all he said was, “You sound like your mother.”

“It’s because she explained it. She also told me that eventually you and Ethan were probably going to be like having two lions under the same roof … one older and one younger. Brangling is inevitable, just to do what I could to keep the two of you from drawing blood.”

“Now see here young lady …”

“Dad. It’s okay. Yes, we’re growing up. We may even one day have a life of our own. But we aren’t going to leave you. And that’s all I’m saying because thinking about anything being different … just isn’t acceptable.”

After a moment he sighed. “Come out to the Shop. I suppose I need to explain a few things.”

 

[sssarawolf]

Glad I check back, sweet!

 

[Siskiyoumom]

Thank you so much for the new story!

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks Kathy

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Eleven​

When we got out there, I started to wonder if he was actually going to say anything or tell me to forget it and go back inside. When he did it wasn’t about anything I expected.

“Mary Ellen has left Cade again.”

“Uh … okay. I’m not sure if it is my business though.”

“That’s what we need to discuss.” I just waited. “You aren’t curious?”

“You haven’t given me anything to be curious about. She’s left before. Then she comes back. And he always takes her back. Things get better. And then she ups and leaves and goes to her parents again.”

He looked at me and observed, “You don’t care for Mary Ellen.”

Careful with my words I answered, “It’s none of my business Dad. But if you’re asking me for my private and personal opinion then no, I don’t. And before you ask me why, I’ll admit that my why may not make sense to you. You’re a guy. My reasons are because I’m not.”

“What in the Sam Hill does that mean?” he said using a phrase that was the closest thing to swearing Dad ever did, at least in front of me, which told me he was stressed out.

Determined to answer as honestly as I could I explained, “It means that I used to like Mary Ellen. She was nice to me when other people acted like my insulin pump made me some kind of mutant or was an affectation or something like that … that I was looking for attention when it was the last thing I wanted. She never treated me like that. She treated me … normal. And it meant a lot to me that she of all people would. She was pretty, popular, nice, she was smart … she was just what all the girls seemed to want to be. She even stood between me and Richie (her brother) when he would get mean, when he thought I was getting a little too much attention or he wanted my attention or whatever it was when it was going on. You remember how he could be. I know you and Mom even talked about it a few times. Richie … had problems for a long time Dad, no matter how Mr. and Mrs. McDaniel tried to ignore it or cover it up or pray over it and all the rest they eventually tried.”

“Hmm. Does your history with Richie have anything to do with this?”

“No, or at least not the way maybe you’re thinking. I thought Mary Ellen and Cade going together and then getting married meant good things for her. I wanted good things for her. Sure, Cade is a couple years older than her, but only a couple, and there was nothing whacked or nasty or anything like that about it. They were used as the example of how people who were courting were supposed to behave with each other and in public. Besides, Mary Ellen was mature for her age because of what she went through at home and … to be honest, I just didn’t think about it a whole lot. Mom was always on about us keeping our noses out of other people’s business and not judging things we didn’t have all the facts for. So Mary Ellen and Cade getting married was just a thing that happened and seemed like it was supposed to happen and that it was a good thing that happened. Then all that stuff with Richie and the McDaniels leaving the church the way they did and people taking sides and then the McDaniels leaving church completely and everyone taking sides about it again. And Mom just being even more determined about us keeping our noses out of it. And I’ve kept to that as much as I can even when others don’t want to let me because they just have to spew their TMI.”

Trying to understand he said, “You’re talking about Sister Bea.”

I nodded. “Among others. The difference between the others and Sister Bea is that Sister Bea is a professional Do-Gooder – I mean she’s a social worker after all – and has training to go along with her good intentions. All she’s really wanted me to do was to watch their little girls during the troop meetings and to understand so I wouldn’t take some of the ways they all four acted personally.”

“Something wrong with them little girls?”

“No, even when they’ve got reason for something to be wrong with them. Or they do if you listen to people that say things like ‘those poor children, with grandparents like that’ or any number of other bits of gossip I’m not going to repeat, up to and including that the way Mary Ellen is is Cade’s fault.”

“Do you think it is?”

Surprised at being asked I said, “What? That it’s Cade’s fault because he’s a deputy or stuff like that? No, because I don’t dislike Mary Ellen for anything other people could have made her be. I dislike Mary Ellen because of her and how she has chosen to be.”

Dad scratched his head then said, “Gotta give me more than that Eve. I’ve got my reasons, and I’ll explain ‘em but … you need to give me more than female logic to work with.”

I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t. Instead, I did my best to “un female-logic” it enough for Dad to see what I was saying. I just hoped I didn’t raise bad memories in the process.

I sighed. “Dad, when Mary Ellen would leave, she never took the girls with her. And she could have. She only ever left to go across town to her parents’ place. Even if Richie was the reason she didn’t take them at first, when he wasn’t around anymore she lost that excuse. She just never took them. Not even once. And I learned that fact by listening … and yes I know it wasn’t the best thing to do … but I can put two and two together. When Mary Ellen left, she was completely gone. She never came to visit the girls, not even that time she was gone almost two months. When she’s gone, she doesn’t want to talk to Cade, not even about the girls … or maybe especially about the girls who are supposed to be part of the reason why she leaves. When she’s gone, she doesn’t call and speak to the girls either. Even when she is there, she’s so wound up in herself that the girls go to school and daycare or a babysitter and it is Cade that takes care of them if they aren’t those places. Mary Ellen doesn’t do anything with them or for them. She doesn’t play with them. She doesn’t cook for them or take them grocery shopping. She doesn’t do their school with them. She doesn’t talk to them hardly at all, or at least not in any meaningful way. Instead, it is Cade who takes them everywhere with him when he can. So even though I don’t know Cade much beyond the fact that Ethan and Ezra respect him and you men at church seem to like and respect him … that still is better than what I know and I’ve seen of Mary Ellen. Mom would never have …” I stopped.

Quietly Dad said, “Go on. I need to hear this part.”

I couldn’t look at him, but I did say it while looking out the shop window, “When I was younger Mom and I would brangle worse than you and Ethan ever have. Maybe even more than you know or remember. Between her hormones and mine it is a wonder we didn’t blow up Old Town, and we might have if Grams hadn’t taken the time to help us build a bridge. But as awful as it could be, Mom never just threw up her hands and had a pity party, not even when she was deep in PMDD. And then when Grams died and then Gramps … maybe Mom could have used a break from us kids to deal with her grief, but she never, ever did. When your parents passed and then she got sick … and then sicker and sicker …” I rubbed my arms in agitation. “Mom never … never … abandoned her post, turned her back on her responsibilities, changed her priorities, not even when she felt like that’s what she was doing. Not even when she got weaker and weaker and weaker. Even that last day before they forced us to let them take her to the hospital when she didn’t want to go … she was still putting us kids – and you – first. The books, making sure we did our schoolwork, making sure I knew what to do in every kind of situation she could think of. Making sure above everything else that we knew and still remember that beyond a shadow of a doubt she loved us and that she didn’t regret any of us even though most of us are whoops of some type. Even though it might have made her own health battles easier if we hadn’t been made and born and all that comes after that.”

“Aw Honey …”

“No Dad. I don’t want to make you sad, but you asked and I have to say … that’s why I don’t like Mary Ellen these days. Her problems might be important. They are certainly important to her, and since I don’t know what all they entail, I can’t and won’t judge her on them. But her ‘problems’ or whatever you want to call it? If she and Cade wreck their marriage that’s on them and a completely different subject. But she lets her problems be more important than those two little girls. And that’s wrong; far worse than two adults who can’t get along. And it hasn’t happened once or twice. It happens every, single time and even though its none of my business I can still see what it is doing to the girls and to Cade … and even to Pastor John who must walk a thin line between his love for the nephew he raised and his job as a shepherd of the church. Saying nothing has some people saying the Pastor doesn’t care or is agreeing with things for them he wouldn’t for anyone else. Saying too much could draw the wrong kind of attention to our congregation … maybe the wrong kind of attention for churchgoing people in general given the world being like it is right now. Pastor John is stuck in a Catch-22 no matter what he says or does. And Mary Ellen is part of why that is. Because of her outright refusal to be the mother she is supposed to be.”

“Eve …”

Feeling defensive I said, “I get I’m being judgmental. But people are just … they are just people and awful and determined to have their own way and feel sorry for themselves and all the rest. I get I’m not being very respectful, that I’m being harsh. And to keep from maybe creating more problems … that’s why I’ve kept my opinion to myself and why I haven’t shared it. But you asked and I can’t lie to you. Just … please don’t ask me to stop looking after Sarah and Hannah during the troop meetings. Please.”

Dad looked out the shop window, and like he was choosing his own words carefully said, “I don’t think you’re being judgmental. God help you Daughter, you may have the Gift of Discernment and that particular gift rides uncomfortable on most of the people who have it. You see things and get left deciding to figure out what, if anything, to do with that knowledge. And staying out of people’s business and letting them make their own mistakes might be the hardest thing of all. On that I always agreed with your mother.”

It wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. Surprised me so much in fact I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have to because Dad had more to say himself.

“Mary Ellen has been gone since the beginning of November. Cade thought it was because he wouldn’t let her dress the girls up in what he considered inappropriate costumes for Old Town’s Fall Festival. That’s what she told her parents anyway, but she didn’t get what she expected. Her parents agreed with Cade which isn’t how it normally goes. Next day, as far as anyone has been able to determine, she ran off to some friends she still had from high school; they used to go to our church but stopped attending regularly when they left to go to college. She had a fight with them – witnessed – and she took off after that in her car – also witnessed by uninvolved parties as they were out at a restaurant at the time. She called her parents and told them she needed some space from everyone to make up her mind what she was going to do, that she was going to see her aunt up in Cincinnati. She arrived there and promptly got into an argument with her aunt’s new husband for just showing up unannounced when they already had a houseful of people visiting and expecting someone to give up a room for her to have. The man eventually felt badly for making his wife upset and gave Mary Ellen some money for a hotel. They know she checked in, but they also know she checked out after one night and … she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

“Has she been reported missing?”

“Cade tried. Her parents tried when he asked them to. But apparently because Mary Ellen is an adult there’s some number of days that must go by with no contact from her before anyone will take the report seriously. Well, two weeks have now gone by with no contact and she’s officially a missing person.”

“Uh … did they ping her phone or anything like that?”

“Cade said her phone was found in the hotel room with evidence that she’d bought what Cade called a burner phone. I guess he means one of them Tracfones similar to what you use where you buy so many minutes at a time instead of having a monthly plan.”

“And I bet they asked Cade if he shut down her phone as some kind of punishment.”

“They did, but then were surprised to learn she’s always refused to take a phone from Cade and uses a phone her parents provide for her. And no, they hadn’t turned it off.”

“But they did use it to track her whereabouts and maybe even what phone numbers she calls.”

“My, you are a suspicious person Eve.” He was kinda joking so I knew we were okay.

“Fine. I’ll wear the title. But am I right?”

“So says Cade who thinks that may be why she bought the other phone. But unlike in the cop movies – that you better not be watching – even tracfones can be traced when they know what the phone number is, and in this case they do. Mary Ellen used a credit card – one Cade didn’t know about, also provided by her parents – to pay for the new phone. The purchase was traced which gave them the cell number and whatever else they do to trace phones these days. The phone was used once to call one of the unknown numbers she called with her other cellphone and then hasn’t been turned on since. Neither has that other phone. Her car has not been located either.”

I made a face. “I don’t think I want to know anything else. It sounds like one of those awful telenovela’s that would play on the tv in the waiting room at the hospital.”

“Not that I don’t agree, but that’s all they know at this point. Or all that Cade knows I should say. And before your suspicious little heart asks … he told me in the interest of transparency because he wanted to know if you’ll babysit the girls when he is at work. His hours are becoming a problem since he is working a lot of nights for the next few months.”

“Like you.”

He nodded.

“So are you thinking about it?”

“Shouldn’t that be your choice Miss I’m Almost Twenty and an Adult?”

“This is your house, and the other kids aren’t adults,” I answered.

He eyebrows went up and then he got a small smile on his face. “Didn’t take long for you to come up with that answer.”

I shrugged realizing we were about to get down to brass tacks.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks for the update

 

[teedee]

I just love the way you wright! thanks

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you for this.

 

[CGTech]

Thanks Kathy!

 

[krsone]

Thank you for this, and all of the stories you have gifted us!

 

[Landcruiser]

And the plot thickens….

 

[feralferret]

Kathy, thanks!

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[Kathy in FL]

Part Twelve​

When Dad asked me again my thoughts, I asked him for his. “Before I answer I need to know how you feel about it … and why you would entertain the idea in the first place.”

“That a no?”

“It’s a I-need-more-information-before-I-answer.”

“You are so like your mother … but I’m thinking you might be even more like your grandmothers. Especially my mother. Lord that woman … well, never mind … let’s just say she didn’t trust people easily. So, you want more information. Well I’ll be honest and say I wanted to ignore Cade at first until he asked if Pastor John could join the discussion.”

“Pastor John?!”

“Cade seems to think he needs a character reference to offset things. Your age for one … which is why he approached me instead of you. He doesn’t want people to start gossiping. His job for two. For three, there’s a possibility that Mary Ellen’s parents might try and have a say in things, though so far they haven’t. It’s made Cade a bit suspicious, and he suspects that the daycare they were using was giving Mary Ellen’s parents reports behind his back as its run by a former business connection of his father in law’s.”

“Then why didn’t he use the church’s day school?”

“It was a compromise, and he’s tried to keep his uncle out of the hot seat, or so he explained. He also has to watch things at work.”

I nodded, understanding as I also had to be careful at school, and after what happened to the home school group also made that point.

“Okay, but having me as a babysitter doesn’t exactly sound like a compromise the McDaniels will accept, especially if that also means that their friends – or whoever that is at the daycare – will be cut out of the picture.”

“This next part is not to become common knowledge. You don’t even act like you know. Understand?” I nodded a little warily. “Mary Ellen … let’s just say while Cade might make decent money in his position because the county can’t afford to lose the deputies they have, health insurance is expensive as this family knows all too well, and his doesn’t include counseling. He and Mary Ellen have been in counseling off and on since before Sarah was born. And he and the girls have been in family counseling for the last two years trying to head off Mary Ellen or her parents getting custody via family court. There was some noise about that at one point though he says nothing has been said in a while. At least not since his mother-in-law went to work for that charity.”

“Okay … so will I be expected to be a gatekeeper of sorts?”

“Cade was worried about it at first.”

“At first? How long has he been talking to you about this?” I asked suspiciously since I knew that Mrs. McDaniels had started work with that charity like 18 months earlier.

Dad had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Since the 4th of July dinner on the grounds.”

“Dad.”

“Don’t use that tone, Eve. I had you and your siblings to think of. And Cade wasn’t too serious about it until the beginning of September when Mary Ellen started … in his words … acting stranger than normal. Strange enough he even went to his in-laws to ask them if they knew anything. Strange enough that even their marriage counselor called her on a few things, and we’ll leave it at that.”

I made a face. “I do not need nor want the TMI. Please.”

“About how I felt about it but apparently Cade felt …”

“Stop Dad. Please, I mean it. If you all want to do the male protector thing then fine. But I really don’t want the details. At least not those.”

After a pause and Dad giving me a look he nodded. “Fine. But in addition to the financial situation Cade finds himself in … bread winner, medical bills that have piled up, and what you call all that etcetera … it seems that Mary Ellen used to have a hard time with budgets and got them in a little hot water with a credit card. He paid it off, but it took time. And he took her name off the account, instead he gave her a cash card that he puts an allowance on every paycheck, but he is the one solely responsible for all the household expenses with the rest of his income. And the piddly that Mary Ellen used to bring in from the reception job she had didn’t get replaced after she was laid off.”

“But you said her parents gave her a credit card.”

“They did. They didn’t know about the cash card and allowance anymore than Cade knew about the credit card her parents gave her. And in the last few months she’s run up quite a few charges on that card her parents didn’t know about because she had the address changed on it to a PO Box, and now the McDaniels are left to pay for them since the card is in their name. And as a result, they now find themselves in a sticky situation financially. Her father could even lose his job over it because his job requires his credit and financial practices to be squeaky clean.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “He’s like some kind of CFO at that company he works for.”

“Exactly. And before you can figure out how to ask, no, you aren’t being asked to watch those girls out of the goodness of your heart. Not having to pay the cost of daycare – which I understand isn’t cheap – he’ll be able to give you some cash and some for groceries since they’ll be eating here … and he’s asking if you’d consider helping him to homeschool Sarah now that she’s in third grade. She’s not doing well from what he says.”

“Really? She does great with Esther during troop meetings. She’s reading ahead of her age level.”

“Because you were tutoring her according to Cade.”

“I wasn’t … I mean not really. She just needed some encouragement. As far as I can tell she doesn’t have a learning challenge, she has a self-confidence challenge.”

“Sounds like something your mother would say. But it isn’t just the schoolwork. She’s a deputy’s kid. And apparently someone said something at her school … and both girls aren’t … hmmm …”

“So kids can be stupid too, but it starts at home. They’re being bullied?” Having been there and living with the consequences for the rest of my life I was sympathetic.

“In a word? Yes. In another word? Yes. To the point that the school’s resource officer pulled Cade aside and privately suggested he put them in private school until things blow over.”

“How am I supposed to say no to that?” I asked, more than a little torqued.

“Well, add this to it all. Cade said he wouldn’t be able to pay you for what your time and effort is worth, but he’s willing to trade some muscle to help me with a few things I want to do at the Homeplace that the boys just aren’t capable of doing.”

“Like what?” I asked, wondering if this was the entire point of the discussion.

“I want to drop the bridge at the highway entrance, where the creek is trying to wash out the pilons again, and re-route the road in through that dirt track that runs between the acreage and where the State bought that strip of boundary land.”

“Go back to using the road that used to be the original entrance? But its crooked and … and hilly.”

“It is.”

“Can I ask why?”

“You can, but I’m not sure you’re ready to take on those kinds of worries Eve.”

I didn’t like his response, but he’d reached the end of what he was willing to discuss with me and there was never forcing Dad to do anything. Either way I went from being the big sister to five kids to being the de facto big sister to seven. Or that’s how I played it. Dad gave me a week to decide but it didn’t take that long, not after I talked first to Ethan who could have created the biggest problem, and then to the others. They were all fine with it, even in favor.

 

[Jeepcats27]

Nice how the family pulls together but Dad is hiding something else? Thank you for the chapter.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks for the update

 

[Griz3752]

Nice how the family pulls together but Dad is hiding something else? Thank you for the chapter.

There wouldn't be as much story if someone wasn't keeping a secret or three; where would the challenges arise from?

And we know there'll be challenges!

 

[feralferret]

Kathy, thanks.

 

[larry_minn]

Trying to protect by withholding needed information.