Ned and Jim

My dad was an only child and he was extremely close to his older cousin Ned, also an only child. They were more like brothers rather than cousins.  Ned is gay and my dad was always accepting of that.  Ned has a partner-his name is Jim-and they've been together for over 50 years. Many heterosexual couples don't stay together as long as they have.  They have been in my life my entire life.  We share so many memories.


Here we are at the Slifer House in PA. Ned is in front, my dad in the middle with my grandma and Jim to the right of Dad

Ned was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years ago.  He has remained in their home with Jim being his one and only caregiver.  The two of them lived a lonely life-they relied on each other for everything and didn't really reach out to too many people. I suppose I can't blame them.  I'm sure life was hard for them in the beginning-people were not very accepting nor understanding back in the 50s. 

Unfortunately, Jim had a stroke about 3 weeks ago.  We were made aware of this by a social worker from the hospital Jim was taken to. They ended up admitting Ned as well since they couldn't leave him at the house alone.  My mom is listed as Ned's contingent power of attorney for any medical decisions so the social worker tracked her down.  They couldn't keep him there though and he was shortly moved to the dementia unit of a nearby nursing home.  Jim remained in the hospital for a few more days and was then moved to another facility.  Jim has an older sister (he is 83, his sister is 87) and she has been making decisions for him.  We don't know much about her but we don't think they were very close.  So, we decided to make a trip to Williamsport PA to visit them as well as meet with their attorney and Ned's financial POA at their local bank.  Mom, my brother Jay and I left on Thursday and returned Saturday.  It was a whirlwind trip full of memories, tears and even some laughter. 

Our first stop on Friday morning was to see Ned at the nursing home.  An aide took us to him and told him he had visitors.  I was the first one he saw and he immediately said "I don't know you" which made me sad. Of course I understood but it was sad nonetheless.  He knew Mom though and then as soon as she told him who I was and who Jay was, he knew us and remembered us the entire visit.  He started to cry which of course made me want to cry.  Most of our visit went well-you wouldn't know there was anything wrong. We actually had some laughs just like the old days.  Until the subject of home was brought up.  No, he didn't even mention Jim which I suppose was good because up until that point I was afraid Ned was scared and wondering where Jim was.  He brought up his mother and aunt (my grandma) and wondered why they didn't call my mom to tell her where he was.  Mom had to tell him they were gone and had been for a long time.  She also had to remind him that Dad was gone too.  He started sobbing and it just about broke my heart.  Unfortunately, it was not the first time during the visit that we had to tell him they had all died.  He also cried when we left and my first instinct was to just push him out of there and into the car.  I remain thankful that he didn't ask about Jim or his dog Zach (who was put down). 



Mom, Ned, me and Jim

 We took some time to drive through my dad's hometown and my brother and I had a good time reminiscing about our summers with our grandma. We went past Taylor's where we used to get candy and the empty lot where the hoagie shop used to be.  We also drove by Grandma's trailer which is now occupied by someone who takes no pride in their home and it looks like a junkyard.  Sad to see.

We then went to the facility where Jim is living.  His stroke affected his right side and we knew before we got there that he was having trouble with his speech.  Anyhow, when we walked in, he burst into tears and after hugging my mom the first thing out of his mouth was "Where is Ned?  Have you seen Ned?".  We could understand every word. Jim didn't even know where his partner of 54 years had been taken. Oh, my heart started breaking at that instant and it still hurts.  We attempted to visit with Jim but it was difficult as he is having trouble coming up with the words he wants to say and instead uses the wrong word or a garbled word or just letters as he did when trying to describe something to us.  The beginning of a sentence would be clear and concise and then it would just drop off and end with something that didn't make sense.  You could see his frustration. Tears would come and go and he would apologize to us, I think for not being able to care for Ned. You could tell that Jim was in there-his brain unaffected but he just wasn't able to express himself.  At the end of our visit, my mother said goodbye while holding back the tears and asked my brother and I to take Jim back up to his room which we did.  We told him we loved him and he said it back to us while holding on tight to my hand, with tears streaming down his face.  We left his room and it was all I could do to keep my composure until we got down to the lobby where my mother was.  Once I saw the tears streaming down her face, I lost it.  I wanted to scream, "Why aren't they together?  Why didn't anyone make sure they were in the same home?".  The problem is they are looked at as two separate people.  Not a loving couple.  Part of me wants to just put my life here on hold and go to PA until we can get them together again.  

As of this afternoon (it's Monday-it's taken me a couple days to write this), my mom has made some phone calls and we're hopeful that the wheels are in motion to at least get them at the same home.  Many thanks to Ned's financial POA, a very kind woman at the bank for helping us.  I feel as though she may be going above and beyond her normal duties and for that I'm thankful. 

I know everyone has their own opinion about this and I respect that. However, I have always been in favor of giving all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, the same rights. It makes no sense to me to discriminate based on who a person loves. What I witnessed Friday affirmed my belief that no one should be denied the right to marry or at least legalize their union. Whatever you want to call it, it should be available to all.

Ned, Mom and Jim, doing something we did alot of when together



Where did the summer go?

So I started this post on August 28th.  It is now Oct 4th.  Life has been busy!!  

It was just the end of 5th grade.  Now Evan has been in 6th grade for 4 days.  I don't like time going by so fast! We had a great summer even though part of it was interrupted by my foot surgery. But, the good news on that is my foot is healing, I can drive again and I can start going to the gym!  10/4-Evan has now been in middle school for about 6 wks and he's loving it.  According to him it's a piece of cake.  

Our big summer trip was supposed to start on June 30th BUT we ended up leaving on June 29th after a crazy storm blew through Columbus.  At 4:30 p.m., we lost power AND had a big limb fall from our tree and block our driveway.  Of course, I was having a stroke by this point.  Our wonderful neighbors immediately descended upon our house and helped move the limb (and subsequently cleaned up our yard and cut up the branches when we were gone).  Given our history with power outages (it was out for 8 days) and the magnitude of the storm, I knew we wouldn't get our power back on so we made the decision to load up and get the hell out of Dodge!  After that rocky beginning, we had the best vacation. We stayed in KOA campgrounds along the way and now I think my husband is hooked on camping! We went to the Badlands, the Black Hills of SD, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone.  And, I managed to cross off two more states so now I've been to 46 states.  I am determined to get to all 50!!