Wednesday and it just keeps coming ...

As I write this, there's a special program on the morning news about suicide prevention. Ironic.

I'm finding out more details all the time. This is through my cousin, Cousin Dear, as the family still seems to be protecting us (Mom, Dad, Brother Deere and me) from our own memories of my brother's suicide.

I guess the good to come out of this is that she did not use her husband's gun to commit suicide. There will be no criminal investigations. Those precious children will not lose their father too.

I am learning DMcB had a history of depression, and possibly schizophrenia, too. She had tried as a teenager to slit her wrists, only to be stopped by her father kicking down the door. I'm not sure of details after that, if she got help or not. Probably not, from the information I've received.

Fast forward to adulthood. She's been raising a young daughter on her own. Finds a wonderful man, they marry and have two more children, two boys. One of the boys is sickly, he's severely allergic to wheat, eggs, dairy and heaven knows what else. He has breathing problems. And he takes it like a trouper. His mother, on the other hand, is overtaxed with special menus for him, breathing treatments and constant trips to the emergency room. All this while fighting her own depression.

Somewhere along the way, she starts to threaten to kill herself AND her children. She yells, screams, shakes and neglects the children. As far as the world knows, she's well balanced, happy, candidate for mother of the year.

This brings us to September 10. DMcB and TMack had been in a screaming match for days. TMack, age 18, says she's going to her grandmother's house until her mother can be more reasonable - and get some help. At this point, DMcB is once again threatening suicide and to take the boys with her. This is where things get sketchy ... we are not sure IF Tmack took her brothers with her or not.

DMcB goes to bed. Her hubby was sleeping on the couch (by choice or fell asleep watching tv, we don't know). DMcB waits until the middle of the night and hangs herself in the bathroom, off the shower curtain rod. Her hubby found her in the morning, hours later.

As he's trying to resuscitate her he somehow manages to puncture a hole in his esophagus. He drives himself to the hospital some twelve hours later, complaining of swollen throat and breathing problems. He's airlifted to U of M hospital and will have to have a feeding tube for a few weeks until his esophagus heals. Hopefully no surgery will be needed.

How much more can this family take?

We're left with so many more questions than answers.

But, odd as it sounds, I'm grateful she hung herself and didn't use his gun. And I'm definitely grateful for whatever reason she had, she did not take the boys (and possibly TMack) with her, that the children are safe.

*****

And it just keeps coming ...

*****

Alien hadn't heard from the Knight in Rusty Armor for weeks. Yesterday out of the blue he texts her ... well not exactly out of the blue ... and tells her he's calling her, to make herself available.

He tells Alien it started on September 10, that he got a call from Children's Protective Service (CPS) that his daughter, Mimi, was in the hospital. She had gotten a hold of some drugs and had overdosed on them. She is in the hospital, unconscious and on life support.

I should probably add that the mother to this little girl and her boyfriend (husband?) are under investigation by CPS for child abuse and neglect, and have been for a while now.

What's uncertain is if they were illegal drugs (quite possible with the mother) or prescription. Regardless ... she shouldn't have been able to access them.

Next day, he got a text from the mother of his five year old daughter, "well, no need to worry about coming to visit Mimi. she's dead." But, this evil woman has tried stunts like this in the past, saying Mimi's passed so that the Knight in Rusty Armor disappears from their life.

However, this time it sent him into a panic because CPS had called him. He texted Alien, hoping she could get him the answers he needed, as he was too distraught.

She was able to confirm that, indeed, little Mimi never woke up and passed sometime on Sept. 11.

We don't know if there will be criminal charges yet or not. I'm hoping and praying there are. That poor little girl did not deserve this.

*****

When does it end? Gawd, why can't life go back to the usual crap? Where the biggest complaints I have are that DIL doesn't play nice with others ... where the Gremlin complicates things with "his" antics ... where Mom wonders aloud if they've colonized the moon so I can move there ...

Monday ...

I know I haven't blogged in a while. Same ol' stuff with the Wrecking Crew, and to be honest it grows tiresome blogging the same ol' crap. You know ... DIL this, and DIL that ... And after the call I got earlier today, suddenly none of anything the Wrecking Crew does really matters (for today at least, I'm sure next week I'll be back to bitching). Sure it's annoying. Sure they should treat me better (respect and all that), but all in all, at the end of the day is this really something that I can't just deal with for the time being (knowing that eventually they WILL move out - or I will)  ... it's odd how things can be put into perspective.

Then I was going to finally blog about the Labor Day Mackinac Bridge Walk, and the comedy of errors that turned out to be. Or the fantastic time Lou and Single Son and I had during our too brief visit after the walk. And suddenly I can't ... at least not today.

Mom called me early this morning. As soon as I heard her voice I knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

My cousin, DMcB, committed suicide sometime either last night or very early this morning. I have no details. I don't need details. All I know is DMcB leaves behind three beautiful children and a very loving husband.

My heart breaks for them. TMac, her daughter, just graduated from high school. Had a whole future to look forward to. The little boys, ages 7 and 9 (I believe) are now motherless.

Of all of my family members, I thought that DMcB was the one who really had the perfect life, a loving husband, three beautiful children, a beautiful home, everything. She was very loving, very much a doting mother. Her smile lit up a room, her laughter was contagious. She radiated love, patience and gentleness.

Come to find out, she's had a long history of mental illness. Depression. She had turned down help time and time again. We'll never know why.

And I cry for those beautiful children.

Here she's holding my grandson, Butterball. This was Christmas 2009.

RIP, Cousin. You will be missed.

Time flies ...

and can't say "when you're having fun". It's been a long month. Really long.

Married Son came home twice, each time for a few days. I just love that he sticks me with the Wrecking Crew while he's on the road taking a breather from all the DIL drama.

He needs to be finding them a permanent home. Away from me.

But no, he's paying for wedding bands (they never had proper wedding bands in six years of marriage), and planning a trip down south (Mississippi?) to attend ... get this ... his ex-girlfriend's wedding.

Excuse me? She's an ex! Send a freaking Hallmark Card for pete's sake! Don't spend a few hundred in NEW clothes and gawd knows how much for gas for the RENTAL car you're planning on driving down there (or hotels, or food, or ... ). Yes, a rental car. His pick up truck would never make the trip ... so instead of saying "Sorry, Honey, we can't make your wedding" ... the idiot goes and reserves a rental car for the week they'll be gone. And WHY isn't his wife bitching? I know if it were me, no man of mine is making a cross country trip to see his ex girl friend get married - even if I were invited!!

Needless to say I absolutely exploded!! I'll estimate those expenses (plus the ring) to be over a thousand dollars, that COULD have been used as a down payment on a nice little rental somewhere.

And Single Son wonders HOW they can go through the money they do ... he works at Fed Ex and Married Son worked for Fed Ex, both made the same money ... Single Son budgets his, Married Son obviously has it priorities really screwed up (but we knew this already).

It's to the point that even Single Son is about to explode.

Oh, then today she takes the gasoline charge card Single Son gave to me, telling me he had okayed her using it. She tells him she has no money, no gas in the tank and won't be able to get to work all week, so ... she FILLS up the tank of the gas hog pick up truck. Only, I find out later that Single Son told her to NOT take the card until he had deposited his pay check into the bank (he's got the funds in the bank but she doesn't need to know that). He's not mad at me, but he's furious with her for lying to me!!

Then ... her facebook today ... "OMG, I just LOVE Gibraltar Trade Center. Lots of Christmas gift ideas" ... I know what I want from DIL for Christmas ... a new address for the Wrecking Crew!! How 'bout that? Nothing fancy ... a little two bedroom somewhere across town would be nice!! So, she lied to me to fill the tank to drive fifty miles to the flea market? Probably peed away her food money on some crap she doesn't need ...

What's sad ... last month I lost my food benefits. So ... now I get nothing. No food assistance, no medical, nothing. And Single Son has stepped up offering to pay for my food, my meds, the household bills, recent car repairs, and anything else I need. Yet he STILL has about a third of his paycheck left over? How's that possible? Oh ... I know ... he doesn't piss his money away!!

I hate having to rely on him (and hated that I had to have benefit assistance) ... but what can I do? I'm still looking for jobs, but we know that song. There's hundreds of applicants for each and every job opening in the area. You have to capture their attention ... and I'm sure one day (hopefully soon) I'll capture someones attention and be hired. But until then there's not much I can do about it ... and yes, I've thought about a sugar daddy ... but there's only one problem with that. I don't want those complications in my life.

*****

Having lost my food assistance, I know the cell phone I have isn't far behind. It's only available to recipients of food assistance, medicaid, or other social benefits. Knowing this, Single Son pulled a fast one on me one day two weeks ago and asked me to go with him to Best Buy. Once there he went over to the cell phone section to look at pre-paid Net 10 phones. He's been considering one, so I wasn't really "suspicious" of anything. He asked what I thought of certain phones, and once he figured out which phone I really would like, he actually picked it up - along with a card for fifty bucks (600 minutes). Still thinking it's his new phone, after he pays for it he hands me the bag and says "Here, Mom. This is for you." I was flabbergasted! Yet he wouldn't let me give him a thank you hug, especially IN the store! LOL!

We had fun programming it when we got home. Doofus sets the language to Spanish. Now, I don't speak a word of Spanish and neither does he, so there was no way I was going to figure out how to set it back to English. He messed  up a few other settings, too. But we laughed so hard, we both had tears coming down our faces.

A few days later, we're sitting across from each other, each on our 'puters doing our own thing, when my new cell beeps with an incoming message. I look at it, he's added another hundred bucks worth of minutes to my phone! Yipes ... I now have over two thousand minutes (and they don't expire until June of next year). I've got some major talk time! LOL!.

And from what I've seen so far, I am really liking Net 10. No problems like I've had with calls when I was with either Verizon, Sprint, or Virgin Mobile. Great customer service when I've had to call for tech questions, and their coverage area is impressive. Not that I travel much (ummmm, much? how about almost never), but it's nice to know that it's there if I need it, lol.

Nice thing, too, about Net 10. They do have a monthly program, where you pay one set amount (fifty bucks) a month for unlimited calls, texts and internet. I'll definitely be switching to that plan once I am working again.

*****

So, really nothing else going on. It's always the Wrecking Crew that adds that blog material to my life. Well, besides my Star Trek buddies anyway. LOL.

Speaking of my Trekkie buddies. We're going on an "away mission" on Monday, Labor Day. We're going up to the Mackinac Bridge to do the annual Bridge Walk. Or should I say ... they are ... the young kids. I'll take a few before group shots, and then some after shots once they come back all exhausted. Me, I'm too out of shape for that walk! Maybe next year if I can build up my stamina?

Single Son tries to tell me "Mom, you and your friends walked all over Chicago a few years ago, and you were in worse shape then". Ya ... BUT Chicago was pretty much FLAT ... minus a small incline or two (or steps, there were steps everywhere!!)  ... we're talking the freaking Mackinac Bridge here. Five miles long, half of it is UP HILL. The first half. I doubt I'd make it far at all.

Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but there's still way too much UPHILL for me!

I'll go for the drive up to keep him company. And once they're doing the walk, I'll text encouragement to them ... but I will NOT kill myself. Not this year.

Besides, I'll have to probably drive the four hours or so home later in the evening. I doubt his legs will be in any condition to hold the accelerator down for the drive home.

But before we leave the Mackinac area, we're stopping off to see my lifelong bestie ... Loula Belle.

*****

Ya'll have a safe and Happy Labor Day!!