February 2nd 2005 I was released from a position I had been employed at for 10 years: given that I had tolerated bullying and psychological abuse from the 2 principals of the practice for 80% of my tenure, it wasn’t completely unwelcome. 10 years of no raises, no benefits, doing the right thing for the right reason [increasing production & collections, while lowering operating costs] and putting up with assistants who were habitually late, took off work at their leisure and got paid for it. Although I received my unemployment compensation, it is only 60% of my base pay (ancillary punishment for doing my job).

Anyway…I’m going to skip a significant amount of details;  here’s a abridged version of the past few weeks.

On March 15th my youngest son, Yahtz, was hospitalized (again) at Obici Memorial Hospital in Hanover County for bronchitis & other complications from his disease. He was released on March 20th with an appointment at Medical College of Virginia [MCV, for short] Hospital on the following Monday (3-28-05) although we were advised he probably had only several days to live.

I decided to come home for a few days. I had arranged for some job interviews and my house was in desperate need of a cleaning. My neighbor, Rickie, has been feeding the cats and cleaning their boxes ~ Thank God for Rickie …. she’s been a lifesaver, relieving me of the stress of worrying about my boys [

Well 24 hours after I left Virginia I made it to Clinton Missouri. Stephan was at George’s (my ex-husband) house sleeping but drove up a few minutes later.

Eva must have been sick for awhile because there was a lot of cleaning to do in the house. It took me until Monday to get things acceptable.

Eva’s funeral was Monday afternoon. I drove Alexis around Clinton during the funeral. I felt she didn’t need to be there. We went  to the funeral home for the procession to the cemetery which was in Tightwad, Missouri [a farming community]. It is a beautiful locale with a little white church, and as the procession drove into the cemetery a dove circled. Her plot is in a family section with her dad, other siblings and the fetal baby she lost a couple years ago.

After the service, which included Psalms 23, we went to the church basement for a bite to eat and visitation with family & friends: next ~ over to Eva’s mom & step dad’s trailer for a visit.

While at the trailer I got calls from George, my daughter Jenny and the emergency staff at MCV saying Yahtz had been admitted & I needed to come back right away because things weren’t looking good for him. Stephan, Alexis and I headed back for their house to get my things.

At Stephan’s house I received a call from my brother Curtis offering to wire me some money. I was amazed, overwhelmed and so very thankful.

We made arrangements for me to pick up the money from Western Union and I left.

I made it to Harrisonville, Missouri when my car started acting funny - spitting & sputtering. I stopped at a gas station thinking maybe I needed oil (it kind of sounded that way) and was on my way again. I made it to route 7 & as I started up the hill the car died, then began rolling backwards. UGH !

The AAA tow truck driver towed the car to Todd’s Auto - a place he knew and then drove me to a tawdry motel a couple miles away. At least I had an inexpensive place to stay for the night.

In the morning I walked back to Todd’s Auto. He informed me the car had a blown motor and it would be approx. $1500.00 to replace it. I was numb. There’s no way I could come up with that kind of money. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

I called George to see about borrowing a car and [surprisingly] he said yes.