[NTLK] Frank's still here, although but barely

[Forrest]

Wow, Frank:

You’re probably familiar with the old adage “the Lord doesn’t give you what you can’t handle”...there are probably a thousand or more such cliches/idioms/thoughts. I’m not certain what part religion has in your life—it has little in mine, although I do believe in a Higher Power of some sort—but clearly it seems obvious you are the only one in your family that cares enough to do the Right Thing, so perhaps that’s why you were chosen.

As an only child, the passing of my own mother last year was probably more difficult than it would have been if I had siblings—making decisions about her estate, disposing of her things, etc.—but often I am thankful that I have none of those, for the very reasons you state. I’ve seen this before involving my friends and their siblings, who offer no constructive suggestions regarding family matters but are very quick to criticize any decisions that must be made.

I hope you know that you can count on us here to help out in whatever limited way we can, as most are several continents and thousands of miles away—still, understand that the miles can’t separate us in our positive thoughts and wishes/prayers for all this to work out. Whatever we can do, Frank.

Also, I hope you haven’t forgotten the sheer pleasure and comfort—although admittedly temporary—in a good glass (or two!) of good single malt. Cheers to you.

Mahalo,
Forrest

Sent from my T-Mobile iPhone 6S Plus

> On May 18, 2019, at 4:12 PM, NewtonTalk <newtontalk at pda-soft.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> thanks for inquiring about me. That's what friends do, and it felt really
> nice. 
> 
> Pawel was right when he said that I'm very busy, but that's not the main
> reason for my silence. I've been very busy since I've started to think,
> which was about six decades ago. That never kept me from taking care of
> Newton issues.
> 
> The reason for my silence is sheer physical and psychical exhaustion. My
> mother died last December, and I was left with resolving her "legacy". I
> spent almost three months turning a 160 square meters hoarder household into
> something that might have a fraction of a chance to be sold without
> potential buyers puking onto the driveway when they see it. This house is
> still inhabited by my mentally challenged sister and my mother's mentally
> challenged partner, who don't have enough income between them to pay at
> least for the running costs. I spent almost 1500 bucks on having garbage
> disposed of. About 70 cubic meters of garbage, to be exact, every single
> piece of which had to be checked manually by yours truly before throwing it
> away because important documents and family pictures were all over the
> place. This family never really grasped the concept of organizing or filing
> things, or keeping one's dwellings clean, or throwing things away that you
> no longer need. I brought another 50 cubic meters of usable things to misc.
> charitable organizations. Not exactly an easy task, if one's car is the
> smallest model Toyota offers...
> 
> My mother's partner is a really nice fellow, but he's a bit like a child.
> You need to tell him what to do, and he does it. Sometimes. Sometimes he
> doesn't. Sometimes he does things you never told him to do, causing huge
> amounts of additional work you didn't expect and don't have time to do.
> Although this guy is only eight years older than myself, I had to find a
> retirement home for him that he can afford and that's nice enough to ensure
> a halfway dignified way of spending the last years of his life. 
> 
> My mentally challenged sister, unfortunately, didn't cope with her mother's
> death as well as I had hoped. When one day I drove there to check on them,
> she sat in her room, talked nonsense, didn't know when she had eaten the
> last time, and her personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. So I called an
> emergency doctor, who committed her to a mental hospital as an emergency.
> Visiting her there wasn't really fun, because in her world I was the one who
> brought her there. She's been released meanwhile, but nobody knows if she
> will be able to face life on her own. Will she be able to keep her job? Will
> she be allowed to continue driving her car? Nobody knows. The doctors in the
> hospital said that she will get someone assigned to her who has the same
> right of decision as herself, and who ensures that she won't do things that
> might harm her in any financial, medical or other way.
> 
> This stupid house must be sold ASAP to get the funds that'll ensure decent
> living for the two of them. Guess whose job this is...
> 
> I do have three brothers that could help, but they don't. I won't go into
> this here, but they simply don't. The majority of what they do doesn't
> really help. Sometimes it causes new problems. And I'm under the impression
> I'm about to make enemies of them because I try to handle all this
> thoughtfully, thoroughly, conscientiously and in a way that won't require
> doing it again in the future, keeping the long-term well-being of my sister
> and our mother's partner first priority. Sometimes I'm under the impression
> they had hoped to resolve all this within a week or so, and are really angry
> that everything takes so long.
> 
> Before all this started, my life was... well... not exactly without duties.
> I have two relatives older than 80 years that rightfully expect support and
> help. And the fact that I have a wife and a child, who all live on 2000
> square meters property, in a house much too small and 110 years old, doesn't
> help very much, either.
> 
> My To Do list is getting longer by the minute. All this is exhausting both
> physically and psychically. My own health leaves one or two things to be
> desired at the moment, regularly requiring a lot of my time to keep me
> operational. Most times when I turn my computer on, I only take care of one
> or two of the ten million queued-up issues that absolutely MUST be taken
> care of. After that, I hardly ever find enough energy to address anything
> that has the word Newton in it. There are days when I leave my car and go
> straight to bed.
> 
> I sincerely apologize for leaving people who wanted to purchase Newton
> hardware or required other forms of Newton support out in the rain. I
> promise y'all that you're not forgotten. One of these days I will definitely
> get in touch again. But this might still take a bit...
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Frank
> 
> -- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
> 
> 
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