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02/06/2004 Entry: "My Grandmother is doing better" Grandmother Marion is doing better. My uncle sent me an e-mail that's she's being moved to a skilled nursing rehab facility today. Her mind is apparently going in and out of our reality. One minute, she is clear on certain subjects, and the next her brain is reverting back to her early days in Chicago. Grandmother Edith went through the same thing; she thought she was 6 and living back on her parent's farm, milking cows, peeling potatoes, and such. I tried to listen to her, but she only spoke in Swedish, so I couldn't understand her. Christine and I were talking about maybe not going to New Orleans for our 15th Anniversary like we planned, try and scrape some money together, and try and fly to Sandy Eggo in the next month to see her. Trouble is, I don't know where to "scrape" from. I hate that not having money makes me miserable and makes things so hard. They say money can't buy you happiness, and that's true, but it can make finding happiness a lot less of a hassle. I might just go alone, like I was thinking about earlier. I could swing that. But if I have two or three people, that will double/triple the cost of the flight, we'll have to get a hotel room, then food in California is so expensive, along with the highest sales tax in the country (7.25%), it's ridiculous to even buy a pack of tissues. My aunt and uncle certainly can't help, they are scraping by as it is with two incomes, both past retirement age, and they have been supporting my grandmother's bills in a nursing home on top of all this. Now you know why my uncle is so mad that my father won't help out. They have been supporting this woman since 1981. I have to counter the shock and callousness of my father by trying to say to myself over and over again that he's clinically insane, clinging to some strange denial that refuses to believe anyone could be that consciously evil. Sometimes I find myself praying to God that he'll get a clue, but then I wonder if he were to have a conscience, would the impact of the memories of what he has done destroy him? Could any mortal deal with that guilt and survive? I don't want to be there when he dies, man, because I bet the sheer negative karma he has built up will echo from the heavens, or collapse into its own gravity, sucking in innocent people from the event horizon into an oblivious shame spiral. Yeah, I am being dramatic. Can you tell he pisses me off? Thank God there's only one of him in my life. And thank God my Uncle and Aunt were there to help Marion in the later part of her life.