Almost Homeless

  It's funny how life works itself out, without any regard to when we think it should.  A couple of years ago I was living in OK with my cousin and two of my best friends in the world.  Then I get a phone call from my sister and she says that my mom has an inoperrable brain tumor.  Just to let you know this isn't what was wrong with her.  She has something called white matter disease.  It manifests itself like the symptoms of alzheimers.  All my life my mom has been my best friend, so I gave up my life and moved back to California to take care of her.  So for the last three years that's what I have been doing.  I was completely stressed out and life was not good.  Not for me or my mom.  Things got progressively worse.  Then in August I woke up to the water running in the bathroom, one of my pet peeves, and my mom was totally listless standing in her room.  I went in and realized that she had gotten into her meds in the middle of the night and tried to kill herself.  I called 011 and the emt came out but before they got there a sheriff showed up.  He watched me like I had done something to her, it was really stressful and sad.  The emt's woke her up with some med, and they asked her why she had taken all her meds and she said that she wanted to die.  Mt whole world crashed down.  Here I had been doing everything for her, she's my best friend in the whole world, and she didn't want to be here anymore.  Well after that I talked to my family and told them that I couldn't do it anymore.  We all agreed that she needed to be in a facility.  We moved her to Sacramento near my oldest sister, and I have only talked to her once since.  I feel so sad when I think about where her life has led her, but I know now that I am powerless over it.  Okay, so I wasn't writing this for sympathy or anything I just wanted to give you some background for the story I am about to tell you.  After my mom did what she did I was left jobless, and had no income at all.  I was able to raise the rent money for the next two months, but in November I still hadn't found work and the day before Thanksgiving, (my Birthday), I got an eviction notice.  Two of my nieces  live out here in southern California.  They have had a horrible time up to this point.  My oldest niece had been completely abandoned from the only father she has ever known, and her and her sister had lost their anchor,(their mom), to drugs and alcohol.  My sister is still alive, and supposedly doing better now, but her lifestyle had left the girls with no mom.  Now my mom, their grandma had tried to kill herself, and I was getting evicted and I may have to move away too.  I decided that I would not abandon them.  I started making plans to live in a tent so that I could see them everyday.  There is no way I am going to leave them too!  So, a couple of days before I am going to have to leave a really dear friend calls up and  gives me a wonderful gift.  She had heard me talking about living in a tent, she had thought I was joking,(she is actually a friend of my niece so she thought I was kidding), realizes that I am serious and tells me that I can move in with her.  OMG!  I was so happy.  So I moved in in December and now we got a new apartment and we're moving in tomorrow.  Oh, and I have been going to school off and on for the last 10 years,(mostly off), and now everything is falling in place.  When I was taking care of my mom I couldn't leave the house to go to school or work because every time I did I would come home and something had happened.  For instance one time I came home from looking for work and my mom had the gas on the stove on, another time she had the vent on the swamp cooler on and not the cool air and it was 100 degrees outside, (we live in the desert), so I had to stay home.  But now I am in school and I almost done.  In a year from now I will be working as a nurse and going to CSU to get my BA in History!  I am so excited.  So i was almost homeless, (oh yeah I couldn't get any help from the government either unless I was an ex druggy or prego), and I didn't have a job, and now I am doing everything I wanted to do.  I can tell you for sure that there is something bigger than ourselves in this world, and if you just hold true to those you love and do everything in your life for them no matter what then good things will take over for you.  It's hard, and you want to give up but don't EVERYTHING WORKS OUT IN THE END somehow and someway.