dad ma~~

grampa ma~~~~

Best possible outcome~ma to the families of shrift and -t.

Apparently we're going to get all the precipitation today. So far we've had rain, sleet, fluffy snowflakes and something that was either small hail or large sleet.

Out here, it's bright and sunny but deceptively so, as there's an actual mean little bite to the air (nothing like the East is getting, but it's a cognitive-dissonance shock when it comes along with blazing sunlight), and it continues to stubbornly refuse to precipitate so much as a drop or flake or wisp of anything. If all y'all can figure out a way to shoo yours westward, we will happily take it all.

~ma to -t's and shrift's families.

It is beautifully sunny here today and 30, which pretty much feels like summer at this point. JZ, I would be more than happy to ship you our next batch of precipitation.

Our snow has started again. The shop just called and my car is done (only $240 in repairs). CJ isn't out of school for another hour-ish and I just want to go get it before the roads get bad.

Today is my younger brother Dan's birthday. The rest of us siblings all sent him emails wishing him a happy birthday and telling him we love him. Hopefully he'll get them, as he's been avoiding communicating with us since November.

When my Dad died in August, his life insurance policy payout all went to us kids and the church. We each got about $15,000, but from that we each had to pay about $2,700 for my Dad's funeral. Dan never paid his share and stopped communicating with us when we asked him about it.

So the rest of us siblings each paid an additional $900 to cover his share. To me, $900 seems like such a trivial amount for him to cut himself off from us. We've emailed and texted him saying that we love him and we don't care about the money, but we still haven't heard from him. Our mom (who has Alzheimers) doesn't understand why Dan hasn't been talking to her or visiting her. It's just so sad, but we don't know what do do.

eta: Yes, we've confirmed that nothing bad has happened to Dan.

I'm sorry, shrift. That's a hard place to be.

Ugh, tommy, that's so hard. My cousins pulled something similar after my aunt (their mom) passed away unexpectedly. I have no advice, just empathy. It sounds like you've done the best you can in a bad situation. If it's at all comforting, after a while (year, year and a half?) the cousins got back in touch with us; we just never bring up the rift.

tommy, that is really sad. I'm sorry. I hope he comes around eventually.