Namu Amida Butsu

My favorite uncle died. He is my mother’s brother and looked so much like her that it sometimes hurt to look at him because it made me miss her so much.

Two years ago around Christmas, he crashed his car and when the emergency folks came to the scene, they rushed him to the hospital because it turned out that he had crashed because he had a massive heart attack. When they got him to the hospital they found out that he also had a severe case of pneumonia and was in renal failure.

He was in the hospital for almost a year, 6 months of which was in intensive care. My uncle was schizophrenic (high-functioning, non-medicated) and luckily for him, one of his compulsions was to over-insure himself so out of his final bill of almost $2M he didn’t have to pay hardly anything.

Unfortunately, after he got out of the hospital he went to stay with my aunt, his sister, and she was awful to him. My sister, with our support, has been battling her over him and his care since he got out of the hospital (we've thought he'd be better off in an assisted care facility) but, she had gotten him to give her Power of Attorney over everything for him – healthcare and otherwise and refused.

She insisted that he stay with her and be under-nourished and emotionally abused because she didn't want to spend his money cuz she's a millionaire many times over but the cheapest, greediest pig you ever met. Our argument was that it was his money and he had nothing left to spend it on so it should be spent making what was left of his life comfortable and happy. She didn't agree the vile cow. Of my mother’s siblings, she is the most malicious, mean and venomous and . . . of course, she has now outlived them all.

So, we find out that a month ago she put him into an “independent care” facility and didn’t notify any of us . . . and we find out that he was rushed to the hospital last week with another severe case of pneumonia . . . and no-one told us . . . and, he died on Tuesday but she didn’t tell us until late last night. Why the delay? Who knows but, I suspect it was to get ahold of his estate and make sure she didn’t honor his wishes of leaving everything to my sibs and me.

She is evil, truly, and has flat out told us that despite my uncle’s stated wishes of wanting to leave everything to us (my mother was his favorite sister and neither he nor my evil aunt have children, their oldest sister has four children but they never spent any time with him) that she wasn’t going to give it to us because she hates my youngest brother and oldest sister.

My sister actually caught my aunt screaming at my uncle and telling him that none of us kids loves him or wants him, etc., and I don’t think he believed her because he knows how she is but, who really knows. I hate the idea of him thinking that. He has a living trust but when she became executor and got full power of attorney, she told us that she changed the trust.

Anyway, he’s gone now and, unfortunately, probably better off. He is at peace. He was the only one of my mom and her sibs who was still a practicing Buddhist and told my sister, earlier this year, that the reason he was always so quiet lately was because he knew he was old and going to die soon and that he was trying to reach enlightenment. Knowing what he's endured over the last year living with my aunt, he should have earned his right to reach enlightenment and enter Nirvana. I truly hope, with all my heart and soul, that he has.

. . . And in that moment of deep grief over a loved one's death, it is just Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Amida Butsu . . . it is the song of gratitude not of my finding the Buddha, but Buddha finding me.

I love you Uncle Iwao. I wish you peace.

Housecleaning Blues

I’m sitting here waiting for our house cleaner to show up and then I’m going to head into town for a few hours while she cleans. She doesn’t like people home when she cleans and it makes me uncomfortable as well. It’s odd because our other house cleaners are the same way. Yes, we have two sets of house cleaners that come on alternating weeks. This house cleaner comes every other Wednesday and the others come every other Thursdays.

Why, you might be wondering, do we need two sets of house cleaners? Well, that’s a darned good question.

We don’t need two sets but we have two sets of house cleaners because we haven’t been 100% satisfied with our original cleaners (the every other Thursday group) and dealing with the house cleaners is H’s job so . . . he asked around and got a recommendation for another woman who does house cleaning and decided to give her a try out before ditching the original cleaners (just in case the new folks didn’t work out). Now, on its own this wasn’t a horrible idea except for the fact that H doesn’t like to do anything that might hurt someone’s feelings and now he doesn’t have the heart to let either of them go.

This has been going on for a couple of months now. His original stall was, he claimed, due to the fact that he couldn’t decide between them. But now, he admits he doesn’t have the heart to tell either of them. He tried to get me to do it but, I figure he got himself into the mess so he can get himself out. Normally I would help him but, I warned him that this was going to happen and he insisted it wouldn’t so . . . he’s on his own now.

The thing that’s interesting is, they both have different strengths. Thursday is more interested in high-level cleaning – changing the beds, emptying garbage, vacuuming, laundry, light cleaning of the kitchen and bathrooms, making little fans on the end of the toilet paper, etc. And Wednesday is more interested in deep cleaning – she doesn’t change bedding, make toilet paper fans, etc., she just cleans – and does a better job of it. So, Wednesday is a better cleaner, Thursday is a better housekeeper – what I want is someone in between.

I want someone who will clean well, like Wednesday, but who will do some of the housework (for lack of a better term) like Thursday. I like that Thursday changes the bed sheets but hate that they also do laundry (which I have asked them not to do over and over and over) cuz they don’t just wash the sheets they remove, they try to do my clothes laundry as well and just stuff everything into the washer – darks, lights, fuzzy, not fuzzy, etc. – and cram it so full that sometimes I can’t hardly get the stuff out and often, it doesn’t come out clean cuz it’s been so jammed in there.

The stuff will come out of the washer with clumps of detergent stuck in spots, etc. And, frankly, I think they’ve fucked up my washer by doing this. It seems to get itself out of balance all the time now and it never did before (it’s only a year old). I wouldn’t mind if they just washed the sheets they removed but, again, I’ve talked to them about this over and over but it just doesn’t seem to sink in. Wednesday doesn’t do laundry.

And, when Thursday vacuums they don’t move anything. Like, they don’t pick up the little cat bed and vacuum under it, they just vacuum around it. Wednesday picks it up and vacuums under it.

Etc.

So, here we sit paying two cleaning services to clean this house which is absurd but, the house is a lot cleaner. I keep waiting for Wednesday and Thursday to bump into each other and mention that they do this house and for it all to come crashing down on H. Then, we’ll have to find another house cleaner and he’ll want to try them out and . . . you know the story.