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My husband is the middle of five siblings. The three oldest were high achievers who earned advanced degrees and are now comfortably retired, living far from their hometown. The fourth, a brother, has struggled all his life. After four years in the Army, he drifted between unemployment and low-paying jobs, never able to support himself. His parents covered his expenses or let him live with them, even paying for his car while he worked as a pizza-delivery driver. He also developed substance-abuse problems.
After my husband’s father died, the brother stayed in the family home, supposedly caring for their mother but, in fact, exploiting her. He drained her accounts to feed his habit and neglected her care, and after her death he was convicted of elder abuse — something his out-of-town siblings hadn’t realized was happening. Before she died, their mother begged them not to let him be homeless.
Because the brother couldn’t maintain the house, the siblings sold it and split the proceeds. With his share, they bought him a mobile home and placed funds in a protected account, which covered rent and utilities for nearly 10 years until the money ran out. They eventually transferred the bills into his name and explained how to manage them.
He rarely communicates with the family, except when he’s in trouble. Once on his own, chaos followed. He claimed that his pizza-delivery job was enough to live on, but he missed rent, faced eviction and squandered money on predatory car loans and endless repairs. Last year, his siblings discovered that his car had been repossessed and his water had been shut off for six months. His trailer was collapsing from a leaking roof, and garbage was piled everywhere. Yet he had never asked for help. They stepped in, restored utilities, reclaimed his car, cleaned his trailer and signed him up for Social Security. But he quickly burned through a lump-sum back-pay benefit (he said his account was hacked, though he was more likely scammed). Soon after, he fell behind again, and his Social Security is now being garnished by the I.R.S.
The mobile-home park wants him out for unpaid rent and unsafe conditions. He’s clearly mentally ill, but perhaps not impaired enough for a sibling to secure guardianship. My husband and his siblings want to honor their mother’s plea to keep him housed, but contributing to his rent payments and repairing his trailer isn’t financially sustainable for them, and none of them want to take him in because he’s horrible to live with. Social services might help, but he resists cooperation and can’t manage on his own.
So they wonder: At what point do they stop trying? Are they obliged to sustain someone who refuses to sustain himself? Do they owe him the effort of seeking guardianship, or is that more than can reasonably be asked? — Name Withheld
( Read more... )
After my husband’s father died, the brother stayed in the family home, supposedly caring for their mother but, in fact, exploiting her. He drained her accounts to feed his habit and neglected her care, and after her death he was convicted of elder abuse — something his out-of-town siblings hadn’t realized was happening. Before she died, their mother begged them not to let him be homeless.
Because the brother couldn’t maintain the house, the siblings sold it and split the proceeds. With his share, they bought him a mobile home and placed funds in a protected account, which covered rent and utilities for nearly 10 years until the money ran out. They eventually transferred the bills into his name and explained how to manage them.
He rarely communicates with the family, except when he’s in trouble. Once on his own, chaos followed. He claimed that his pizza-delivery job was enough to live on, but he missed rent, faced eviction and squandered money on predatory car loans and endless repairs. Last year, his siblings discovered that his car had been repossessed and his water had been shut off for six months. His trailer was collapsing from a leaking roof, and garbage was piled everywhere. Yet he had never asked for help. They stepped in, restored utilities, reclaimed his car, cleaned his trailer and signed him up for Social Security. But he quickly burned through a lump-sum back-pay benefit (he said his account was hacked, though he was more likely scammed). Soon after, he fell behind again, and his Social Security is now being garnished by the I.R.S.
The mobile-home park wants him out for unpaid rent and unsafe conditions. He’s clearly mentally ill, but perhaps not impaired enough for a sibling to secure guardianship. My husband and his siblings want to honor their mother’s plea to keep him housed, but contributing to his rent payments and repairing his trailer isn’t financially sustainable for them, and none of them want to take him in because he’s horrible to live with. Social services might help, but he resists cooperation and can’t manage on his own.
So they wonder: At what point do they stop trying? Are they obliged to sustain someone who refuses to sustain himself? Do they owe him the effort of seeking guardianship, or is that more than can reasonably be asked? — Name Withheld
( Read more... )
Free for All Saturday, Week 37 [DW Edition]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
[Sept 22~26: Lonely Prompts Week]
September 30 & October 2
October 7 & 9
Hello and welcome to our weekly Free for All. ^_^ There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If you've had any ideas this week that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.