The last two weeks, continued

While I was in Memphis, I had a series of tough talks with my cousins and my aunt. It was pretty clear that my aunt didn’t have the income to keep that household afloat, and couldn’t really manage finding a job when my grandmother needed constant company. We talked over a slew of options, from having us chip in to keep the household running, to getting them a smaller place that might be more economical. One of my cousins, Tim, the one that gave a eulogy at Mom’s funeral, has a fairly large house and property on the outskirts of Memphis, and it was finally decided that it made the most sense to move my aunt and grandmother out there. He had enough spare bedrooms to simply move them into the house right away, and we could also investigate building an “in-laws quarters” on his property.

I felt (and still feel) somewhat guilty about not being able to help that much. I really don’t have any interest in moving back to the Memphis area. Aside from family, there’s just not a single thing in that area for me. But the call of family is pretty strong these days. I haven’t ruled it out completely, but it feels like the last possible solution I’d want to explore. Because I’m unemployed right now, there’s no way I could get a mortgage if buying a new place seemed like the right solution. About the only way I can help is in terms of raw cash. I have plenty saved aside for the moment, but I’m not working and so that pile is dwindling by the day.

As I had said previously, before hearing about Mom, I had pretty much decided I was moving to Portland. Now I feel like all of that has changed. Money is about the only way I can help my family these days, and I don’t see myself finding a job in Portland that would allow me to resume saving serious money. Not quickly, at least. And even aside from being able to send money, I imagine I’ll be wanting to visit Memphis more often than has been my habit lately, and that means a lot of money in plane fare. Suddenly, the idea of staying in the south bay and being able to find a high-paying job fairly easily seems more important. On top of that, Mom’s death has kicked my feet right out from under me. Suddenly, moving to a new area and finding a new vocation feels less like an adventure and more like additional uncertainty and stress. The familiarity of the bay area and what (few) close friends I have suddenly feels more important and comforting.

Once I was past Mom’s funeral, I spent a lot of time writing Thank You cards for the people who had sent flowers or brought food, and still more time dealing with Mom’s bills and closing down those sorts of things. The list of chores felt long, but I felt like I was making progress on them.

Two days before I was due to fly to Cupertino, I got a call from my aunt. Her house was on fire. Yikes!
I sprinted out to the house as fast as I could, and found it still standing, but reeking of smoke. My aunt started giving me the whole story. She and my grandmother had gotten home around 2:00 in the afternoon after running errands. They had started microwaving a bite to eat when my aunt started smelling smoke. After making sure it was nothing related to the food or microwave, they started moving through the house, looking for smoke and feeling the surfaces to find and warm spots. After trying that for a while with no success, my aunt finally called her son (a fireman) who said (duhh) “Get out of the house right now and call 911!”. So she did, and soon enough there were three fire engines in this little suburban cove. By this time, wisps of smoke were visible in the kitchen. Just as one of the firemen was going to start tearing down the ceiling, the source was found. An electrical short in the back wall of the house had started to burn, right where the AC unit feeds into the house. They hacked out a sizable section of the back wall and hosed everything down to reveal charred studs, melted PVC piping and fried electrical cabling.

By the time I got there, all of the firefighters had departed and the power company had come out to kill the feed to the AC and to restore utilities to the rest of the house. But still, the smoke smell in the house was bad enough to make you choke, there was no AC, and there was a big whole in the back wall of the house. The plans to move my aunt and grandmother just got accelerated dramatically.

That evening we sat down with my aunt, listed all of the furniture in the house and decided what to do with each of it. Some went to this cousin, some went to that one, some would come out to their new rooms in Tim’s house, and some would be sold or given to Goodwill. Thankfully, both of my big burly cousins were off work on the next day (ahh, the work schedule of a fireman). We met at the house in the morning and started filling their two massive pickups with furniture. Moving furniture in the Memphis heat and humidity, big fun. We didn’t get everything moved, but we made an excellent start. And Phyliss spent the morning meeting with a real estate agent and by noon there was a “For Sale” sign in the yard.

That night, I had a lot of reservations about whether I should be staying in Memphis a while longer. Not having a job that I would have to rush back to made that question a lot more feasible. I talked to Phyliss and Tim both about it, and both said they didn’t think there was much I could do if I stayed. Tim and his brother both had a stretch of time off the following week that could be used to finish moving stuff. Appointments had already been made with a general contractor to start addressing the fire damage. I couldn’t think of anything else I could contribute, but I still felt weird about leaving.

But, I did finally. Got on the plane at some ungodly hour of the morning and landed at San Francisco International before noon.