Weather Report

Red sky in morning,
Sailors take warning.
Red sky at night,
Sailors take delight.

There’s a storm coming.

The weather has been unusual for some time.

My sister-in-law and her daughter came down from Alaska and stayed with us off and on for a couple of weeks. They are Jehovah Witnesses and in the past there have been conflicts between them and my wife. But this year that patch of weather turned out to be far more pleasant than we thought it would be. Brenda and Debbie found a lot of ways to encourage each other and find common ground in their faiths so things were generally very nice. Mostly we talked about raising teens.

Brenda’s other sister had a baby a week ago. There were visits to the hospital and to their home (once Logan was over his case of jaundice).

(Logan)

That kept us hustling because there were other things going on at the same time. We live behind the county fairgrounds and each year during the fair our street is lined up with cars (you may have noticed all the parked cars in the “Bike Repair” post).

Our kids love to go to the fair, and to offset the cost I agreed to put together a team of kids (which included my own) to man a booth demonstrating Lego Robotics.


We had a lot of fun...

(That's Brenda screaming & waving in the middle up there)

(Here we are! --That's my niece in the front)

But it was another element to the busyness of our lives.

But it wasn’t the biggest element.

Brenda’s mom used to live with us, but she has an apartment of her own about a mile away and needs a lot of help.

But that isn’t what has been stirring things up the most.

My brother’s girlfriend of 15 years has been grieving over her brother. He died two weeks ago in an accident. It has been a very sad time over there.

But that hasn’t been the worst of it.

It’s my father in law.

He and his wife bought a sailing boat and lived in it. For a while they lived here in Oregon, but they finally moved to Puerta Vallarta. After a while they built a house there and sold the boat.

He needed by pass surgery to get blood to his legs. They also did angioplasty on his heart. All that was pretty difficult, but not as bad as what happened next.

When he started to wake up from surgery, he began to rant. He hollered, and cussed, and pulled out his IV (over and over and over), and tried to rip out his stitches. He tries to bite those who visit him, including my wife. His anger is so great his blood pressure keeps hitting dangerous levels. He has been sedated for almost two weeks, and restrained. He has delirium tremons.

Denny doesn’t think he is an alcoholic. After all, how can you be an alcoholic when it is mostly beer you drink? He chains smokes, and that is also a health concern, but the alcohol must stop if he is to survive. He is about to lose his liver.

So what do we do with Denny? If he returns home to Mexico he will go back to drinking beer as if it is water (actually more so, in an average day he drinks twice the volume of beer as I do of any liquids).

And he is abusive. His poor wife doesn’t want to watch him die, which he certainly will if this continues. And he constantly harangues her, calling her stupid, calling her worse.

So he is coming here. Just as soon as he is rational enough to leave the hospital.

We are planning an intervention.

This is the storm that is coming.

And there is plenty of other things to deal with. Our kids are going back to school, and as a teacher, so am I. In fact this year is going to be one of the most challenging, most interesting, most unusual years of my career. But that is the topic of another post.

I’ve told Brenda that he is her father, and he is Barbara's husband, and that when it comes to enforcing the no drinking rule in our home, I want to be the heavy. They need to maintain their relationship with him. It’s OK if he hates me. So if he sneaks alcohol in, I’ll pour it out. If there needs to be any confrontations, I will try to reason with him.

We haven’t a spare room, so we are going to turn the living room into a bedroom.

So this summer there has been some emotional weather for all of us. And there was sunshine when we didn’t expect it. All of that is a part of life. We roll up our sleeves and do our best.

This almost feels like we are inviting trouble into our home. But he needs to convalesce, and he needs help recognizing an pushing through his dependance on alcohol (tobacco too, but that is a battle for another day).

He's ornery in the best of times... and this is him at his worst. I think one reason the Lord gave us families is to teach us to love people we normally wouldn't like.

He needs a relationship with God. He needs to be loved and cared for . He needs to see how kindness works in life. He needs to free himself from the grip alcohol has on him. He needs prayer.

“Red sky in morning, sailors take warning...”

There is a storm coming.

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Side note: I love my wife so much! She has been wonderful. Wednesday is her birthday (and I won't say which one except that she is five years younger than me). That is also Willy's birthday. She has come so very far this past year. I honor her in every way I can. She is a wonderful wife, partner, woman, mother, sister, daughter, and person. The Lord has blessed me greatly through her.