The coffee is the only good thing about today. 😩 #roughday

I was asleep by 11 p.m. and didn’t even know Heron came home from work.
He was roaming around the house at 11:46 p.m., and I was dead to the world.
He took a shower, grabbed some water, sat on my couch, and played with the dogs.
I snored right through it all. 
My bedroom is just off the living room.
He headed down to his RV at 12:21 a.m.

Cowboy came home from work at 1:20 a.m. and woke me up.
Then the weather radio started going off. 
I think it went off at least four times.
The storm hit around 1:30 a.m., mostly wind and heavy rain.
We lost power around 2:30 a.m. 
It was only long enough for me to climb out of bed, turn the A/C off, climb back in, and then it came back on.
I fell back to sleep around 3 a.m.

I got up for the day just before 8 a.m. 
Let me tell you, that really was not nearly enough sleep.

We managed to get on the road at 10 a.m.
Before we can leave, the chickens have to be fed and watered, just in case we don’t get back before dark.

We got to Uncle’s.
Hippie Aunt and her kids were already there.
When we walked in, they said the power was off. 
Cowboy got a lamp to work in Uncle’s room.
I don’t know how, because none of the other rooms had power.
In the bedroom off the kitchen, Hippie Aunt’s grandson turned that light off a good two or three times, and it kept turning itself back on.
Those were the only two rooms with power.
In Uncle’s house, one does not question quirky happenings.

As expected, with the ceiling gone and all the rain we’ve had, everything was standing in water.
In Uncle’s room, the air carried the unmistakable smell of decay.
The tarps sagged overhead, heavy with water, ready to split.
Once night fell and the house went dark, it seemed he shut himself up in that room and didn’t leave for anything.
I do not know how he managed to stay in that bedroom, but we found his snacks, so somehow he did.

It breaks your heart to think how many winters he survived in that house.

Cowboy cleared out and brought home a lot of Uncle’s tools.
Badger went through all the rooms carefully and brought pictures to the living room for me.
I brought home as many pictures as I could.
So many of them had mold and weren’t salvageable.
Hippie Aunt and the kids had already gone through all the papers.

Badger found two folded flags.
We assumed they were probably my grandfather’s and my great‑uncle’s.
Hippie Aunt just threw the uncovered flag away, but her granddaughter went through the one in a bag.
It surprised the dickens out of us all.
It was my mother’s flag.
I was so out of it after she died, I didn’t even know she had earned an American flag.
She didn’t earn a military funeral. 
She was only a week or two from completing basic training when she left.
Apparently, she did earn the veteran’s right to a flag.
That came home with me.

I found things that just broke my heart.
None of us knew Uncle was that bad off, or that his house was in that bad a shape.
It was heartbreaking.

We did find a large wall calendar where he’d been marking off the days.
The last day he marked off was April 28th, which tells me he likely died in his sleep.
He was found May 5th, almost a week later.

I don’t know what Hippie Aunt’s plans are.
I don’t know what will happen now.
But we’re done.
She said she’s done.
We’ve got what we can out, and I assume the state or town can do what they like with the house and what remains.

We left furniture, we left books, we left pictures. 
We left... I mean, I really don’t know what exactly we left.
But the entire house is full of black mold and standing water.
We salvaged what we could.

Every time we entered that house, we risked our lives.
The smell hit first: part decomp, part black mold, part wet walls and floors
The bathroom had been used over and over and never flushed.
The floors were spongy and soft, and in some rooms there were no floors at all.
Some ceilings were gone, bare to the rafters.
Some rooms had tarps stretched overhead.
Others were just wet and hanging down.
Whole floors were missing, leaving open drops into the basement.
Black mold spread across everything.
That house was not just broken.
 It was dangerous.
I absolutely do not see how Uncle lived in it.

I got a surprise I really wasn’t expecting.

I brought Uncle home with me.
He’s currently sitting on my closet floor, and I need to figure out what to do with him.
He cannot stay in my bedroom.
One of the granddaughters took a red Solo cup and dipped some of his ashes into a baggie to take home with her, but no one else wanted Uncle.
So, he’s mine.  🤷🏻‍♀️

Badger and I went to a coffee shop after we were finished.
The place used to be a boarding house, and my great‑uncle died upstairs.
It might have been that building. It might have been the one across the road.
I can’t keep it straight, but I know it was one of them.
Now they’re both all fancied up.

The bank parking lot where we ditched Cowboy is private now, or at least I think it is.
We parked there anyway.
The building across the road was where Mom did her banking, and now it houses the EMTs.
Hometown had some changes.

Badger was complaining about how it was all hills and steps.
Yep.
Country girl is used to flatter ground.
We have hills too, but they’re nothing like Hometown’s hills.

The coffee shop was cute, and the coffee was comparable to Dutch Bros

We went to say goodbye to Mom.
Yep. Another hill. We got our workout in.
I told her we wouldn’t be back, but I’d see her across the river.
I told her Baby Brother was coming home with us, and I’d keep him safe.
I told her she wasn’t alone. Her Mamma and Daddy were right there.
I told her Middle Sister had also died, so she was out there somewhere too. I know no one bothered to tell her she’d passed.
I told her Baby Brother had died last time I came.
I said a final goodbye to Granny, Pappaw, Aunt BB, and Aunt GG while I was there.
Then I left them.

Never say never. 
But I don’t plan on going back to Hometown.

Badger and I walked around Crockett Cemetery to stretch our legs.
She wasn’t in the mood for pictures and kept moving fast.
Uncle’s house had no working toilet, and by then it was close to 3 p.m.
That’s a long time to hold it.

Long John Silver’s never looked so good, even if I kept holding it a bit longer.
Some bathrooms are a no from me. 
This one was clean, sure, but that door? 
Nope.

Dinner done, we swung by Walmart, and thank goodness, a bathroom I could handle.
Cowboy was griping about the extra trip up the road.
I told him straight; at my age, if he didn’t want a wet seat, he’d better hush and get us there.

That done, we finally got on the road home, with a stop at Walgreens for Badger’s medicine.

We made it home at 5:10 p.m. 
I got Uncle settled in the closet, then Badger and I hit the shower.
It was just kind of gross not to.
Especially for Badger, since she had been digging in the rooms with that nasty ceiling water dripping down.

Badger and Cowboy went down for a long nap.
I should have too, but my sleep is already a mess.
A nap would only make it worse.
I just played online.

Cowboy went outside around 8 p.m. and stayed out until 9.
I have no idea what he was doing.

Heron spent the day out on the water, kayaking. 
He was lucky enough to get a few days off from work.
He came home just before 9 p.m.
By the time we were halfway up the road this morning, my phone buzzed with his text: “Where are you all?!”
I imagine he walked into a quiet house, though I had made a point to go down to the RV and say goodbye.

Nothing else to jabber on about.
It’s a bit early, but I believe I’ll head to bed.
Neither Badger nor I are feeling well right now.
It was a long day, a very long car ride, a lot of work, and a nasty house.
It was also a more emotional day than-well, it was an emotional day.