David Sr's' Hoarding House and David Jr's Funeral

In 2003 when I'd been forced out of my own home by my in-laws, Abby and I moved to Edmonton.  For three months we stayed with my good friend, Randy..... he's not a good friend anymore, funny thing.... but at least he was honest.  He told me that he couldn't stand feeling helpless as he'd watch me writhing on my mat on the floor so he decided since he couldn't save me, he could at least save himself.  I miss Randy.  I miss all the Randys I've ever known.  So maybe it's not him that I miss but rather his Randy-ness.  There is such a labyrinth  of stories to tell, like convoluted passageways leading in a bazillion different directions, but as Don Maclean sang, "all roads lead to where I stand".  So much for free will.  So is there a passageway that might have led to a healthy Deanna?  How far would that path have to back track to skip the event, the thought, the emotion, the virus, the DNA segment that caused this smoldering wreckage of humanity that is ME? As I said, so many narratives inside narratives.... back to 2003....  I was working in the fine arts department at the University of Alberta as a life model and met a 63 year old man in the fine arts office.  We became friends.  You know what?  I'm too  tired and sore today to tell this story.  So I'm going to skip from 2003 to May, 2017 when David sent me a text to let me know his adopted son, also David, who had cystic fibrosis, had finally succumbed to the inevitable.  I call David Sr's house "David's Hoarding House".

This photo hardly
does the hoarding house
justice. The black garbage bags are full of cat urine clumps and cat feces.  In this dark room full of poop is a caged pigeon.  After the funeral I encouraged David Sr to set it free.... the timing was perfect.  His son dies, set bird free.

 I don't know how many cats he keeps in various rooms around the house.  He cleans the many litter boxes, removes the clumps of cat urine and feces, puts it in plastic bags and piles the bags into several mountains around the house.  I went to stay with him during this very busy and difficult week.  I tried to double bag some of the litter and at least get it outside.  Underneath the piles, the cat urine had eaten through the ceramic tiles.  Finally I went out and bought a couple scented candles, opened the window in the bedroom where I stayed.  I am presuming it was the noxious fumes that made me faint a few times.  Each time I picked myself up off whatever pile of boxes, a ladder, a tv in the hall, cat barf, cat hair, cat litter, etc, along with the blood pouring from a gash on my head.  As I said, I'm too exhausted to recount this story today - I'm sitting outside on the deck - it's hot and humid and the ashes from the neighbor's burning barrel are floating around, settling into the keys on my laptop and clogging up my brain.  David Jr was not into religion of any kind.  David Sr is a Mormon.  So I have to admit there was a bit of pissed offedness welling up inside me as I sat with David Jr's friends and family listening to how he was now enjoying the company of all his previously deceased relatives, heros, friends.

As I try to stumble down this passageway, I'm realizing I need to go back to the RV, take a pill, maybe smoke something, go back to sleep for awhile....  Basically, I went to a funeral.  Funerals make me giggle.  As I sat uncomfortably on that church pew, I watched David Jr's birth father who seemed to be a universe away from his comfort zone, so during the reception I sought him out, spoke with him for awhile and now I'm trying to find him on Facebook.  He just seemed like someone I want to know.  No, this isn't the story I meant to tell.  I'm going to bed.  But first, here's my pillow the morning after the fainting/head gashing.

Anyway.... back to bed.... I'll try to rewrite this later when I'm not so hot and grumpy and hurty and breathing in the neighbor's burnt trash.  I'm too lazy to even bother proofreading anymore.  No apologies.  May as well be real.