The Rest Of The World

While I sleep through most of my days, my friends are having a much more difficult time.

J went to Europe for four days. While she was away, her teenage son invited six friends over to their apartment. One kid texted a friend to say where he was. Next thing you know, 20 kids were pounding on the door to get in. J's son called the police. Meanwhile, the neighbours upstairs got upset.

They happen to be the landlady's son and daughter-in-law. The landlady's son is an alcoholic. He came home drunk and tried to strangle J's son's friends. The police arrived, told the kids to go inside, and dealt the drunk. The daughter-in-law emailed her mother-in-law, the landlady, and said 80 kids were inside the house having a wild party with loud music.

Next thing you know, J is evicted from her apartment. She needs to be out asap. This is on top of having to take care of her mother, who is in a nursing home and quite ill. She is also looking for work.

T's mother has alzheimer. T and his wife had arranged for a full time caregiver to live with her. But last week, T's mother locked her caregiver out and became violent. T called his friend N, who lives in the neighbourhood, to check in on his mother.

N went and stayed two hours. He came back shaken.

This week, T knocked on my door after midnight looking for a bed for the night. He had had a bad row with his mother, both got physically aggressive with each other. The bad thing is, T's mother had been taken by police into the hospital for assessment on order of the psychiatrist who came to see her at her home. She pleaded with T to get her out. Reacting emotionally and without a plan, T came into town, signed papers to say he would take her to his home to live with his family, in order to get her out of the hospital. All this was against doctors' recommendation. Now the hospital has washed their hands of his mother's care. T and his wife run an inn. They have no way of looking after his mother, who is now so prone to episodes of verbal abuse and physical violence.

Meanwhile, N was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. Two days before T's phone call, N's teenage son broke his collar bone. While he was digesting the news of his illness and nursing his son, T called him to check in on his mother.

I have nothing to complain about.