Question:
What would you do?
What would you do if you lost everything that you had? Job, home, money, family, respect, etc.? Would you press on or would you give up? Would you try to get help or solve your problems alone?
Just thought I'd ask.
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
I know what I would do, because I am living through this.
In '93 I was hit by a truck at work. Over several years the results of that continued worsening, by '98 I was in so much pain I made errors at work, and I was fired for it. After that, no one would even try me out for a week, for work. I had no children, so I did not qualify for government help. With everything gone, I had to rely on my retired mother for existence. Four years later I reached minimum retirement age, so I took my retirement. That turned out to be $469.00 a month, with no medical benefits. So, now, truly destitute, reliant upon government health services, and not qualified for any other kinds of help, I find I must now remain in my mother's house.
I had a wonderful man in my life while this was going on. My mother has always rented out rooms in our house to bring in extra money, and he and I met because he was renting one of them. So she at least had that much money coming in.
Last year he died in February, so, along with all the other aspects of that, his financial contribution ended. Then the other roommate left, leaving my mother unable to pay the house payment. She tried to refinance her house, but the unscrupulous loan salesman saw my mother coming, and tricked her into an even more expensive loan than before. I didn't know this had happened. A few weeks later she broke her pelvis, and my sister, a tax accountant, came to visit. My sister got a look at my mom's finances, and immediately convinced her to sell the house and move 2,000 miles away -near my sister's house.
That left me with two choices. Move to a place I did not want to be AT ALL, or be homeless where I grew up. So I moved with my mom.
So what am I doing? Turning my hobby of art into what I hope will become a career, meeting new people, trying to do more work than I have been advised to do by my physicians so I am acting responsibly and appreciatively to my mother. I don't know what the results of my efforts will be, but I will always know I've done my best.
And I'm keeping an open mind as to what the future may bring.