These last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride of emotions. It is something I have tried to keep to myself but I can't do that anymore.
So a little history on my life recently. We have a neighbor. He is 78 years old, has NO family that will care for him and is suffering from Dementia. Sandy had been his caretaker a few months ago but it did not work out because like all people with Dementia he believes he is fine and doesn't need help.
So jump forward a few months. I come home to find Mr Ping in his front yards with several police. He does not know who he is and they ask me if I know him. I say yes, that my daughter was his caretaker and ask what is wrong.
They explain that he was just found wandering the streets of Vacaville and no one knows who he is. So I explain that he had a stroke two months ago that he has no family to care for him and what I know of the situation. The police ask me if I will come back to the convalescent home he is staying at (luckily they saw a emergency room monitor around his neck and called) and tell his story to the home as they have no information on him.
So I follow the police to the home and we all sit down and talk. The police and the home's manage notice that for the first time Ping is co-operating when I am there and that he trusts me and they ask me if I could please get involved since he will listen to me. I say yes. It is after all how I've been all my life. Always looking out for the underdog, trying to save the world.
So now we will jump ahead a few weeks. Since caring for Ping, taking care of his house while he is in the home, paying his bills for him and just being around him I am learning something. Ping is a millionaire and not just a millionaire but one with a huge heart who wants to help everyone. Unfortunately since he has gotten Dementia a lot of people have come out from under whatever rocks they are living under and have taken advantage of him. He has been writing checks for thousands of dollars to anyone who gives him a sad story.
So I take control of his checkbook and make sure that he is no longer just giving his money away. I know it makes him happy but he needs his money to pay for the home he will have to live in and he can't, like me, save the world.
Well as Ping and I become closer and I do more for him he is constantly saying. I want to pay off your house, or I want to pay off Sandy's car and buy her a home. Or if we are at a store he wants to buy me stuff. But that isn't why I am doing this. I am doing this because he is alone and no one else will. I keep trying to convince him that he needs to save his money for him. I am fine, actually I am not fine financially. I am disabled so I can no longer work, the state disability is still trying to decide if I qualify for SSI, my husband has just found out that his job is in jeapordy and that even if he keeps it there will be a large cut in pay. He is now the sole support of our family and every cent he makes goes towards the bills. We lived too long with two paychecks and always thought we would so we made some mistakes that are catching up to us now.
So here I sit, caring for an elderly millionaire who everyday offers to help us out and I continue to say no. I am taking no payment for all that I am doing for him. He has become dependent on me and needs to see me seven days a week sometimes several times a day or he panics and escapes the home he is at to try and walk to me. Then the police are called in and he is taken back and told to stay. It is getting harder and harder to convince him to stay and since he has not been declared incompetent yet, the hearing hasn't happened, no one can actually force him to do anything. All we can do is ask that he return and so far he has with a lot of convincing from me.
Well yesterday I had a three hour meeting with the state social worker and the head of the home where he is staying. You see Pings sister in China has power of attorney over him. However since she does not live in the United States it is not recognized. So there is no one to make decisions for him. I have talked several times to his sister and begged her to at least get involved but she refuses. Also he has a nephew, a brain surgeon, at Stanford Teaching Hospital who is close but refuses to get involved, a brother in Sacramento and a brother in Berkley. None of which want to help. So the state will declare him incompetent and he will become a ward of the state and lose his home, his car, his money, all that he has worked for.
He cries on me daily, asking me why the United States is holding him prisioner. He begs me to get him on a plane to Hong Kong where he will be free again. But I can't do that. In fact I can't do this anymore. Helping him is slowly eatting away at me. At my health and at my heart. It is making me question my decisions and is constantly putting me at odds with my beliefs in God and what is right and what the devil would have me do.
How easy it would be to take the financial offering from Ping. To let him pay off our bills or our home like he offers daily. But that is sooo wrong. Yet just this morning my son tells me, maybe this is God sending you help. Why don't you just take it. NO!!! I can not in my heart beleive that is the right thing to do. And because the stress of this situation is taking such a toll on my health I am going to have to walk away from this man who trusts me so much.
I am having the episodes that put me in the hospital in November again. I am exhausted, my family never sees me and nothing is getting done but stuff for Ping. I love the mental challenges it gives me, I love feeling useful again, but I can't take the stress and the temptation anymore. Is that wrong? Will God understand if I have to walk away? Where do I put my family and my health in all of this? If I continued to help, next week I would have so much to do that it would be nearly impossible for me. Get someone to clean his home, he is having a business associate fly out for a few days and stay at his home and the home is filthy. Get Ping his weekly groceries plus get groceries for his guest. Get someone out to fix the leak he has in his main water pipe in the front of his house. Take Ping to buy a computer because his died and he needs one to finish his book. Get ATT hooked up at his room in the home so he has phones and internet. Get a bed and linens for the houseguest. Pick up his friend at the airport. Get his weekly bills paid. Get his taxes taken care of. Take him to buy some new shoes since he has worn out the soles on his and his feet are getting wet. Figure out a way to get him to allow them to check his blood sugar levels and give him his insulin because he is refusing. Get him to his doctor appointments and try to keep him calm enough during all this so that his blood pressure doesn't go too high and he has another stroke. Then after all that I need to take care of my home, my husband and my health. I just can't do it, physically, not to mention mentally it is impossible.
So what do I do? I don't know. I know I am taking four days away from the situation to think clearly about what it is I need to do. I need to ask God for guidance and get my head clear again. I don't want to live with the temptation of accepting something from this man that is wrong but I don't want to abandon him at his greatest time of need. Yet his family sits by and does nothing but waits for him to pass on and they will come with their hands out wanting the money. How wrong is that? How wrong is all of this, that a man who has family is left alone and afraid in his old age.
So if you are out there, say a prayer for me. Ask God to guide me in the right direction. Right now I just don't know which way that is.
