The Not Happy Thread

I always thank any associate who cards me.

 

So over the years I have become the historian for my family. I have studied my family tree for almost 5 years and have thousands of people in our tree including George Washington, Raquel Welch and one of the passengers on the Mayflower. I love history and most of my family is happy that I can shed light on the family past. I've traveled to different states just to visit cemeteries.

My grandfather served as a police officer in Philadelphia in the 1940-50's. He past away when I was a teenager. I knew that my uncle had his service revolver, duty belt and holster. I am finally going to get my gun permit and I knew that I wanted to have this 70 year-old peice of family history.

So I contacted my uncle and he told me he didn't have it anymore. (Huh?) He tells me he gave it to my father last summer. I didn't hear anything about this. I then contacted my father to find out what was up. He proceeds to tell me that he did have it, but he didn't tell anyone in the family, and was scared to have an unregistered firearm in the house. So he gave it to 'a friend' that has guns, with a picture of my grandfather and promised the guy he would never come around asking for it.

He told me it was 'water under the bridge' and I should 'forget about it' but damn am I pissed right now. A family heirloom and he just gives it away to someone not in our family because he was too scared to tell anyone about it. There was probably a dozen legal ways he could have dealt with the situation but instead he made an asinine decision that removes this gun from our family forever. He said he won't tell me who has it. Who knows? Maybe the whole story is BS and he's lying to me because he had bills to pay and he pawned it. I'll never know.

All I know is that I didn't know my grandfather as well as I would have liked and it would have been nice to hold something that was precious to him. Now I will never be able to.

So mad...

 

Are ex-cops allowed keep their weapons? Maybe it had to be gotten rid of.... it all adds to your story!

 

For me it would be much easier if there were a happy thread. I'm always 'not-happy' so it makes it difficult to single things down to just one item to post about.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

 

@Lewdog : There is a happy thread. It's in the lounge.

@JJ_Maxx : That is a shame -- I'm sorry to hear that. The story does sound odd. Family heirlooms are so difficult -- my grandmother passed away a year and a half ago. She had a whole bunch of photographs of my dad, and my aunt and uncle when they were kids. Years ago I helped her get all the photos into albums, when they had just been sitting in boxes. I used to love looking at them -- there were some great ones of my dad from back in the forties, and a few that always made me chuckle, especially ones that really showed my uncle creating trouble for my dad and aunt. I knew that no one else, not my dad, or my aunt or uncle cared about these pictures, and I really wanted to have them. Of course, I didn't get them and they are nowhere to be found now. My aunt took them and made some into photo CDs, of which I did not get a copy, and they weren't all of the photos. Most of them were tossed. Somehow, I got a small box that were of a bunch of nameless people that no one knows who they are, and now will never know. In a way, I am glad to have those, but I really wanted the ones of the family.

 

My heart bleeds for you. My brother just left this world after a year fighting like the warrior he was to overcome aplastic anemia. He was the heart of this family. Fortunately, he had gifted his wife, Evelyn from Heavelyn (my nickname for her), a significant piece of his heart the first time he kissed her and so we stagger on... I sense your pain.

Well, this was from Chevalier and it's from 2010, I now see. Still, I lost another brother in 1984 when he was 29, and a sister a few years a ago in a house fire. Both of my parents died young of CA and I have a daughter who died of SIDS. So, Chevalier's post really triggered a reaction right off the bat since I just lost another brother! My life has been filled with tragedy since I was a child, so I have to decide everyday whether or not commit to life. At times, each breath seems to push against a heavy weight sitting on my chest.

I found out as an adult that I am 'Aspergian'. How did we find this out? My last two children, which I had with my last husband, are autistic. My son is a classic autistic, my daughter has 'Asperger's'. They inherited their disorder from both of us. Their dad is a mod-high functioning autistic, non-diagnosed, and I am a newly diagnosed (for 10 years approx.) Aspergian, high functioning. Our poor children didn't have a chance, according to the docs at Children's Hospital. They are beautiful and productive members of society, but life was hell for their growing up years because of the ignorance of educational professionals, doctors in our area, neighbors, police, their father, etc. I have become a recluse and I need to tell my story, but not until I can tell it strongly, yet positively.

Wow, I've, as usual, gone too far. I hope and pray I find a place here.

 

So, it seems my dad may have dengue. Mom called me and asked me to come over and talk him into going to the clinic. He hates hospitals. We got him to the clinic earlier and they told us his platelets we're on the low 50s. They sent us to the hospital here in Moca and were waiting for his room to he ready. I always forget how cold hospitals are.

 

Sorry to hear that, Wrey. Hope he gets better soon!

 

Sorry to hear that. Dengue has been a growing problem for the last decade or longer. It's one of those diseases with different strains and once you get one strain, it primes you for severe disease if you are then infected by another strain. It's made developing a vaccine problematic.

Dengue stronger the second time around

 

I'm sorry that happened to you. Send him a get-well-soon from all of us at Writing Forums! I know hospitals seem terrible, but do try to visit him as often as you can and maybe bring a book/newspaper so he has something to do other than watch TV because it means a lot to someone in the hospital.

 

They just passed him to his room I have to stay in the waiting room because my sandals don't pass dress code. How I love the quaint little points of punctilio my people hold on to.

 

That effen sucks. Who withholds someone from seeing their father because sandals don't pass "dress code"????

 

Funny anecdote (my apologies that it's off topic). When I was in the Dominican Republic (long time back) I was given a tour of a hospital OR when I inquired about working there as a nurse. We walked right through an OR room, no shoe covers, hair loose, nuthin in the way of basic infection control ... it was scary.

 

That is frightening!

Dad will be in the hospital for at least two days. Tomorrow we get the results back as to whether it's dengue or not. This year has been bad for it.

 

Well the DR is not PR. I would think medical standards in PR are on par with the US. But that was the private hospital. I best not tell you my horror story about the public hospital in the DR.

 

My dad's blood platelet levels are down to 13 so he is getting a transfusion today.

 

Bummer, Wrey. On an odd, not really related note, both my brothers, having had their spleens out as kids have outrageously high platelet counts. One's is higher than a million and the other's has been up in the 700K range. They had blood cancer workups and so far it's just the splenectomy.

So I'm back in this thread because I went to the doc today and they put another cast on instead of giving me a splint. Two more weeks.

 

Hang in there, luv. Dad ended up getting a second transfusion after the first had little effect other than raising his white cell count (I don't know why that would happen), but the second one has his platelet count at 27. I'm not even sure what the system of measure is that they use, because it doesn't seem to jove with what I find on the net. :/

 

I hear gunshots near my house. It's not like I live near a hunting range.

 

Shit, so many of them too. Like rapid fire. And I'm home alone. I hope and pray that my mom is OK.

 

call the cops!

 

Stopped 5 seconds ago. Which is either great or really scary.EDIT: No, just further in the distance.

Think the cops already got there though, I heard some sort of siren.

Might have been a firework or something ( a hell of a lot though) which I hope it was.

EDIT 2: Now stopped entirely. Whee.

 

I'm not happy because I keep having a connection error to the forum.

 

Well, the guns/whatever they were have stopped now. So, I'm OK for all who were worried.

 

Oh thank God, when you didn't reply there for 6 minutes...