Changing topic to something near and dear to my heart, care-giving.
We as real estate professionals with good incomes (hopefully and with fingers crossed) should help take care of those in our society, that have given up their lives to take care of our loved ones. I would like to see agents have gift cards in their wallets and purses for dinners out, movies or groceries. When we come across someone in that role we should whip out the cards and make their day and let them know that others care about them.
Back in the day I was a mechanical design engineer in San Jose's Silicon Valley. I was working from 7am to 10:30pm and then commuting back to San Leandro. It made for some very long days. I hardly ever saw my family.
I had long been a financial caregiver for my parents. My handicapped father was laid off of his job when he was late fifties. No employers wanted to hire a handicapped person nearing retirement. He operated his own business for several years, but was never overly successful at it. Greenslade Drafting & Design was the name of his company.
Back in 1966 my father was the victim of a violent crime. He was the silent partner in a sporting goods store. He was visiting his partner that afternoon and working in the work room at the back of the store. He heard the chimes over the door announce the entrance of a customer. He entered the showroom from the back room and found his partner Jeff Montgomery at gunpoint. My father walked right into an armed robbery. The criminals turned their guns on my father and shot.
To this day my father still has to wear abdominal bandages and binders because of the wound drains.
My mother had always been my father's medical watchdog and caregiver assisting my father whenever she could. In 2001, shortly after September 11th, my father suffered a severe stroke that paralyzed his left side. My mother stepped up the plate and took over dad's medical care-giving. I was still still supplying financial support for my parents.
Well, all those long hours away from my family working in Silicon Valley took it's toll on me. I told the people at Foundry Networks to take the job, the hours, the lack of respect and to shove it.
I left Silicon Valley behind and took a job as a kitchen designer at Home Depot. I had always had a passion to work with homes. If you've been readying my blog, you'd know that I have been an amateur architectural historian specializing in Storybook Style homes of the 1920s and 1930s. Working at Home Depot gave me eight hours a day and no over-time. More importantly I was only five minutes across town if my parents needed me.
In 2005, my mother was diagnosed with Colon Cancer. The medical care-giver had also become a patient. It was my new duty to become both the financial care-giver and the medical care-giver to both of my parents now.
Mother had her cancer surgery and was left with a colostomy bag attached to her side. She underwent two really nasty chemotherapy rounds each lasting over six months.
At one point I had to take a medical leave of absence from Home Depot and be at my parents side 100% of the time. I can't begin to tell you how many times I had to call the ambulances for Mom or Dad.
I have two brothers, Raymond and Bill. Bill lives in Fairbanks Alaska. Raymond lives in Tracy California. Bill raises and races sled dog teams and doesn't have two nickels to rub together. I don't fault him for not being able to assist mother and father more than he does. Raymond is busy with his job at Kaiser Permanente Heath-care System. Raymond is in charge of a large portion of Northern California Telecom construction. Raymond is busy, but I wish he could at least buy some monthly groceries for the parents.
Anyway.
Having gone from Silicon Valley, to Home Depot, to Medical Leave, to Part-Time Home Depot and then to unemployment (Home Depot did not want to have part time kitchen designers and I was given the choice of working in the appliance department of leaving....I left. I did not want to schlep side-by-side refrigerators on to carts when I had heavy lifting to do at home too). I know first hand what a financial hardship it is for care-givers to give up their lives to help for loved ones. I went through my entire life savings and my IRA account to continuing supporting my parents.
While mother was at the oncologists office getting her infusions of chemotherapy, I was sitting across from her in the care-giver seats, reading my real estate text books preparing for the day when I would emerge from the role of double care-giver.
Mom got really bad with her last chemo treatment and nearly died. My brothers, my dad, sisters-in-law and most importantly mom all agreed that we would stop the chemo and go with GOD. The doctors only gave her about three days to live. Almost two years later she is doing fine. She has a paralyzed left had from a terrible night of endless blood clots and surgeries. She is a real trooper.
I passed my DRE test first time out. All of that studying paid off and I got my new gig at Prudential California Realty in Alameda.
Getting back to my point that I started off with.
We as real estate professionals with good incomes (hopefully and with fingers crossed) should help take care of those in our society, that have given up their lives to take care of our loved ones. I would like to see agents have gift cards in their wallets and purses for dinners out, movies or groceries. When we come across someone in that role we should whip out the cards and make their day and let them know that others care about them. I particularly like the idea of giving gift cards to restaurants and movies, something to give the care-giver a brief respite escape. If only someone would have a gift card for a back-up caregiver to allow the person a true rest.
Enough, enough, enough
Restored position of the buck and doe
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