Vanish the Garnish

The story is long but the details matter.

November 10th of 2010 my mom broke her wrist. The blackening and lack of healing let the doctors know, who in turn informed my only sister and I, that my mom's 13 year battle with brain cancer was entering the 4th stage. Until this point we had been able to care for her at home.

However, my sister was being deployed to Germany for a month. I, as a single mom of five, was working full time as a youth minister for Salvation Army. Left with no choice, my sister and I had to put mom in a nursing home. That happened Nov. 21st. The next day my sister shipped out.

December 3rd, my children and I decorated a live 9 foot Christmas tree in a snowman theme aa a way to push through depression and recognize my mom's true love for winter.

December 4th, my eldest daughter wrecked. Both of her legs were crushed and she sustained serious head trauma.

As she was in emergency surgery, my mom fell from her wheel chair at the nursing home, hitting her head. She was trying to answer her cell to get updates on my daughter. She was brought by ambulance to the same hospital.

December in Salvation Army you ring kettles, plan Christmas plays, and hold key parts in other donation roles. My daughter, after several surgeries, came home. But we could not go to our house with all of its many steps. We had to go to mom's house which was wheel chair accessible, had rails in the bathroom, and had a hospital bed. I cut off the utilities at our house because I could only afford to pay them at mom's house.

December was a non-stop blur of sleeping on the nursing home floor, giving Jocelyn shots in her stomach, and working insane amounts. December 21st I was "let go" from my "job" due to budget cuts. January 21st was to be my last day.

My sister came home Dec22nd. We somehow managed to ambulance transport my mom and my daughter to my sister's house for our final Christmas with mom. It was a quiet (dare I say beautifully peaceful) day filled mostly with administering medications, eating comfort food, and napping.

January 4th I sheerly panicked realizing I was about to be unemployed. I had stopped taking classes to take on the position offered to me which was to have a benefit package and salaried wages after a year. By January 6th I was on campus as a Senior towards Integrated Social Studies 7-12.

January held another surgery for Joce, steep decline for mom, the obvious care for my other 4 children, and me numbly packing up my office. School was crammed in somewhere somehow.

January 24th, Mom passed away...my sister and I both were with her. Then the funeral week.

The first week of February, my professor from whom I had previously earned two A's...asked me how my project, which was to be 81% of my grade, was coming along. I stared and choked out "project?" He answered "yes, it was all detailed in your syllabus." I swear to all of you, in earnest I asked him "what was a syllabus?" In deep concern he said "Kelly you need to go to the office and drop my class...you are going to kill your gpa...it is too much."

Stupidly and stubbornly I said..."no I will catch up...I will take an incomplete and finish, and then have it translate. I can do this. I have to do this. I need a good job...I have five children."

February 10th or thereabouts...a huge blizzard happened. It wore on for 3 days. On the 5th day, we needed to get some more things to bring to mom's house where Jocelyn was still being cared for with two broken legs. The pipes had frozen. Water had run for 3 days on 3 floors with such force that it split the kitchen table in half throwing the other half into the counter. Everything was unrecognizeable glaciers. The tree was frozen in time and space. An indelible nightmarish vision in my mind.

February 16th...I know it was that day cuz it was my mom's birthday...I completely succumbed to compounded trauma and dropped all 4 of my courses at YSU.

This all was 13 years ago.

Upon trying to obtain my college transcript for a Preschool position...I was told that I could not have a copy because I owed $2,345. Evidently I had dropped my courses FOUR DAYS after the cut-off for full refund.

<Enter here all of the Why didn't you...you shoulda...you coulda...well I woulda...there are many...I have heard them over the years>

<Enter here all the times I was sooooo close to saving up 20% of my annual income to rectify my acccount. But then the beater car would die. The durnace would go...I would have emergency surgery and be off work without pay...on and on and such. One time I literally went downtown to the Bursar's office with $2400 in cash...so hopeful and eager to settle the debt and finish my schooling, or at least take the 3 classes I need to pull the Bachelor's in History so I could substitute teach or be a paraprofessional. But to no avail for at that point the bill had been sent to the State of Ohio for collections. I spent weeks trying to find out how to pay it only to have some crisis mode gobble up that chunk of money again.>

Fast forward to November of 2022. I was/am working at the best paying job I have ever had. It is also the second worst job I have ever had and the by far the most difficult job I have ever had. I daily cook for and serve 300 patients 2 or sometimes even 3 meals a day. I don't talk about my job on Facebook because it is the main hospital here in Youngstown. Suffice it to say.. they call it a "ministry" and "service" rather than a "job" or "career". It is one part of a gigantic non-profit organization (which use all the latest business lingo and techniques).

In November...I had the flu. Then I had CoVid. (Both, I contracted at work.) This was all while my furnace was broken and we had a cold snap. When I finally dug two weeks worth of mail out of my mailbox...there was a Youngstown court order regarding this long ago college debt. It had sat in that mailbox too long already.

Those who know me...know I had opportunity to go on a paid time off vacation to be a Grandma Nanny for the mere cost of a plane ticket. I was going to get to snorkel for the first time ever. But those who follow me know also..that we did not even stay in our vacation house for four hours before we had to turn around and flee home to Ohio via the hurricane.

I returned home to complete utter workplace chaos...namely a feast where we fed 2800 people in addition to the 900 daily meals and had lost 3 or 4 more employees.

When the dust from all of this settled I remembered that huge packet of papers in my unpacked suitcase next to my brand new unused snorkel set. When I retrieved it and read it all...I had missed the window of opportunity to explain in court as to why I had this horrid bill originally and as to why it had still not been paid. I had missed the date by what? 4 days...4 days....again.

December was worse than November at work...more people quit...another feast...a ton of people on vacation or sick...me pulling doubles and working back to back shifts on holidays. But I dug in and thought ohhhh good ...bring on all that double time pay. College here I come. Options I will afford you. Finally 2023 is going to be my year.

Nope none of that was to be. My wages are being garnished. (I couldn't figure out why I was working soooo long and much and hard and getting less until 2 days ago.) I have direct deposit so I don't see a paycheck stub. When I finally stopped long enough to examine it all...I discovered they are garnishing my wages by nearly $750 a month.

Folks I am not going to make it. I already live paycheck to paycheck. Yes for the first time ever...I own a fairly brand new car thus the payment and full insurance which I have never carried. I felt I was assuredly on the road to financial stability and abity to make dreams realities.

I don't ever pay to have my hair or nails done. I don't own a tv so I do not pay for cable. I have not had internet for years. I buy $20-$30 of groceries a week. I only ever buy or wear thrift store clothes. (I actually love my wardrobe and would do such even if I earned 6 figures.) I have zilch left to sell and zero energy to craft or hustle. After nearly 20 years of donating plasma they decided that me having my kidney removed 12 years ago now makes me ineligible to donate. I have no credit cards.

For years the dearest of friends from BATs have more than let it be known how truly gracious and generous they are...and have often retorted "Kelly why didn't you ask?"

Asking is hard....super super super difficult. It entangles with guilt and dread and fear. It is weighed down by wanting to say...I will pay you back fourfold.. whem my books sell...when Mama Sage business is up and running....when....and the despair drowns out those shouts...screeching "you won't ever be able to catch up or pay back."

When you earn $10,000 year after year after year... $2,300 might as well be an impossible million. I am so exhausted from chasing wind. My arms are so very heavy from holding my hands in such a stiff manner as to try and catch sand.

I feel trapped. I feel empty. I feel done.

(*Note please...I am a true lover of life...none of these weighty feelings are indicative of suicide...it all just threatens to take the dance out of my soul.)

What an ugly cruel word garnish is.

Thank you ever ever so much for reading and wading through this mess of a post.

Shalom