Dorothy, I think we're back in Kansas.

Last weekend I spent the weekend in Kansas with Mr. K, my Uncle Tod, cousin Alex, Tim, Erin, and my mom. The trip had been planned for awhile for Tim, Erin, and my mom, but the recent death of my great-great-aunt Dorothy brought Tod and Alex out from Seattle, so Mr. K and I picked them up at the airport and went out as well.

My relationship with my mom's family has always been a bit odd. Her parents refused to attend her wedding, since it was in a Catholic church, and things between them and my parents have been a bit strained for my whole life. We spent almost every Thanksgiving at Grandma Billie and Grandad Rex's house in McPherson, but mostly I hung out with my cousins and Tod and left the older folks alone. Rex and Billie were there, but somehow I have more positive memories of "Aunt" Dorothy and her sister "Mom-mo" Lynn (my great grandma) than my grandparents.

So that's the backstory. Aunt Dorothy is gone now, so we spent the weekend visiting the remaining relatives. First up was Mom-Mo Lynn. She's somewhere around 95, and has the Life Force that Eddie Izzard speaks of: "I'm a gran, I live forever!" She lives on her own, goes to church on Sunday, and sells Avon in her spare time. She was also heavily involved in my mom's upbringing, so has a special place in her heart. We were they for quite awhile on Sunday and went to church with her. Once back at her house we fixed her lamps. Apparently her power had been out that morning and she had panicked until the neighbor came over to find the tripped breaker. Good thing it tripped too- the 2 lamps in her living room were running on ancient cords that were frayed to the point of arcing and melting the power strip into which they were plugged. Tripped breaker= no housefire. So that's kind of scary actually. But we hit Home Depot and got some new plugs, cut the wires, and made it all safe again.

Then it was off to Mom-mo Bernese's for a quick visit. She's Grandad Rex's mom and has opted to turn her thermostat up to 90 instead of just moving to Florida, so we didn't last long there. Actually I spent most of that visit outside with Mr. K and Alex so they wouldn't melt.

Then we headed to Grandma Billie's. Grandad Rex died last year and I didn't make it to the funeral- Steph was in the middle of chemo and it wasn't a good time to get away. So it's just Billie now, living on her own. Somehow, in her early 70's, she appears about 5 years older than her mother. She's been tiny my whole life, <5' tall and <100 lbs. She has also spent her life smoking and drinking, has experienced 2 or 3 strokes (that we know of), and lives in a 3-story house that used to house a family of 5. After Grandad died my Aunt Terri got her a new boxer, so she has a dog that weighs as much as she does to keep her company.

It was kind of a scary visit really. My grandma should not be living alone. She fell several times when we were there and needed help standing back up. There were several empty wine boxes lying around. (After your 3rd stroke, why stop drinking, eh?) Her left hand is frozen and useless and her ankle is swollen unnaturally. She can't walk on it. There's a room in the basement that was full of junk when I was a kid, now less cluttered with 1/2 the junk, but the room has a water leak from somewhere above and a pool of mold in the corner under it. Tod mentioned that the pipe above had been leaking, I looked up, and gee, it's still wet! Oops. The box I moved underneath fell apart on contact and we immediately stopped touching things in there. Needs professional attention.

The real excitement was when Grandma decided that we would be allowed to clean out the freezer in the basement. This turned into more of a challenge than was originally apparent. When Tod first opened it the door didn't budge until considerable force was applied. There were 5 shelves in the freezer, of varying degrees of fullness. There was also a layer of ice on everything. I have never seen such freezer burn and I hope I never do again. There were pork chops in there that were grey after 7 years in the freezer.* There were 3 tins full of collector's coins, in their protective sleeves. There were things that were not to be chipped out of the 5" of ice covering them- they went straight to the trash on the curb like that. We spent 1.5-2 hours in the basement breaking out food, chipping ice, melting ice, and mopping the floors. The freezer ended up clean though.

We ended Sunday at Tod's cousin Brandon's house. (I can't figure out the name for how he's related to me...he's the son of my Grandpa's brother...) The kids hit the pool at the Holiday Inn Express that evening, slept, then it was Memorial Day. We stopped by Grandma's on the way out of town, partly so my mom and Tod could talk to her about moving closer to somebody, or at least seeing a doctor. She refused to consider either.

So we came home, and the car trips are for another post I guess. The whole weekend was pretty overwhelming. It's hard on my mom to see her relatives looking so old and frail, but Mom-mo is 95 and Billie refuses help, so there's not much to be done. All in all it was a good trip for me to have made, from a duty-to-family standpoint, but I can't say I'll be rushing back anytime soon.

As a side note, Mr. K was an absolutely perfectly behaved and patient kid almost the whole trip. Probably did better than when I went to my grandma's. I bought him Lego Indiana Jones as a reward. Hooray for new games!

*Grandad Rex meticulously labeled things, so there were dates on everything. It was kind of scarier that way.