Kathie Gagne died 4,641 days ago.

Rent Checks
May 31st, 2010 @ 12:43 am

Here is an exchange between me and mom’s good friend from her church, who spent an extraordinary amount of time working to help mom with all manner of things. I was doing my best to manage mom’s finances at the time, but since she had no income and wasn’t ever checking her mail, it was a losing battle.

 
 

She replied later that morning. (Mom would have been annoyed to see her name spelled with a y instead of an ie!)

 
 
Age Effects
April 7th, 2010 @ 6:55 am

Mom started really complaining about her memory at least two or three years before she died. I sent her this email one day, because I was convinced that it was something that was temporary:

It turns out a little positive reinforcement won’t just help kids do better in school, it can help older adults do better at performing everyday tasks.
In one of several studies on the effects of age, University of Florida researchers have found that in older people, positive feedback tends to lead to improved performance on goal and memory tasks.

Dr. Robin West/ UF psychology researcher: “If you put older adults into a maximally supportive condition where they are starting to see some success and they are working on a problem over time and your telling them that they are doing well on the problem then what happens is they invest.”

When they receive negative feedback, older adults tend to withdraw and ultimately give up. Now researchers are trying to identify what conditions can help older adults improve their cognitive functions.

Dr. Robin West/ UF psychology researcher: “Our research has shown that you can improve your memory if you work on it. If you invest effort, your score will improve. If you maintain a positive attitude about the task that you’re doing you can continually gain skills at those tasks.”

And experts say that brings with it a better quality of life.

Car Accident
March 8th, 2010 @ 10:29 am

Mom got in a car accident in October of 2009 and for some reason the guy she hit — or who hit her, I was never sure of exactly what happened — kept contacting her directly instead of going through their insurance companies.

She asked me to help her deal with it because he was calling her repeatedly and she was very intimidated by him.

 
 
New Cycle
March 6th, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

March 6, 2010

Imagine we’re in a completely new cycle.

I have a beautiful dog and a silly black cat.

I’ve reconnected with Cricket and Gary, and I hope to see them soon. again.
Kathleen A. Gagne

This is the last entry mom wrote in her “Letters to Mom” journal. It’s the only entry without a salutation — no “Dear Mom,” or, “Hi, Mom,” like all the rest — and the way she ended it is definitely odd. The three or four sentences are completely out of character for her.

Mom’s CD
March 2nd, 2010 @ 7:43 am

Mom was having a really hard time dealing with her financial situation by the beginning of 2010. She was paralyzed with fear about going bankrupt and had already been forced to move into an apartment after the bank foreclosed on her house. She would go for weeks without opening her mail and then be surprised when her power was disconnected or her cell phone stopped working.

In an attempt to help her, I convinced her to simply bundle her mail and send it to me so I could go through her bills. I got her username and password so I could use the Bank of America website to access her checking account and pay bills for her electronically. But she had been unemployed for so, so long by that point and had already burned through all of her retirement funds, etc.

It didn’t help things that she seemed to have completely forgotten how to use a computer. She would call me exasperated that she couldn’t access her email or find things on the Internet. It was driving me crazy, because she had worked for years and years using her computer every day and then suddenly started acting like anything even remotely technological — email, a remote control, the telephone — was impossibly complicated for her.

Here is an email I sent her and my little sister at the beginning of March:

 
 
Bills
February 26th, 2010 @ 8:00 am

Here is a rather long email I sent to my mom to try to summarize her (pretty dire) financial situation at the beginning of 2010:

Mom,

Your Best Buy credit card is now completely paid off. If you get any more bills from them, please let me know. When you get the next statement from them — which should show a zero balance — let me know so that we can call them to cancel that account.

Your car insurance with Infinity is paid up through (as far as I can tell) the end of March. That cancelation notice you received was sent the day before they received the automatic payment from the bank.

That cancelation notice you sent me from Bright House was from early December. I have no idea why you were just sending me that now, but that bill is current and is not late or anything. You don’t owe them any money right now.

I paid the $135.00 you owed to Radiology Associates (Port Orange / Daytona Beach) so you shouldn’t owe them anything else now.

Earlier this month (February) I paid some money to State Farm to cover the (minimal) medical expenses of the man from the car accident. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you hoping that State Farm doesn’t try to go after you for any damages to his vehicle. You need to let me know immediately if you hear anything from them.

For right now I am going to ignore this $519.00 bill from University of Florida Physicians. Unfortunately you simply don’t have enough money for me to pay everyone that wants money from you, and since it’s a doctor’s bill, they can wait. I’m also looking at the fact that the statement date is July 12 of last year, so I can’t understand why you are just sending it to me now. (Do you have a stockpile of bills there that you have been ignoring and are just sending to me arbitrarily every now and then?)

I’m also currently ignoring the $621.15 bill I have here for ambulance service in Alachua County from May 30 of 2008. Again, you simply don’t have enough money to pay all your bills. That will probably be the first one we try to pay once you have a job and some income, but for now they will just have to wait.

Paying $80.00 each week to Mr. Garber for counseling is certainly putting a serious dent in your cash reserves. (That’s $320.00/mo, which is quite a bit for someone with no income.) I’m going to give him a call next week to see if he can do anything to minimize that; but I think you need to keep seeing him, especially if you feel like he is helping you get back on your feet. Please — PLEASE — stress to him that dealing with 50+ years of depression and hypochondria, and working through the multitude of issues you have with your parents is truly important, but it is nowhere near as desperately critical as helping you get to a place where you can get a job and start generating some positive cash flow. That should be your number one priority every time you talk to him.

Right now you have $7,500 remaining in your CD. That should last you just about two more months at your current “burn rate”, so you will be unable to pay your rent (or any other bills) starting in May. At that point if you have not started earning at least $2,500/mo then I do not have any idea what we will do.

Please, please understand that I am *not* telling you these things to scare you. I have no incentive to do that and there is no benefit for me to make you any more worried than you already are. I am very concerned about what is going to happen. I love you with all my heart and [name redacted] and I are both praying for you to recover from this situation.

Please reply to this message — RIGHT NOW — so I know you received it.

Love always,

David Vincent Gagne

I should note that I was paying these bills with her money and not with my own.
She never did reply to that email.

Grandma!
February 4th, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

Dear Mom,

I wish that I could understand why life gets so screwed up.

Somehow, I’m sitting in a rented condo, watching CSI.

I’m still alone. Jen is in Seattle and David is still in Los Angeles.

[Redacted] and David are very happy. Soon they will be presenting you with a great grandchild.

I’m very happy about that because I get to be a Grandma! It’s pretty old for me. I wish things were better. More news later.
Kathleen A. Gagne

Note: This entry is not dated, but was written between 2/21/09 and 3/6/10. She didn’t know that she was going to be a grandmother until after Christmas of 2009, so I’m guessing that the entry was written just a month or so after that.

People Can Change
February 4th, 2010 @ 5:07 am

I found an email that mom sent to my sister regarding me.

The subject line was “Jen, Have you talked to David lately?”

Mom wrote:

Dear Jen,

David told me yesterday that he was going to divert all of my mail to his address. He really has no right to do so. I know he’s trying to help, but he keeps making it worse. I don’t mind if he wants to divert bills to himself, but I believe that he has no right to look at my personal mail.

Other than my therapist, no one else understands what I am going through.

When I am with anyone else, I am fine, but I feel as if you both think I’m not normal.

Dr. Garver believes that I will have a job by March, and that all I need is to get my confidence back. At the same time, I feel that David, in particular, is really stressed, and he has no faith in me. I am worried for your brother. He takes so much on himself, even when he doesn’t need to.

David is an A-type. Everything has to be perfect. Believe me, if I could find a job today, I would jump on it, even if it is shoveling shit against the tide.
(When things got tough for Nana, she would laugh and ask for a shovel.)

I am very invested in both of your opinions of me. Most people like me. I have been depressed most of my life, and, right now, the extra stress from David is making me crazy.

Like thousands of people, it may be that all I need is a job.

I am going to church at 12 for an hour of prayer. Then, at 2 o’clock, I will be going to see Mr. Garver.

Maybe you can call me tonight.

I love you both and always will. I just wish I had more time with you. People can change.

Love,
Mom

Housing/JOB
January 27th, 2010 @ 1:42 pm

I found this email in my mom’s “Drafts” folder. It’s an email she never sent to me, from late January of 2010:

David,

We/I only have until February 2 to declare whether I stay in this unit or try to find a smaller place to live in. I honestly don’t think that I can move again. When I moved here, I had several friends helping, and I cannot move all of my stuff alone.

Please let me know what you think.

I have to tell them soon.

Thank you for all you have done for me, and for all of your patience.

I love you very much. When I finish this letter, I’ll be going out to try to find a job. I want to try the unemployment office first because I couldn’t find it online the way I did in Gainesville.

I am hoping and praying that I will at least get some leads by going there.

MOM

Visit with Andrew Garver
January 26th, 2010 @ 7:55 am

I still have access to mom’s old Yahoo! email account. In her “drafts” folder I found an email written to me but never sent:

 
 
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