A Letter That Will Make You Feel Uncomfortable at Best

[seclark]

my instance is kind of on the other end of the spectrum. instead of a child, it's my great uncle. 86 years old, with some type of learning disability. never went to school. lived with his mother in the Ozark mountains until she died in 1972. the only sibling he had that would have anything to do w/him was my grandmother(his sister), who took him in, and started taking care of him.

when my grandmother died, I promised her that I would take care of ernie as long as he lived. I moved him and what little he had into an apartment on our property we had made to stay in while we built our house. it's actually the first time in his life where he has freedom to make some of his own decisions. he fixes his own coffee, breakfast and lunch. he'll either eat supper with us, or we take something over for him.

as far as I know, he's never actually had any type of studies done that would explain what type of disability he has. can't read or write(except his name). I have to set his microwave every day at 60:00. I have different color pieces of tape on his tv remote buttons so he can go back and forth between the only to channels he watches. take him to doctors, monitor his medicines, etc. he gets confused very easily.

ernie doesn't have a mean bone in his body. he gets up every day and goes outside to work on something...anything. he does get depressed in the winter when he's stuck inside.

he loves people. lives for when our kids/grandkids come down. will talk to and trust anyone(which is frightening at times).

ernie was the youngest of 7 children. they've all passed away but him. he does have numerous nieces and nephews that we never hear from. I don't expect them to offer to keep him...****, I wouldn't know what to do without him around. but I know it would mean a lot to him just to know they were thinking about him.

craziest thing about ernie is, he can play guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica beautiful...I can sit and listen to him forever. no lessons...just sits there and works at it until it makes music. I took him to a weekly sr citizens music get-together where they take turns playing a song and everyone jumps in, but had to stop because he wasn't playing the way they did.

holy shit, I wrote a lot...sorry.
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[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by seclark

as far as I know, he's never actually had any type of studies done that would explain what type of disability he has. can't read or write(except his name). I have to set his microwave every day at 60:00. I have different color pieces of tape on his tv remote buttons so he can go back and forth between the only to channels he watches. take him to doctors, monitor his medicines, etc. he gets confused very easily.

What two channels does he watch?

And interesting story, by the way. With older folks like that, one wonders how diagnosis and treatment differed in their youth from today's world.

In my grandmother's family, two of the eight (or nine) kids had mental issues. I never met them, but looking at old photos one clearly had Down's Syndrome, but the other sounds like your uncle. He looked pretty normal but just had a very low level of functioning. The two of them lived together in the family's log cabin until they died sometime in the 60s or 70s, and I think other siblings would just keep an eye on them from a distance since they all lived in the vicinity.

[seclark]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

What two channels does he watch?
1. tv land, but he's pretty much quit on that since they took Sanford and son off.(he says the new tv I got him doesn't show it...pissed)
2. whatever channel it is that has little house on the prairie and john-boy Walton.
And interesting story, by the way. With older folks like that, one wonders how diagnosis and treatment differed in their youth from today's world.

In my grandmother's family, two of the eight (or nine) kids had mental issues. I never met them, but looking at old photos one clearly had Down's Syndrome, but the other sounds like your uncle. He looked pretty normal but just had a very low level of functioning. The two of them lived together in the family's log cabin until they died sometime in the 60s or 70s, and I think other siblings would just keep an eye on them from a distance since they all lived in the vicinity.

ernie worked cutting timber and working in a sawmill for awhile...says he was lucky to work there cause he was able to pay doctor bills when his dad got sick and died. I know he worked some in the lead mines down there too. they did the log cabin deal also...no water in the house, wood cookstove, newspaper for wallpaper, etc. If your grandmother was from around where you grew up, it wasn't too far from Ernie's home place.
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[PunkinDrublic]

All good points.