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Drunken Irishman

(34,857 posts)
Mon Jul 2, 2012, 03:45 PM Jul 2012

Cross-post: My personal reason for enthusiastically supporting Pres. Obama.

I posted this in Politics 2012 & wanted to also post it here. I hope no one minds.

This will be a long, very personal post, so, please, bear with me.

Years ago, my parents took out a mortgage on their home. They did so to do repairs to the house, specifically the roof, windows, and driveway. Much of the money was invested in updating the house, which was built in the 1940s, so that it essentially didn't appear like it was crumbling. Some of the repairs inside included new bathroom & kitchen flooring.

My parents were always good at making their payments on the mortgage. In fact, they were never late. For years, they paid their monthly amount and did things the right way. There was never any concern over not being able to make that payment and so, my mom never feared the prospects of losing her house.

Then, toward the end of 2010, my dad became ill and died. He was 57 years old. He was also a Vietnam veteran, who had been ruled 100% disabled years before from his time in Vietnam. He suffered from PTSD and an array of medical problems associated with Agent Orange. I've written about my Dad's struggles before, so, I won't go into 'em personally, but let's just say that his quality of life slipped remarkably the last few years of his life - as he had suffered a broken hip, grand mal seizure, and that final year, 2010, he was bed stricken far more often than not.

Still, even with his medical conditions, Dad's death in that November was extremely unexpected and sudden. We knew his health was deteriorating, but I don't think we expected that it was happening as fast as it was. But he couldn't fight any longer and, one day, he was gone.

My mom is in her 60s and suffers from COPD. It's not as severe as most cases and was directly brought on by her smoking years ago (she quit maybe seven or eight years ago), but it means she's on oxygen a good portion of the day and, when out and about, can become very winded. She's also crippled with arthritis. For most of the final years of my dad's life, she was stuck in the house taking care of him. A lot of this had to do with his declining memory, since he suffered from cerebral atrophy, something that was a direct result of Agent Orange, and because of it, he had awful memory loss. She would have to regulate his eating, and more importantly, his pill taking, because he would forget just having done it. After his seizure, it became impossible to drive and that left my mom taking him to most of his appointments at the veteran's hospital here.

This after spending much of the last 10 years prior being an in-home caregiver to my grandfather, who suffered a stroke in the late 90s. My grandma had asked my mom to help her take care of him because she didn't want to A) have a nurse move in with her and B) put him in a home. My mom agreed and uprooted her family, my father and me, to move in with my grandparents to help take care of my grandpa throughout the final years of his life. This included getting him in and out of bed, helping him use the bathroom, cleaning him, getting him ready for doctors appointments and just being there to help my grandma whenever she needed it.

Neither my mom, or grandma, had much life outside the house because they both were committed to taking care of my grandpa. When my grandparents passed, both almost a year apart, my dad's health declined and my mom found herself back in the same position as a care provider.

Not that she cared. She was always a domestic woman. But it was hard. It's been hard. She had to work her butt off and, truth be told, those people often don't make money. But she also didn't work outside the house for a good portion of the past decade. She held a job for all her adult life, even when I was a kid, but had to give it up when my grandpa had his stroke. She was in her 40s or early 50s at that point and by the time my grandparents and dad passed on, she was already in her 60s and, as I said, with medical problems of her own.

When my dad died, it was a shocker. But we also knew he had some benefits to his name that my mom deserved, since she had been married to him for nearly 30 years (truth be told, they would have celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary last Saturday). So, my mom applied for the benefits and then began living off my dad's life insurance. At the time, she didn't think it would take that long. Yes, working with the VA could be time consuming, but this was in early 2011, just months after my dad's death, and she was certain it would take no more than 200 days to approve. This was bolstered by the information itself, which said they would have a ruling within the first 150 days.

There was never concern that she would go so long without income. But she couldn't afford her house payments anymore. There just wasn't enough money from the life insurance to pay that and have enough over for the bills and food. She struggled with every payment and soon, when the life insurance dried up, she had no income. Outside watching some of her grandkids, and collecting on my dad's Social Security, her money was dwindling fast. That meant no house payments. It was scary to risk not paying the mortgage, but my mom and dad had been good at paying it every month for years, so, she felt it would only be temporary, maybe a couple months at the most.

It wasn't. Because of government cuts and freezes, there was a logjam of new claims to file and 150 days turned into essentially two years.

The mortgage bills have mounted as the VA continued deciding her case. There was a point, earlier this year, where it felt like my mom would lose her house. So, she stepped up and looked into Obama's mortgage program and began going through the process of saving her home. That has helped immensely, setting up new payment plans, which has bought her some time.

Of course, that all was moot if the VA never ruled. The MHA still requires you to pay your mortgage! And dammit, Mom was getting the runaround when she contacted the VA. Not that I put the blame on them, they were just so inundated with claims that they've been struggling the last few years meeting them. It's tough. I get that. We get that. But for her, this was her livelihood. This was her parents' house, the home she grew up in as a child, the home where she first raised my brother Richard, who died at age 12 from leukemia, and the home she and my dad made their own when my grandparents died. They did everything right when they took out that mortgage. They didn't do it for luxury reasons. They didn't go buy a new car or jet off on an expensive vacation. They didn't splurge the money on superficial goods - they fixed their home.

They were never late on their payments.

They were good, honest people who just got caught up in a bad cycle.

And earlier this year, it appeared as the chickens were coming home to roost.

Desperate, she wrote President Obama. I know, silly, right? What the heck could he do? But when you're desperate, sometimes you do crazy things like that.

She outlined everything that had happened - my dad's illness, his death, her struggles, and the fight to save her house. We didn't expect a response. And none came officially from the White House. So, after a week of nothing, we decided drawing up plans on what to do if my mom lost her house.

Then, maybe two or three weeks after her letter to the President, she received a call. It was the VA. Some man who was calling from Minneapolis. Not too surprising, since the VA has kept my mom updated on the benefits since she filed shortly after my dad's death. But this call came from a different location and the man, laughing, asked my mom right off the bat if she contacted the President.

Why yes she did. But how would he know?

He laughed again. The White House had contacted them and asked that they push through my mom's case. I kid you not. Honest. Hand to God.

My mom was floored.

Today, she finally got the letter. They approved of her benefits and back pay all the way through to December, 2010 - the month after my dad died.

She can save her house now.

With a big help from President Obama.

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Cross-post: My personal reason for enthusiastically supporting Pres. Obama. (Original Post) Drunken Irishman Jul 2012 OP
It's the little things sometimes (FYI not referring to your family's struggle as little). nt Guy Whitey Corngood Jul 2012 #1
Wow. President Obama helped your mom! DevonRex Jul 2012 #2
knr Coexist Jul 2012 #3

DevonRex

(22,541 posts)
2. Wow. President Obama helped your mom!
Mon Jul 2, 2012, 03:57 PM
Jul 2012

That's wonderful. Thank you for telling us. I hope your mother is doing well.

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