Christmas and New Year’s came and went, and even the January 20 transition of power seemed to be okay. I had started looking for new venues for my shows in 2025, feeling confident that I could expand into a larger city. While I was talking to one of the venue managers, my sister texted me:
“You need to come home now. Mom may not be here by the weekend.”
She gave me her credit card, and I booked a one-way ticket to Pennsylvania. I thought I would be there a week, maybe ten days. Mostly just long enough to help with the estate and bury Mom.
Except, as I like to say, Mom had the Momdacity to not die when the doctors said she would. From January 27 until February 12, I was a secondary caregiver alongside my sister and the hospice nurses. I learned skills I never thought I would: how to move someone up a hospital bed without a lift, how to feed and give someone a drink, how to change an adult diaper.
For the first time in my memory, Mom was kind to me. Not critical, not sharp. Actually kind. Caring, even. It was surreal.
She passed away on February 12, 2025, from cardiac amyloidosis (wildtype). They suspected it stemmed from her bout with COVID in 2020, the same time my dad was sick. Mishandled, failed. In the end, Trump killed both my parents.
While I was still in Pennsylvania, Jon told me he had applied for and received the business license for The Asylum Project, LLC. I said that was fantastic and reminded him he would need an EIN too. He explained what he wanted to do with Asylum Project, and I told him, “Having registered a business in Oregon myself, I’m happy to help wherever I can.”
Little did I know what that promise would mean.
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