HomelessInDownstateIL

  CHAPTER 5:  HOME AT LAST WITH A MARINE, A MUTT AND (UNPLANNED) MARITAL MAYHEM  Most people when they hear even 10% of the story of what happened to me during the Pandemic say some variation of this sentiment: “I don’t know how you survived? I would have just quit or been catatonic in a corner somewhere…”  No you would not.  Well - not most of you would not have just “quit” or otherwise surrendered to the certain death that cumulative traumas often cause.  How do I know this ? Because I survived. And you’d be surprised how strong and filled with perseverance you can be when being strong and persistent is your only option. I had survived the often lethal outcome of: first-time homelessness experience in Illinois, the janky for-profit Medicaid nursing homes scam system existing in Illinois, and the damaging mental health system that is so dangerously broken in Illinois (and America.) And then realized, much to my horror, that IF I wanted to heal both medically from a nearly fatal bout

  April 8, 2023  Holy Easter Vigil Saturday or Also - Happy Chocolate Bunny Day  I decided to write this  BLOG POST INTERMEZZO about current events in my life to serve as a brief break from my emerging Pandemic Memoir. If you are turned off by the title because you believe in science and facts and are an unbeliever in Jesus/God - please stay with me and read until the end.  For I was once you, too - and that was only a mere four (4) years ago…which NOW seems like a lifetime ago to me.  Because ultimately this is a story about a reversal of destiny, redemption and living life in a new way… Tomorrow is Easter and many families will celebrate in many different ways.  In America, our money-handler overlords like to blend our religious traditions with the unrelenting greed of capitalism to ensure the stock market remains robust for THEM come Monday.  Leave it to America to take the brutal murder of an innocent man and turn it into pastel eggs and chocolate.  But I can remember the joy of b