Leaving Korea proved to be harder in the end than I imagined it would be.  The New Year’s eve send off was tremendous and I will carry many happy memories of my Korea life wherever the future may lead me.

Had a long but uneventful New Year’s Day flight to the USA.  I was welcomed to America by a Thrifty car rental agent who made a big show of “doing me a favor” by allowing me to actually rent the car I had reserved.  Seems that if I rent a car using a debit card I am required to provide my return flight information.  Which since I have now made South Carolina my home I don’t possess.  She hemmed and hawed and finally made the comment that she would “do me a favor” and rent me the car.  I was tired and hungover and wanted to tell her to go fuck herself but my desire to get out of the airport and on my way overcame the impulse and the transaction was completed.  Her parting shot was “well, I’ve done my good deed for the day!”.  I shook my head and walked away but I was reminded of one of the reasons I’m dreading living in the USA.  Sanctimonious bitch!

I dropped off my bags at the house and went to visit my mom in the hospital.  Not good.  Not good at all.  I was shocked at how much she had deteriorated since my visit in November.  Things were much worse than I imagined and the doctor confirmed that they would not be getting better.  Since there was nothing more to be done medically (congestive heart failure) we were presented with two options–home hospice care or confinement to a nursing home.  We made the obvious choice of allowing her to die at home.

So, a hospital bed was delivered and set up in the living room (ironic name, eh?).  A hospice worker comes five days a week to bathe my mother.  A hospice nurse comes a couple of times a week.  A social worker also appears periodically.  The rest is up to us family members.  I never imagined I’d participate in changing my mother’s diapers, but that’s now part of my daily routine.  I’m doing my best to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as she may have left, but it somehow doesn’t feel like it is nearly enough.

Mom told me she loves me for coming home to her, so there’s that.

I spilled diet coke on my netbook keyboard on a drunken New Year’s morning.  The computer functioned fine except when I typed letters would randomly be numbers and vice-versa, which made logging on with passwords impossible.  Hence the lack of posting here.  I took it in for repairs and got a call yesterday that there was nothing wrong and I could pick it up.  Well, maybe the Vaio has a self-healing feature or I experienced a minor miracle.  Even more bizarrely the repair shop said “no charge”.

I bought a car, bought insurance for said car, and obtained a South Carolina driver’s license.  The last item was was touch and go.  Despite having my passport and birth certificate, the wanted my original social security card.  Well, when it was issued 40 years ago it was just a flimsy business card material that has long since disintegrated.  I didn’t think to bring my last pay stub but then I remembered that I had failed (intentionally) to return my Army ID card.  And since it won’t expire until 22 January and it showed my SSN, I was golden.  All I had to do now was demonstrate proof of residence.  Well, I’m staying with my parents, but my name is on the deed to the house.  In the state’s eyes, that doesn’t prove I live there (valid point, since my name has been on the deed for 6 years, and I’d been here 6 days).  Of course, the utility bills are in Dad’s name so it looked like I was in a classic catch-22 situation.  Then I remembered my proof of insurance certificate showing my living at this address.  Score!  I am now a licensed driver in SC for the second time in my life.

Thursday I drove my nephew Joshua (who had been staying with mom and was a tremendous help) to the airport in Raleigh.  It was an 8 hour round trip, but my new car handled well and provided a comfortable ride.

Jee Yeun has been an angel.  She’s a natural born caregiver and has really done everything possible to make mom comfortable (including pedicures).

Of course, despite our best efforts, mom is not comfortable at all.  She seems to be having an increasing difficulty breathing and she’s miserable staying in bed.  She begs us to let her up, but it is just not possible to move her in her current state of immobility.

I thought for awhile we were going to lose her last night, but she came around.

Her sisters are due in this afternoon and she’s looking forward to that.

And now we are just watching and waiting and hoping her suffering is not too great.

I hate everything about my new life.  And I’m glad to be here.  For whatever that’s worth.