My work requires some after hours work to be done for clients at times and this particular one started at midnight. We didn’t complete the work until around 6 am. I didn’t go to sleep and went back into work but that night I went to bed around 7pm. About 8pm I got a call from dad. I almost didn’t answer, but decided I better. It was her and she told me that dad was admitted to the hospital with heart issues. She said she tried to call Crystal but she couldn’t get a hold

Justin and I did stay at the hospital most of the day. The next day , I knew that Dad would be dismissed from the hospital so we both went to work. Dad texted and I had left my charger in the hospital room. I told him I would run by and get it. But then he proceeded to text a bizarre string that confused us to the point I was convinced she had his phone and was texting. It said: "I was wanting to tell you I know y'all was texting each other and I don't know if it was good or

The title of this post is the only way I know how to express how I feel about the next thing that happened. I had borrowed dad's tractor to shred my land and was taking it back to him. As I pulled in, the gate was already open. I started to pull the tractor in and find the best way to back it in. Her son started walking over to my truck. In my mind I thought he was going to ask me to put the tractor in a specific place or whatever. I rolled down my window and to my shoc

Justin called me and told me about what happened with her son. Ironically, we (Johnathon and I) had been there at Dad's just moments before her son arrived. We passed him on the road and didn't know that Justin wasn't far behind. Of course, we had no clue what was happening. Johnathon said that she popped an attitude with him when he got there but Dad told her to go in the house. It was a blessing that we had left. If we had been there when they got in Justin's face, Johnat

So, Christmas time was awkward and hard, but we enjoyed the time we had with him. We told Dad that we didn't want anything for Christmas, especially because of the statements he made about her having to help him buy presents. We told him it wasn't about the presents and we just wanted to spend time with him. He insisted and I get it. He asked what we wanted, and we gave him very minimal ideas to keep things simple. We sat through multiple conversations about how her son is b

It never starts where you think it does. It starts with family fights—arguments that aren’t really about one moment, but everything that’s been building underneath for years. Questions get asked, and instead of answers, things get louder, more defensive, more divided. Then everything shifts. There’s a reset phase. A glimpse of promise. Things calm down just enough to make you wonder if maybe—this time—it’ll be different. But that feeling doesn’t last. Because then come the st

We never thought we would still be at this point eight years later. Our story continues—not with the same shock we felt the first time we uncovered all the fraud she committed—but with a slow, grinding realization: things never really leveled out. We kept telling ourselves they would. That somehow, eventually, “normal” would return. We’ve been wrong before. In our last update, we talked about her son building a house on land he essentially cheated out from under my dad. Oddly

I guess it's my turn to write something. I've been hesitant to write for a while now. This isn't easy. The rollercoaster of emotions that we stay on is one that I wished I could get off. It's complicated to put these things into words sometimes, and we are constantly on this cliff with our relationship with Dad. There are times it feels like he gets it and we can have honest conversations with him, that he's receptive and acknowledges what the truth is. Other times it's like

Lately things have just felt… off. Most of what we know about what’s going on with her has been secondhand from dad, and honestly, it’s hard to keep track because of how he explains things. He tends to mix different stories together in one conversation, so it all kind of blurs. I remember when we were younger hearing that she had lupus, but that was never really talked about much. Now all of a sudden we’re being told she has Parkinson’s. On top of that, she’s supposed to be g

Looking back, there were warning signs before Dad ever moved into the house. Dad has always been a construction guy. Over the years he built custom cabinets as side jobs, and he appreciated detailed woodworking and craftsmanship. So when he saw the fireplace mantel, he commented in his own way, that it really wasn't his style. It was one of those modern rustic mantels made from a rough slab of wood. Plenty of people love that look. Dad just preferred something with more detai

Around this time, I started hearing from Dad more often. She was still involved, but it didn't feel like she was as present as she had been before. There were more phone calls and lunches with Dad, though it was clear she was still in the picture. Before my birthday, Dad asked to take me out to lunch because on the day we were celebrating, he wanted to go to Grandpa's lake house. He said he wanted to go when Grandpa wasn't there because Grandpa always finds work to do when he

They have another cruise scheduled and actually have passport cards now. Scheduled to leave in August. Dad told us that they are going to have to cancel the cruise because money is tight after she retired. We didn't know she had retired. There were talks about her thinking about retiring and mentions of how she was training her replacement. I told dad that if they cancelled now, they would not get a full refund. He said they would get 85% back. This does not line up with the

So we thought this was where the blog would finally be all caught up to the "now." And it pretty much is. So where do we stand? Things are still complicated. We still try to protect Dad while also allowing his decisions to be his decisions. She's still lying. We have proof of that too. He doesn't care and doesn't want to hear it. So we spend a lot of time just sitting back and watching. He says to me and Justin all the time, "Y'all act like y'all have never messed up," or "Sh