What

A hospital bead project.

It reads:

grace is given for that which cannot be forgiven.

It gives her a sense of peace and purpose I guess. Which is good, she’s been struggling to find that with her injuries and condition. She’s learning skills, and feeling prepared for “the worst”. Like I can’t get her to stop watching conspiracy theory bullshit on YouTube so at least this kind of content alleviates some of the anxiety the other content amplifies, because she feels like she can do something now to secure her safety later.

But to get through these conversations, I have to tell myself— hey, if natural disaster comes our way, some of this might be useful. But I know she’s not just thinking a big storm or natural disaster. She’s preparing for the collapse of society. And I don’t know how to break it to her that we wouldn’t survive that. You can make long lasting candles with crisco? Cool. Where you going to by crisco when society collapses? You’ll stock up now? Ok cool. What will you do when it runs out? Honestly, before it runs out, what will you do when people with guns come to take your various stockpiled supplies?

If we hit a point where society collapses, we’re done for. Food, medicine, etc. we can’t survive without society, without a world where people are working together trying to help each other out.

Get her into a fibercraft. Sewing, knit, crochet. Because here’s the thing:

At first, you can pitch it as “we’re all still gonna need clothes and these idiots with their doomsday bunkers can’t even thread a needle.” But after awhile—let this take a bit of time, not so long that she gets bored but long enough that she’s like “I’ve DONE this already”—introduce her to a slightly more advanced concept. She was practicing on circle skirts? Check out how to make darts. Crochet blankets? There are SO MANY cool stitches.

And then when the craft has a decent grip as a hobby….THEN you introduce her to a crafting social group.

So I started casually mentioning i wanted to do Search and Rescue- knowing my father is incredibly competitive and will try and out do me.

I was all "but we can't rely on the government to find people!"

Now he has been on 6 different tours in the US. He is a field commander and the most successful in state history.

He independently made a partnership with a Black and Missing coalition and partners with them on searches for Black Ohio and.

He called me the other day so proud he has " a Trans and a nonbinary whatever that is" on his search team. So is he perfect? No. But now he isn't toting a gun around and threatening people.

He's getting better. Sure he built a secret bunker in the basement. But he's recovered multiple bodies and reunited people with loved ones.

Sure we still can't have a conversation without him divulging into some bigoted speak here and there.

But he's been lead in recovering teens trafficked from our state and successfully recovered them in Georgia in 10 hours.

Sure he isn't perfect. But he didn't fall completely and maybe he will become even better on his own.

there is very little community for non-churchgoing white folks.

There is such a push in white culture to get your kids out the door and settled in their own home after you've raised them nearly exclusively alone for 20 years. Your work friends are your work friends. You retire and they don't see you anymore.

You don't go to church? All of the church groups don't see you.

Because the prevalent culture among white people is go it alone. If you're lucky and not divorced, you get your partner, but usually the go it alone is so pervasive that even working as a team with one other person is usually too hard, not to mention the stress of only having one person and how you have no place to vent about that person when needed (and everyone sometimes needs to vent about their loved ones no matter how good the relationship.)

So you get to this place where your culture has led you and you have grown-up kids, no spouse, no friends, and a whole lot of undefinable resentment about your life that you're not supposed to feel.

And this person on youtube comes along and says "Fuck them all, society will collapse any day now."

And you nod along in agreement.

But if you have a hobby, and start making friends from that hobby?

Suddenly that support system vents all of those icky building resentments and you can depend on people and make friends and have relationships and the world doesn't feel so bad.

People who are on the grind to grow/raise/slaughter their own food or to make their own clothing quickly realize that no, they CANNOT do it all, there's not enough hours in the day, but they learn what neighbors are doing what, and they start to swap and barter and trade and sell.

Someone's hot sauce for eggs, some deer meat for fruit preserves, honey for medicinal homegrown herbs. Work trades happen too - you help us repair our roof while we'll help you repair your plumbing, or someone who will watch your place when you're gone and vice versa.

Sometimes a friend will have a ridiculous harvest and push pear preserves on you. You'll pay her back someday, somehow, perhaps by giving her little brother (who is watching her place) extensive gardening guidance.

People just watching videos who are just getting started might not realize that, or who just don't think it through fully. I doubt the videos go into the community aspect.

It turns out, he has pneumonia and high glucose blood levels. The pneumonia made a hospital reject giving him first aid care this Monday (22/3) despite his COVID tests showing up negative because they were "incapable of handling a possible COVID patient" due to the fact that my dad's lungs x-rays had signs of infection on it. Keep in mind that he has a high fever and isn't even able to walk or go to the bathroom by himself. They didn't even provide a sufficient IV drip for my dad or a fitting oxygen mask. Monday night we brought him home in hopes of treating his sickness at home because we couldn't afford any other options. At 1am, he woke up from his sleep at home and puked. We brought him to an ER 30 mins away that told us on the phone that they would take a patient with possible pneumonia as long as their COVID-19 test come out negative. When we got there, they just stood there for 20 mins looking at my dad convulsing in the car before rejecting to give him care after I showed him his lung results. I begged them to at least give him first aid but they told me condescendingly that if my dad passed away, they wouldn't be liable. So I went home in tears.

Tuesday 6AM my dad went into septic shock. Money be damned, I called an ambulance from a private hospital that informed me they would take possible patients despite them having COVID or not. I thought that my dad could get the first aid help and then later be admitted to a normal room, but when the medics arrived the first thing they told me was: he has to be put into an ICU.

I have just recently resigned from my job due to high risk of COVID-19 exposure, and both my mom and my sibling are unemployed. We've asked for friends and family for help, but it's just not enough given that we don't have an insurance and an ICU room costs $1k/night. As we're living in a third world country, no medical action will be taken before we given if we don't pay first. We've used up all of our penny to the last drop to keep my dad plugged into the ICU machines and keep him alive to this daym

As of right now, he's fighting as hard as he can to keep his body alive. He's doing his best, and I know I should do my best too. I've ran out of options.

If you can help us, please donate at my gofundme or paypal. If you can't, a reblog would help immensely.

His whole life, my dad has always teased me that I don't love him as I never express it verbally. You know how us Asians get- I never said it to him because I assumed that he should just know.

Please help me tell my dad that I love him to his face.