What’s the most heartbreaking phone call you’ve ever gotten?
Drowning in Debt and Confrontation
The next few days Jake was still recovering from the multiple surgeries, and I was drowning in debt. The insurance company called me saying how much I owed for the vehicle and the damages from the accident. Jake wasn’t on my insurance, so they refused to cover the costs.
I was hundreds of thousands in the hole and knew this would take the rest of my life to pay off. I worked as an electrical engineer for an architecture and engineering firm and paid decent pay, but not enough to cover that much,. Every day at work my mind would be filled with rage while I was supposed to submit drawings to my manager.
I was angry because I loved my Mustang and now my brother might not be paralyzed due to this stupid decision. To make matters worse, I was now in debt. I had a bit of savings because I planned to move out of my house an hour and a half away and into a house near my job, but now that dream is gone because of the accident.
My brain fog got worse over the next few weeks and my work suffered from it. My supervisor would often come to my desk and ask if I was okay because I would sit in front of my computer screen without moving my mouse and stare at it without blinking. I started submitting work late when I was usually a person who considered submitting it on time was late.
The work that I submitted was usually wrong or needed improvements. I would stay long hours at the job without accomplishing anything on the agenda for the week. I could tell the people around me were noticing it too.
During lunch one day, I overheard my co-worker Katherine talking to my boss. She complained about having to do extra work without extra pay since I couldn’t complete my tasks on time. She said it wasn’t fair that she had to check over my work every time because it took her longer to correct my work instead of doing it herself. I felt my heart drop.
I knew I had to do something, but I felt hopeless.
I tried to be on my a-game at work the following weeks, but the stress of the insurance company became an everyday battle. They would often call to ask for their money and offered payment plans, but I couldn’t afford any of them. I then thought I might have to sell my current house and move into an apartment to pay off the debt collectors.
I felt like this incident kept putting me behind the goals I set for myself. One day, I got a call from my brother after he was recovering in rehab. He asked for money to help cover his medical bills and I told him about my situation.
He said
I normally help him when he needs me and asked why I couldn’t do it this time.
I said I had to sell my house just to make ends meet all because of him.
He told me
to f off and then hung up the phone.
The next few days his friends were calling me and harassing me for being unsupportive. Every time I tried to explain how much debt and turmoil Jake put me through, I was faced with criticism. They took it a step further and started posting things about me on social media.
They talked about my looks and how I was nothing without my car, and at that point that’s exactly how I felt. That car was the thing I loved the most in this world. When I was a kid, me and my granddad were really close.
We would do everything together. I’d help him mow the lawn and join him on the porch while he talked to his buddies. One day we looked through a magazine together and my Impala was featured.
He said
that he wished he could test drive it before he died.
He got cancer shortly after and was never able to drive the cherry red Impala,. Since that day I’ve wanted that car and finally got it. I wish I could have gotten it while he was alive, but I knew he was looking down on me and proud of me for living his dream.
When I tried to talk to me and Jake’s mutual friends, they would take Jake’s side, saying he was four years younger than me so I should understand and help support him financially. I wanted this nightmare to end. I called my parents and asked to meet up with them.
They were always at the hospital with Jake so I knew he would be there when I spoke to them that night. I met up with them at the hospital before I walked into the room. I overheard them saying they couldn’t up the allowance they were giving Jake because they had to help pay his medical bills.
I walked in and they looked like they’d seen a ghost. I asked them what they were talking about, and they tried to change the subject, asking how I was doing and how was my day at work. I then asked them how much money they had been giving Jake.
They never gave me an allowance growing up, especially not when I became an adult. They looked guilty and confessed that they’d been giving Jake a $500 allowance every week since he was 13. It all came together.
This is why he was so irresponsible and had no care for other people’s belongings. Mom and Dad had been enabling him since we were kids. I didn’t know what to say.
They were always stingy when I asked for anything, and finding out that Jake had been getting help from them for years felt like a stab in the back and a punch to the gut. This sad feeling then turned into anger when I began to think about how much I was in debt. Here my parents were bailing out Jake like they did every other time, and I was receiving backlash from my family and friends.
My parents tried to explain the reason why they supported him as much as they did, but I didn’t care to hear them out. I left the hospital to cool down. The next few months I bit the bullet and sold my house.
I got less than I wanted because I needed the money as soon as possible, which disappointed me, but at least my debt was cleared,. I moved into a nice apartment only 20 minutes from my job, which was a plus. Every time I visited Jake, his condition seemed to improve, however, my relationship with my parents would not.
Every visit would turn into an argument, and they would tell me how ungrateful I was and how I should just be happy that Jake was alive after the accident. Then Jake would often join in on the ridicule and blame me for his condition. My parents never said anything about how disrespectful Jake was to me.
They would only say that he was talking that way because of his medication or how much pain he was in or sometimes they’d say he was stressed. He didn’t know what stress looked like. I was growing tired of the whole family.
A few months later Jake left the hospital and lived with our parents. My parents were preparing for Thanksgiving dinner and wanted me to come. I knew that I shouldn’t after our rough interactions over the past couple of months, but I went against my better judgment,.
At dinner, my mom mentioned how good Jake looked and how well he walked. He said
he’d be walking much better if he wasn’t bedridden for almost a year.
I said
he wouldn’t have been in the hospital hit at all if he had listened to me and never stole my car.
He slammed his hand on the table and said
he wasn’t a thief and wasn’t talking to me.
My mom joins and tries to mediate the situation and just as she’s done for 19 years she takes his side, saying that I shouldn’t be so rough on him on Thanksgiving there. She went again. After all these years of taking his side, I was being blamed for my car being wrecked.
I told her that she was the reason that he was the way he was. I told her she and dad always enabled his behavior and they’re the reason he had to recover for so long. Just as they tried to argue more, I threw my fork on the table and left.
I hadn’t spoken to them since that day.
