A reader messaged me, spoke her mind and then blocked me from being able to reply back, so here’s my public reply if she doesn’t read my email:
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Hey,
I saw your message but you obviously blocked me because I can’t reply to you.
1. I don’t always attack Americans and all American things, but your healthcare you must admit is #%*& UP not to mention your policies on immigration and the rampant racism down there.
2. I am ALREADY fronting $5,000 to my aunt to pay for a trip down there to go and personally help.
It is looking like more money because I am also going to pay for my brother to come with me, so it is closer to $7000 + whatever she has to pay for rent deposits etc.
I am leaving my small son, flying down there, paying for hotels, shifting her from one state to another…
Now I have to also deal with a $400 USD/day bill because of the #%(*#% up American healthcare system for an aunt who got beaten and robbed in a small city where everyone knows her and she should have been safe?
It’s not that it’s a low hit to my net worth, and it’s not the money.
It’s the frustration and stress of having to do all of this in the first place. I feel like the community failed her.
3. Now you are insulting ME by saying how “you like Hispanic families better because they help even though they’re poor”.
To be clear, I have never even met this aunt in my life, and my mother hasn’t even visited her in 55 years, and I am doing all of this.
4. If you are unable to speak your mind and then deal with the consequences, perhaps it is best that you don’t voice your opinions.
I am all right with voicing my own feelings and opinions to how crappy your American healthcare system is, because I am willing to deal with the fallback from arguments and anger of Americans at their system.
5. I never said Canada was amazing, I just said it is the best country for me, but even more so with this healthcare shocker.
It really seems like you can’t live in the U.S. without being rich and hoping you never get sick. Even your fellow Americans agree with me.
6. Your comments hurt me.
You saying “LOL” to all of this is brushing off a very hurtful, painful situation I am going through rather than realizing that I am under a lot of stress & frustration at the whole situation.
Don’t you think I would have already offered to have her come up here and immigrate?
Do you think I’m some sort of monster who only cares about money?
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I DO NOT THINK AMERICA IS THE WORST
TO BE CLEAR.
I DO NOT THINK YOU OR YOUR COUNTRY IS THE WORST.
Get over it.
I have American family members, I have American friends (some very good ones), and I think the country is on the whole, a GOOD COUNTRY with lots of great qualities and fantastic people, some of the nicest I have ever met and with the best customer service in the world, bar none, which spoils me for anything in any country, frankly.
It is as a country, far better than 50% of the world, it has major advances in all areas that Canada can’t even begin to compete with (we just built a freakin’ Space arm for a shuttle in space, that’s our only claim to fame).
So to repeat:
I DO NOT THINK YOU OR THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORST.
…BUT YOUR HEALTHCARE, IS #*&#@# UP.
I am obviously biased, but yeah, I think know your healthcare system for sure is one of the most screwed up things in the world.
Anyone who disagrees with me, has never gotten seriously sick, and/or has a lot of money.
Canada may not have the best healthcare, but I’ll be damned if anyone finds it normal that someone would receive $1000 a month from Social Security (even having worked her entire life like a dog for a slave wage of $3/hour), and then get almost half of it $450 of it taken out of her paycheque to pay for her health each month.
W.T.F.
Or how about the people whom I have met who haven’t seen a doctor in years because they couldn’t afford the $1000 bill?
Or the guy who had cancer but still had to drag his ass to work every day because if he didn’t, his medical coverage would end and he would just die at home in pain?
I AM NOT SOME MISERLY SCROOGETTE
Maybe you’re not clear on what is happening but I am not a miserly Scrooge. I am already going to be paying $5000 – $7000 (just the initial outlay) for my brother and I to fly down there and personally fix this situation and move her to a new place, pay for everything and set her up.
I am thinking it will be more $8000 by the time everything is done. Stuff is not cheap in $USD when you are Canadian.
IT IS NOT THE GODDAMN MONEY I AM MAD ABOUT.
I am not angry at spending the money itself, I am angry at the whole DAMN SITUATION.
I am angry that her community failed her, and her community whom she has lived with for decades were desperate enough to think that attacking a senior woman who lives on a whisper of a penny was OKAY and ALL RIGHT.
I am angry at the fact that she gets so little and the little that she has, is taken away from her to pay for what is a Basic Human Right.
I am angry that she doesn’t want to come up here and live. We have offered countless times in the past, and even just now, and she refuses to come up here because of the winter.
THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU INSULT OR JUDGE SOMEONE
You don’t know the whole story. You never do.
That’s a hard lesson I had to learn, but it is something I find is one of the best ones to pass on.
Someone is angry? Rude? Ranting? Upset? Sad? Happy? You don’t know what is happening in their life just from a glance at a grocery store, or a few blog posts.
You really don’t.
I have been under some serious stress ever since I found out what happened to my aunt and I have had to deal with this not being there in the same country, not knowing the laws and rules, AND dealing with a toddler, while trying to get information just via telephone or the internet.
I am FRUSTRATED.
I HAVE NEVER EVEN MET THIS AUNT IN MY LIFE
To be clear, I have never met this aunt in my life and I am going to help her because she’s my aunt.
My mother has 15+ siblings. I have met only 7 of them in my entire life and none within the past 10 years.
Actually, my entire immediate family has never met her except for my mother, who last saw her 50+ years ago but keeps in touch via telephone.
We had NO IDEA she was going through this. She never once complained, never once said anything about how hard her life was, and whenever we tried to do things for her, she was thankful and happy, but we had no idea about her situation because she never said anything or asked for help.
My mom also has never mentioned any of her or this family history to any of us until just recently.
Had we known this before, we would have settled it beforehand.
Then when I hear about this situation of what happened to her, I saw red.
I was upset, crying, angry, and after strongly considering the whole situation, I offered to go, shift her to a new state where she feels safer, and pay for the entire shebang.
So saying you “prefer Hispanic families because they help even when they’re poor“, is unspeakably insulting not to mention stereotypically racist.
So what, you can only be good if you’re of Hispanic origin?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
There are good AND bad families in every religion, race and ethnicity, not to mention at all income levels.
Are you telling me there are no Hispanic families who exist out there who are filthy rich who don’t steal from their own kind, and pretend their family members don’t need help?
Or that we are the scum of the earth because we’re not Hispanic and because we have money, we’re being selfish with it?
Please.
I am furious at the whole situation and angry at the American system for failing in this one regard because it is personal, it is family and it is hurting everyone right now.
So if anyone has anything else to say to me, this is the time to do it.
UPDATE
So this reader, put me on something like PF blog subscriptions and started sending some really “unhinged” emails (in her words), spamming me with about 30 messages in a fit of rage.
Please look into getting medicated. This is obviously an issue.
Oh, and get the @$(@% off my blog.
