Microstory 2310: Whole World

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Welp, pretty much everything is out of this place. I’ve stuck all of Nick and Dutch’s possessions in temporary storage, along with a lot of my own stuff. I packed up the other rooms too, like the kitchen, to give the majority of it away. I’m only keeping a little bit for myself, like a couple of plates, a few forks, etc. Like I’ve said, I don’t need much, and I don’t need much space. The three of us actually struggled to furnish this oversized house when we first moved in. Now that I’m re-downsizing, I can go back to a simpler way of doing things. It’s surreal to be in this place now. It’s so empty and creepy; even worse than it was just last week. I’m going to snag a few nights at a hotel until my new place is ready for me to move in. Both the seller and I are highly motivated to expedite the process. We could finalize it by Monday. I told you yesterday that I won’t have a whole lot to say for these last few posts, and it would seem that I was totally right about that. I’ll try to come up with some memorable final words to say, but I am not a wordsmith, like Nick was, so don’t get your hopes up. Until next week, I would just like to thank you all for joining us on this journey. Every blog starts out with zero followers, but now you number in the hundreds of millions. That’s amazing. Thank you so much. It’s sad, how it ended, but at least we had a little time together, and I wouldn’t trade that in for the world. Nope, I’m not supposed to say that. Nick taught me to never say that. He put it in perspective for me. It’s the whole world. I would give up just about anything for it if I didn’t already own it anyway. Ha, I’m not sure I agree with that, but I can appreciate the sentiment. Have a good weekend.

Microstory 2309: Going to Peter Out

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There’s really nothing going on today. Buying a house involves a bunch of boring stuff that I don’t want to tell you about any more than you want to hear it. Selling one isn’t any more interesting. I had no idea that my life was headed in this direction. I’m only 18, and I’m already living alone. When I first started working at the nursery, I didn’t know what my career would be. I figured that it would be something in the medical field, but I wasn’t aware of all my options at the time. When I read the job description for Lifecare Assistant, I knew that that’s what I wanted to do, and I never changed my mind. I only stopped working because I became so involved in my first patient’s life, and then it all snowballed, and now here I am. Is this what I want to do now instead...nothing? I think I need to go back to work. I need to do something important every day. I saw Nick struggling to find purpose once he got all this money, but now I realize that he had it the whole time with his writing. He was just keeping it a secret from everyone. He wasn’t just lounging about. I can’t do that either. I need to contribute to the world, and not just through the charitable donations that I’m maintaining. Those handle themselves. I’m going to call the agency first thing tomorrow morning to see about getting back in rotation. It’s a national agency, by the way, so don’t think this means you know where I’m moving to. I’m sure a lot of you were hoping that—if it had to end—this blog would go out in a blaze of glory. But it looks like it’s just going to peter out. I think that’s okay.

Microstory 2295: Stress Out of the Process

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What I’ve learned is that the publicity firm that Nick was using to protect his life story from rumors and lies is no stranger to memorial services. A few of their clients have died while they were working with them, and their survivors can purchase a new package to help with arrangements. Some clients even purchase it ahead of time in anticipation, like one would reserve a burial spot in a cemetery because they know they’re gonna die eventually. Nick didn’t do that, because he didn’t even think to hire anyone when his health started to decline from the prion infection. Well, I think he did consider it way back then, but he didn’t have the money, and didn’t follow through until later. Anyway, I purchased the memorial package, so they’re handling everything. I’ll be signing off on all decisions, but I won’t have to think them up myself, which takes a lot of the stress out of the process, so I’m grateful for their help in this matter. Or perhaps they should be thanking me for my help, if they’re the ones taking point. I did secure a reservation for the Causeway Center in Chicago, though. It’s so last minute that someone already had the auditorium booked. Homes for Humankind and CauseTogether.hope have assured me that whoever it was was happy to push it back to another day, but it’s hard for me to imagine how that’s possible. That room can accommodate hundreds of people, which means that they have to contact hundreds of people to alert them to the change in dates. I suppose that’s not necessarily true. Maybe they booked the whole place for an audience of eleven. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out who it was, and if they’re really okay, but I can’t seem to find any information. You would think that an event like that would be advertising somewhere so customers could sign up for their thing instead. If you know what was supposed to be happening in the auditorium next Friday, shoot me a message. I feel that I owe them a thank you. In the meantime, I’m flying up to look at the venue this weekend, but I’ve already seen photos, and it looks great.

Microstory 2294: Mostly Long and Narrow

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What Nick’s publicists and I determined is that people from all over the country, and indeed all over the world, are interested in coming to his and Dutch’s memorial service. Because of this, we decided that it didn’t have to take place in Kansas or Missouri. If you’ll recall, there were some issues months ago when someone created an unauthorized CauseTogether.hope campaign for him. Despite the issue, he’s maintained a healthy and amicable professional relationship with the website. At the same time, he was working with Homes for Humankind. As it turns out, the house-building organization and the charitable fundraising platform teamed up some years ago to build a sort of convention center. It is here that charities come together, and reach out to their donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries. It’s located in Chicago, which is fitting, since the three of us went there one time on the Heartland Expressway, and Nick visited the city many times in his home universe. The Humankind Causeway Center is mostly long and narrow to fit the theme of its namesake, but there are two larger buildings on either end. One contains a large ballroom, and the other boasts an auditorium that can fit about 900 people. I can’t imagine that quite so many mourners will sign up to attend the service, but it should be great for our needs. We’re still working out the dates, but I’ll keep you updated as needed. Gratitude for all your words of love and togetherness during this difficult time.

Microstory 2293: Hits Some Harder

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New plan. Dutch has been presumed dead as well, so I’m planning a single memorial service for the both of them. They were good friends, I think they would have liked that. People have been commenting on social that it’s some sort of money-saving scheme. Trust me, we don’t need to save money. We’re millionaires, remember? Well, I am, anyway. I’ve not spoken with the lawyers yet, but I believe all the money goes to me. Yay, I’m rich! I’ve always wanted to lose my best friends so I can live alone in a big empty house. In case you can’t tell from the written word, that’s sarcasm. I hate this. This was never the plan after Dutch opened that door, and cured Nick with space magic. Nothing will be changing. Nick decided where he wanted to regularly make donations, and I have no reason to alter that plan. We invested some of it, to make it grow, so we can keep donating beyond what we already have. That’s why we didn’t just disperse the lump sum, and walk away. All right, I better get back to work. It takes me a long time to get anything done, because I often have to stop and cry. I can’t provide you with details about the memorial service right now, but I’ll make an announcement shortly on my own social media account. We need to gauge how many people will want to come. He wasn’t the kind of person who needed a lot of people to attend, but he told me that it’s not about him. If a large crowd shows up, then whatever, so I have to make sure the venue can accommodate them. We all have a different relationship with death. Most people obviously don’t like it, but it hits some harder than others. They can feel grief for those they’ve never met. Some even feel it when they learn of a person’s death who they had never even heard of before. Who are we to judge their reactions? I’m getting a lot of messages from people who are interested in being there, so I think we’re gonna have quite a large audience. I’ll let you know when I can. I’ll probably have to get our publicity firm involved since I’m sure they have experience with this stuff.

Microstory 2280: Peaks and Valleys

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I’m back home, and feeling much better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in a lot of pain, and it’s difficult to move around, but this is a far superior environment. Man, I feel like I’m so out of touch these days, bragging about my large house, and private medical team. I never wanted to become this, but you have to admit, healthcare is better without all those other sick people. Jesus, what the hell! Why did I just say that? And why am I not deleting, and starting over with a more relatable tone? It would be really nice if this were how everyone lived. Or would it? How would that even work? Everyone’s rich, so they can hire a private home staff, but then who are these home staffers? This sounds like a caste system. So maybe there’s a happy medium between traditional healthcare, and private. I suppose things could get better and more comfortable for more people by improving the ratio. Fewer patients per medical professional would make it easier for each one to focus, and not be spread so thin. Maybe they could work shorter shifts, and have a better work-life balance too. Is that what I should do? Should I be concentrating all my money on healthcare reform? I’ve always thought that I should be distributing it across a number of causes, relatively evenly, but I’ve heard that it’s more productive in the long run if everyone chooses one or two causes to be passionate about. I dunno, I’ll need to see some numbers. In the meantime, despite my circumstances, things are looking up today. Watch, now people will start taking bets when the next bad thing will happen to me, and maybe what it will be. That’s how it always seems to go. Peaks and valleys. Peaks and valleys. Anyway, I’m going to put all that out of my mind, and just try to live in the moment. Nobody’s rethinking their charitable contributions today. Best not to make any big decisions while you’re on drugs, right?

Microstory 2274: Thanks Again

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Nick is awake, and already improving. It will be a constant battle for the rest of his days, but as long as he takes care of himself, and is diligent about his medicine, he should lead a pretty normal and long life. He will always be a transplant recipient, but that won’t be all that defines him forever. Right now, they’re focusing on determining the best cocktail of anti-rejection medication, and also pain management. He doesn’t like narcotics, so that’s really limiting for him. He’s doing a lot of breathing exercises to cope with the pain holistically. Overall, there is not much that I can say so far. We’re very optimistic about his recovery, but there are no guarantees. It’s going to take work, patience, and the aid of a great hospital team. I would like to once again the donors who selflessly gave my friend what he needed to survive, live, and thrive. We still don’t know who you are, but if you give us a chance, we’ll be able to thank you in person. To everyone else, thank you for all of your continued support in these desperate times. Another CauseTogether campaign sprung up to pay for the new medical bills. He doesn’t need it this time either, so we’re just going to turn right around, and donate it to another cause; perhaps to survivors of trafficking, or something along those lines. Oh, I’m typing this up in his room while he’s trying to sleep, so I’m gonna stop here for now. Thanks again!

Microstory 2268: Change is My Status Quo

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Welp, yesterday, while you thought all I was thinking about was my meeting with the President, I was actually out doing volunteer work. I was once again rolling up my sleeves, and building houses with Homes for Humankind. I didn’t tell anyone that I was going to do that, because I didn’t want there to be yet another media frenzy, and I’m happy to report that it worked. I put in the work with everyone else, and for hours, didn’t have to worry about all these threats to my life. My security team was there, but instead of standing around in suits and sunglasses, they wore regular clothes, and volunteered too. All of the other volunteers knew who I was, and who my friends were, but they didn’t give me any crap about it. They didn’t give me preferential treatment, or ask me a bunch of questions. Everyone has a story, and it was nice to listen to other people’s, instead of thinking about my own. Some of them really understand a desire for anonymity, so no one leaked information. Still. I feel lucky that we never got caught. Wow, saying that, it makes it sound like I was doing something wrong. This is stressing me out, seeing threats at every turn. I don’t know that I’ll be able to pull it off again. Is that part of my life just over? Will I never be able to just go out and contribute to my community without it ending up on the news, or having to avoid that by going in disguise? Kelly says that I should accept that my life is different than it used to be, and pointed out that change is my status quo. She’s probably right. I’ve complained about rich people only helping others by donating money, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe that’s all I really can do without simultaneously shifting focus to me instead of the cause.

Microstory 2266: Those Little Lifestyle Differences

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Things are changing again. Dutch is totally okay, but none of us wants to go to the hospital again for any reason, whether it’s from overreacting, or something serious. Our security team has all but insisted that we find a doctor to come to our house whenever we need it. We will not be advertising this person’s name, nor any support staff that they’ll find themselves in need of. I didn’t want to take money away from the charities for ourselves, but I don’t think we have any choice. We went to the hospital for Dutch in secret, but we still got caught up in a media frenzy. Now I know why generational wealthy people have always paid others to do things for them. It’s not because they’re incapable, but because everything seems to paint a target on their backs. I never thought that I would become this person, even with all the money in the world. I believe in the common good. But we’re all still in danger from the outside world, so if we have to be a little isolated, then these are the things that I’ll accept. I’ll have security guards operating down the hallway. I’ll have a medical professional either live here, or come to work in this house—every day, or however it ends up working. I can’t start sliding down the slippery slope, though. I have to find ways to stay grounded, and connected to regular people. I don’t want to become everything I hated about the richest people in my universe. Sure, there’s plenty they did that was just despicable and ruthless that I’ll never have to worry about, but it’s those little lifestyle differences that I’m now realizing are what you really have to be on the lookout for. Don’t let me become a jerk, please.

Microstory 2264: Tell You a Secret

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Yeah, it’s true, I’m considering relenting, and writing an autobiography. I didn’t want to do that, but I’m told that passively donating my money to various charities isn’t enough. I have to bolster my reputation through action. This could mean volunteer work, and hopefully one day, I’ll feel safe enough to get back out there without a posse of bodyguards. But for now, the charities need a reason to accept my donations. They don’t just take money from anyone. That can cause a whole lot of sociopolitical issues, as you can imagine. People are also making things up about me, because even though I’ve been talking about myself on this site, it’s not really organized, and it evidently doesn’t have enough about my past. People wanna know where I came from, and what my world is like. They’re envisioning wondrous and grand differences that just aren’t there. I guess it’s my job to set the record straight. Against my publicist’s instructions, I’m gonna tell you a secret, which is that I hate autobiographies. It’s not just because, how dare you think your life is so interesting that anyone would want to read about it, but also they’re usually pretty boring. But I may have no choice if someone else decides to write one of their own, and gets a ton of stuff wrong. I’ve not committed to anything yet. It’ll take a long time to write, and I don’t want it taking away from my other responsibilities.

Microstory 2258: Loyal and Protective

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So the reporters are gone, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped coming to our house. We’re still getting harassers, but not because they want to know our story. What they want is money. Kelly, despite being so young, has known a lot of people throughout her life. She took a wide array of classes in high school, and participated in a ton of extracurricular activities. She’s easy to get along with, and is well-liked by her peers. But she only had a small group of real friends. They know who they are, and they’ve supported her during this crazy ordeal. Others just want a payday, and they’re contriving deeper relationships with her in their respective headcanons in order to leverage them for personal gain. I’m rich now, and so are Dutch and Kelly. Many of the latter’s former contacts have been showing up, suddenly showing interest in her life, and they could not be more transparent. Their motives are obvious, to me, to Kelly, and most importantly, to our security team. These people aren’t camping out on the lawn, fortunately, but they do keep ringing that bell. They wouldn’t be able to do that, of course, without the reporters having doxxed us, but I don’t want to get into another rant about that. I just need to clear the air. The money that we now have is not for fun. It’s not so we can buy a private jet, and a megayacht. It’s not so we can start adding caviar to every meal. We have a job to do, and this capital allows us to do it. Our house is as big as it is because there are three of us, we’re not romantically linked, and we need room for live-in security, as well as some home office space. We see it as an investment in our well-being and responsibilities, not as a status symbol. We’re giving money away to charities, and social programs, not to just random individuals, no matter how big of a crush they purportedly had on one of us in ninth grade history class. I hope that all makes sense, because I’m loyal and protective, and if you start making one of my people feel uncomfortable and unsafe, then you’ll find yourself feeling the same things. Understood? Okay, then I don’t think we need to talk about it again.

Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Microstory 2232: Death’s Doorstep

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Nick is finally out of the hospital, and back home on his cozy couch. This all happened so fast that getting out of the lease wasn’t on his radar at all. I would have kept paying the rent, and lived there myself if it had come down to it. It’s not like they could have charged a dead guy. His will was clear, that all his money was to go to charity upon his passing; nothing was set aside for debts. I’m sure it would have happened anyway, but I did not study law, and neither did he. Now it doesn’t matter, and we don’t have to worry about that anymore, yay! He’s not quite ready to get back to this website, and not because he’s not feeling up to it, but because he needs to reconsider his life choices. I mean, he had to leave his job because of his poor health, and he knew fairly early on that he was never going back. Now things have changed, but does that mean that he should start leading the team again? Jasmine is doing fine job work, and he wouldn’t want to take that from her. It’s not like he was ever more qualified for the position. He’s not sure if he would want to get back into the business anyway. Things were going on in his head while he was dying that he was unable—or unwilling—to express. I’ve been updating you on what’s going on with his life, but his personal thoughts were a big part of the posts that he wrote himself, which I obviously couldn’t have provided. This has changed him in ways that we could never understand. The first time that he was on death’s doorstep, he gained his immortality right away, but this time, he sat in it. He lived through it for an extended period of time. That would change anyone. We’re going to take his reintroduction to the world of the living one step at a time, so please be patient with us while we figure it out. I have my own life to consider. I was hired to keep him safe and comfortable, in ways that he was unable to do for himself, but my job is over now. Per protocol, I should be moving on to my next patient, but this experience has changed me too. I need to think about whether I even want to do this anymore. Nick says that I should, because that’s why I went to school, and my motivations for doing it ought to still be there, but of course, it’s complicated. Stay tuned, I guess.

Microstory 2174: To Be Distributed

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I had my last official meeting with my parole officer today. Since my sentence has been commuted, it’s no longer a legal requirement. You’ll recall that I was only assigned one in the first place because on paper, I went to prison, I just didn’t have to literally step foot inside of the facility. Well...I mean, I did later while I was staying in the infirmary section for my fungal infection a couple of months ago, but you know what I meant by that. I still have my community service left to do, but lots of people complete their hours without a PO at all, so the judge decided that I didn’t need one either. I hope that we can still be friends, though I recognize that this may not be appropriate, nor even possible. He’s a great guy who I think goes above and beyond in his job. He’s helped me out in a number of ways that I don’t think he was ever expected to. I’ve actually met a couple of his other parolees, and he wasn’t giving me any special treatment. That’s just who he is. He actually cares about us, and wants us to succeed, and isn’t just waiting for us to screw up. He derives no joy from putting people back in jail, though it has reportedly happened a few times over his career. I dunno, maybe I’ll just never see the man again. That would be all right too. I’m starting a new chapter in my life. I have a new job, and I still have to figure out what to do with all this money that y’all donated to me. It’s processing to my account. It could be a few days until it’s fully ready to be distributed.

I have some ideas of where it’s going to go, but I still need to do the math, because it’s going to be split amongst a number of different charitable organizations. They all involve the previously incarcerated. They need jobs, homes, and therapy to help them cope with being back in a world where their daily routines are no longer being controlled by someone else. Having been in intermittent jail, I didn’t experience much of this, I only got a taste. But it’s an overlooked characteristic of prison life. Yeah, for the most part, you’re not stuck in your cell 24/7, only eating slop, and drinking contaminated water. You usually get to go outside. But only at certain times, and for a certain duration. And it can be taken away from you if you do something that they don’t like. You can’t see your friends whenever you want, you can’t even choose your sleep schedule. That’s a hard life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to go back to the way it was before you were placed in there. I feel compelled to give back, so I suppose I should thank you for contributing to my unauthorized CauseTogether campaign. Do not take that as an invitation to start a new one in my name. I won’t tolerate that a second time, I’ll seek legal action, and if nothing else, make you look bad for not respecting my wishes. If you want to do some good for the world, then that website has a number of other campaigns that will be more than willing to take your money. Or you can start your own that doesn’t have anything to do with me. That site also has other features besides just temporary campaigns, so check those out. I’ll post the complete list of the organizations that I choose for the 50K later, so you can give directly to them too. You could perform community service too. When I’m better, I’ll be going back to Homes for Humankind, which actually has a special program that focuses on halfway homes, which have more specific needs. I’ll probably be giving them some money too. I know that it’s not an either-or situation, where you either donate or volunteer, but it does feel like I should kind of share the wealth a little more, doesn’t it?

Microstory 2173: Fighting the Cause Captain

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Today was meant to be a day of chilling. I’m done with my last job, and I’ve not yet officially started my new job. I was trying to have a short vacation, because I don’t know how crazy and hectic things are going to be. The facilities staff at the jail are working to get a workspace available to me for Monday. Hopefully they will not have worked too hard at it, because I’m sure I’ll be recovered enough to handle much of it myself. I really wanna get in there, and find and execute my own vision, since I know they have plenty of other work that they need to be worried about. That’s why I wanted to rest for the rest of the week, so I could be prepared for that. Unfortunately, my stress levels are through the roof. When you set up a charity campaign in CauseTogether.hope, there are a number of ways that you can format it. There can be an end date, or not. You can target a specific figure, and refund everyone’s money if it’s not reached, or only refund them if a given percentage of the goal isn’t received, which could be as low as 0%. They can even place a maximum amount, which when reached, will instantly close off all further donations. This should all be told to you upfront on the campaign’s page, so if you run across one that doesn’t divulge what they’ll be doing with your money, or under what circumstances they’ll charge you, report that to the administrators, because that goes against their policy. Anyway, for the campaign that an anonymous stranger set up to pay for my medical bills, they set a min/max of $50,000 with no target date in mind. Why is that number so high? Gee, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the person who did this “on my behalf” doesn’t know me, nor my financial situation. They don’t even know how much my total medical bills are. I wasn’t planning on telling you this, but after insurance, I was only going to have to pay roughly $14,000. I have really good insurance, because the company I work for has really good insurance options.

The CT campaign has ended, because they reached their goal in a matter of days, but I don’t plan on taking a single cent from it for myself. The only reason they reached this absurdly high goal was because I threatened to give the money to an incarcerated serial killer. I don’t think I was ever going to do that. I’ve not even researched who that might be, because I hoped that this remark would spell the end of it. It didn’t occur to me that some donors might give specifically to see that happen. What can a person serving life in prison do with all that money? Give it to corrupt guards so he can get a flatscreen TV, and a king-size bed in his own private cell? I really don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m fighting the Cause Captain who is still anonymous, and asking for—nay, demanding—my banking information so that they can transfer the money to me. My lawyer says that they would have ways of sneaking me the funds even without my permission. Even though I could theoretically just leave that 50K sitting there in whatever account they ended up creating, people did sacrifice their money, even if it was for all the wrong reasons, so something should probably be done with it. I don’t know what. All I know is that I’m not taking it. My therapist advised me to not get so worked up about it. The deed is done, and I don’t have the power to refund the Cause Champions. I really should donate it to some other charity. Hit me up if you have ideas, I guess. Again, it’s 50,000, so it doesn’t have to only be one charity, if you guys send me multiple good ideas.

Microstory 2046: Pennsylvania

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You might have heard of ALS already. People were dumping ice water on their heads to raise money for it several years ago. They still haven’t found a cure, though. I really wish they had, because then my papa would still be here today. That doesn’t mean that scientists aren’t trying to find a cure. Massachusetts has some really good doctors, but my fathers heard of a specialist in Pennsylvania who knew a lot about it, so they wanted to meet with her. I had to stay with my cousins again. My fathers flew down to Philadelphia without me. I don’t know what they talked about, because no one will tell me, but they obviously didn’t solve the problem, because my papa is dead now.

Microstory 2024: Louisiana

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It was a couple of years before papa took a lot of time off from work all at once again. He would sometimes take one or two days off, or he would do his volunteer work on the weekends. He would hand food out to people who couldn’t afford it, and he would build houses. He did a few runs to raise money for different charities. He was always working, even when he wasn’t working. In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina formed in the Gulf of Mexico. When it hit land, it destroyed a bunch of homes, and people even died. The news called it devastating. None of us was even alive yet, but my papa was. He asked for an emergency vacation, and his boss let him have it. Papa spent an entire Thursday learning new skills with the Auxiliary Support Branch. If you have an older friend or relative who donated blood, they probably did it through ASB. They provide volunteer aid all over the continent, and they were in charge of something called disaster relief after the big hurricane, along with the government. The next day after his new training in Chicago, they called to tell him that they needed him to fly to Louisiana on Saturday. So without much warning, he did that, and was sent to a shelter for people who had just lost their homes. Because of his experience as an engineer, he was put in charge of Facilities. It wasn’t an official job, they just needed someone, and there was so much chaos, volunteers just had to do whatever they could to help. He made sure that each resident had a cot to sleep on and blankets, and that there was enough kitchen stuff to feed everybody, and stuff like that. He spent so much time there that he had to take time off, even though this was time off. We’ll talk about that on the next slide.

Microstory 2023: Kansas

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In September of 2004, my papa had worked for the private submarine company for more than two years, and he had not taken any vacation. His boss, who was his friend, was worried about him, so he asked him to take the time off, or he would lose it. But papa didn’t like to just sit around, doing nothing. He wanted to be accomplishing something. One of the hobbies that he picked up was bicycling. Whenever he had the time, he liked to ride his bike from his house to his sister’s place, which was about 20 miles away. It took him a couple of hours, and it was a workout, and he really enjoyed it. He decided to take his longest ride yet. Instead of just going a few towns over, he wanted to go a few states over. He plotted a route that went all the way from Chicago to Kansas City. What a lot of people don’t know is that there are two Kansas Cities. One is in Missouri and the other is in Kansas, of course. They’re right next to each other, and the one in Missouri is actually larger. He had already been to Missouri, because of his friends who lived in Independence, which is considered part of the whole Kansas City area. The distance from where he started was over 630 miles, and it took him two weeks to ride the entire way! He rode about 45 miles per day, which is pretty impressive, I must say. He couldn’t really explain to me why he chose to go there. He just wanted to. Once he made it to Kansas City, Kansas, he spent one night there. He donated his bicycle to a charity for kids. Then he took a plane back home. I think this was a pretty cool thing that he did, and I’m so proud of him. Maybe one day, I’ll do something like it, but probably not to Kansas City, since it’s 1,700 miles from here!

Microstory 2021: Tennessee

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Papa was only an active member of the Navy for four years. He thought about staying in, but ended up not. It’s all because of something he did as his required time was ending. He was still in the reserves after this, but he wasn’t working on the sub anymore. While he was trying to make a decision, friends of his from college called him up, and asked him if he wanted to work with them on a mission trip in Tennessee. They were Mormons, and they were doing it for their church, but that wasn’t going to be what the trip was about. There was an old folks home in a small town outside of Memphis. He was in Arkansas at the time, so he wasn’t very far away. That’s probably why they called him. He took a bus to the home, and got to work. The people who owned it didn’t have very much money, and they were having trouble keeping their residents comfortable. Don’t worry, they all always had their medicine and stuff, but there were other issues. They couldn’t afford plants, or nice paintings for the walls. The biggest issue was the courtyard, which is a space that is outside, but it has walls around it. Residents can go and sit down and enjoy being outside, but it wasn’t very pretty at this place. I don’t think my papa spent much time on that, though. He basically became a volunteer handyman. While the others were planting trees, he fixed things around the building, because he was an engineer. What he said was that this was an eye-opening experience. He wanted to spend more time doing things like that. Of course he was helping people when he was serving this country, but he decided that there were things that he should do outside of it. That’s what led him to leaving the Navy, as an active officer at least.

Microstory 2005: South Dakota

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When I was 8 years old, my papa and dad took me to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore, but this wasn’t the first time that papa went there. He went when he was 11 with his whole sixth grade class. Lots of people who live in that area like to do that. It’s this big mountain with four presidents’ faces carved into it. You’ve probably seen pictures. It was really cool at first for me, but then I was a little bored. You would probably have just as much fun with a really good picture. I was just with my dads, but my papa went with his class, even though the school he went to didn’t have very much money. His family was probably the richest in the town, but that is not something they bragged about. They used their money to help people. And one of the things that they did was pay for the whole trip for all of the kids! The teachers wanted the kids to go, and the kids wanted to go, but a lot of the parents couldn’t afford it. So my grandpa donated 3,000 dollars! They only needed $2,500, but he added a little more so they could get a little bit better motel to sleep in for one night, and a little bit better food to eat. All of the families were really happy that the kids were able to go on the trip. The class made this big thank you card for my papa, and gave it to him, even though it wasn’t really his money. Anyway, my papa liked the trip, and he learned a lot about mountains and the presidents there. I don’t think I learned as much as he did, but I’m still glad that I got to go too.