onelifetosave

Well, at least it started off okay. I was a little worried that I would spend New Year’s Eve alone just like Christmas Eve, but I got a wonderful text message from my special girl that we would be having dinner and spending the night together. My plan quickly went into action. I visited her fav restaurant to make our reservations, then raced next door to order a dozen red roses in a vase for the table. I took the flowers back to the restaurant and asked them to make certain they were on our table for eight o’clock. Yes, I was a little nervous that she would be annoyed at my expression of love, but it was what I felt and wanted to do for her.

The reservations meant little, as they kept us waiting for an hour anyway, but as we approached our table and she saw the roses, she was thrilled! She thanked me over and over, saying how gorgeous they were. We had a wonderful meal and she got all affectionate. Probably more the wine than me, but I loved it. We got back to her place in time to open and pour the champagne I had brought into the champagne flutes in time for the ball to drop in Times Square. We kissed at midnight, just as I had hoped and then spent a wonderful night together. It was heaven.
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It’s a known fact that suicide rates are the highest at Christmas. Why? I think it is because we have all grown up with various Christmas traditions, most of them centering around family and friends. For me Christmas was a time of great joy, sharing the spirit of Christmas, first with my own mother, father, brother and sister, and all of our extended family. Every Christmas Eve we went to my Uncle Frank and Aunt Daisy’s place in Toronto to see family we hardly ever saw throughout the rest of the year. My Uncle Cliff always opened a giant box of gag gifts, lovingly put together by the family. It was always a hoot and something we looked forward to all year. He’s gone now, along with most of the older family, including my own mum and dad.
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Admittedly I write this very angry and upset. Just when you think nothing else can come along to beat you down, along comes HSBC, The Heartless Bank. After months of searching for any kind of work, without success, I finally managed to get a job at just above minimum wage, just in time for Christmas. Great, I thought! At least I might be able to get a couple of small things to try to celebrate the season.

I deposited my meager pay cheque on Sunday at the branch downtown. Last night I tried to take out $40 to do some Christmas shopping, but the system said “insufficient funds”. It also showed my available funds were more than forty dollars, so I was confused. I figured there was a problem with the machine and I would call in the morning.

When I called I was advised, for the first time, that all deposits are held for SIX days. No one told me this when I first opened the account months ago, or I would not have opened it. I have been with HSBC for some fifteen years, but this didn’t mean a thing to them. I called my branch to talk to my Account Manager, who said there was nothing she could do. When I explained that this was my Christmas money and I desperately needed it, she said she would speak to the manager. She came back saying there was nothing they could do, citing “policy”. So they have stolen what little money I had for Christmas, and don’t give a rat’s ass that they are destroying my Christmas. So much for the holiday spirit.

I have already reported this to one media outlet and I have filed formal complaints with the banks’ regulators. I will not rest until I make the bank as miserable as they have made me. I will be sure to tell anyone who comes within a three-foot radius to NEVER deal with HSBC. You have just been told.

Only a short two years ago my blood pressure was off the charts. My doctor told me in no uncertain terms that I had better find a way to get out from under all the stress. He said I was the “poster boy” for a heart attack. He put me on the needle for insulin and was going to prescribe something stronger for my blood pressure and hypertension.

Nothing changed in Panama, as the doctor there also wanted to start me on additional meds for my blood pressure, but I resisted as I knew, just like with my mother, this would be for the rest of my life. I hoped my health would improve from all the physical work I was doing. Unfortunately the stress of being ripped off by a Panamanian family and having everything stolen, plus being dead broke, only added to my stress levels. Having a gall bladder attack and being forced to have it removed in a third-world hospital also didn’t help.
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Just when you think you’ve had as much as you can take, more challenges come along to bite you in the ass. These past few years, actually ever since my Dad died in my arms, have been a series of calamities. As a diabetic it is so critical for me to avoid stress in my life, and it seems to be the exact opposite. From caring for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s, which only those of you who have been there know how incredibly challenging that can be, to working my tail off, fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, renovating a house, only to lose everything when I couldn’t sell it, my life spiraled downhill. My doctor warned me that if I did not get out from under all this stress I would have a heart attack. I had to take the drastic step of leaving the country because my creditors were coming after me. I left for Panama Christmas Eve of 2007 and arrived two days later in Boquete up in the mountains. From having a gall bladder attack, forcing me into a third world hospital and nearly killing me, to being ripped off by a Panamanian family who I had just tried to help, to having all sorts of things stolen from me, to meeting a wacko lawyer who threatened to have me beat up when her attempts to extort money from me failed, Panama was yet another disaster. I had a grand total of $21 in the bank and nowhere to go. It looked like the end for me.
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When things go wrong there are many sayings that people use to try to “buck up” and get on with their lives. One is “when one door closes, another one opens”, suggesting a “glass half full, not half empty” approach when things go badly for them. After what I went through in Panama there were no sayings that worked for me. I was barely hanging on ready to leave this world. I felt persecuted and abandoned by just about everyone. They all wanted a piece of me and didn’t give a rat’s ass that I was on the verge of giving up.
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This morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am, as I sat on the throne contemplating the day ahead, a large spider crawled within a couple of inches of my foot. Anyone who knows how much I like spiders knows how joyfully freaked out this made me. Not exactly a great start to a tough day ahead. [Read the story...]

As I spiral down into the abyss of depression, questioning my decision to come to Panama and reflecting on all that has gone so terribly wrong over the past year, I think of all the things I miss about my life in Canada.

There are so many things we take for granted living in Canada, things you don’t give a second thought to until they are gone. Everything from a decent steak to going to the movies.

But my life in Canada, particularly the past fifteen years living in the Okanagan, was all about the people in my life and it was filled with so many wonderful memories.

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And a tumultuous year it has been! This time tomorrow, a year ago, I was waking up at the Hotel Fundadoras in downtown Boquete, trying to recover from getting here. I had caught a bus out of Westbank to Vancouver on Christmas Eve, flew to Mexico City on Christmas Day, then on to Panama on Boxing Day, taken a bus to David and, finally, a taxi to Boquete. Although I did get some sleep in Mexico City, it was not possible to sleep on the buses anywhere, so I was pretty blitzed. [Read the story...]

For many people, including me, the holidays can be a time of overwhelming sorrow and depression. It is a time to celebrate with friends and family and share the sheer joy of the season. But for those of us without close friends around us or any family, it is simply a time that brings reflection on better times and highlights the desperation of our current lives.

Yes, I too once had the “perfect” family – a wife and two wonderful children, a boy and a girl, the so-called “millionaire” family. No idea why it’s called that as there was certainly no million. Christmas was a time to share the excitement and anticipation of all those perfect gifts; to visit with family from afar; to share wonderful special meals; to play with all the kid’s new toys and to just bask in the warmth of feelings of love all around you. It truly was special in every way.

If you have shared any of my other stories about what happened with my kids then you know I have not seen them in over fifteen years. Despite sharing the holidays with my wonderful parents since leaving Ontario, Christmas Day was always very difficult without the kids. Without all those wonderful traditions we had for so many years – the excitement of opening their presents, our special morning coffee with Baileys, only on Christmas, and me cooking a big breakfast for us all to share after the gifts were opened, it was just never the same. It was never MY family Christmas.

I lost my father in May, very suddenly, two years ago and my mother, who was suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s, last year, so now there is no family left. Last Christmas was a non event, because I left Christmas Eve to travel to Panama. It was a dark and lonely time, but I was consumed with just getting here to Panama. All I remember was seeing all the colorful lights of Panama City when I arrived, but I had little Christmas spirit.

This year is my first Christmas in Panama, but it comes at a time when I am hanging on by a thread. It has not been a good year and I have gradually been spinning down into the lowest point of my life. Thanks to many bad things happening, some beyond my control, like losing a fortune on the sale of my house back in Canada, to being ripped off by a Panamanian family I had just tried to help, the future is bleak. I am within a heartbeat of having no money to live on. None. No food. No medications for my diabetes. No way to go to Costa Rica for my tourist visa renewal. And certainly no way to celebrate Christmas, even if I could bring myself to even try.

This Christmas, quite possibly my last on this earth, will only serve to bring focus on the mistakes of my life and how, no matter how hard I have tried to be a good person, it all doesn’t matter when you have no money. No one cares whether you live or die. No one will miss you when you’re gone. It is a sad commentary on the sum total of my life.