A little backstory – I moved across the country from a toxic family a while back. A few years later, a distant cousin moved to the same city as me. In 2017 my grandfather passed away. In 2018 my distant cousin invited my grandmother and her 3 adopted children(ages 5, 7, 9) to move in with her so she could help her raise them.
Fast forward 3 months and I get a call at 3am from my grandmother begging me to come pick them up because the distant cousin is fighting with her husband, breaking glass, being physical with each other, and all the kids are in bed hiding with my grandmother. The cousin told them they had to leave because she didn’t want them to live there anymore. My boyfriend and I went and got them, the police were called by a neighbor and they were going to arrest the husband.
Since that night, my grandmother and our kids have been living with my boyfriend and I. We moved into a bigger house so we could all fit and be comfortable. I am my grandmother’s caretaker as she is disabled, cannot drive, and needs assistance with daily activities. When she first moved in, all her accounts were negative as the distant cousin used her as a piggy bank.
A couple months after the big fight occurred, the distant cousin and her husband moved back to our home state, which is about 26 hours away.
The beginning of this year, the distant cousin and the toxic family kept inviting my grandmother to go on vacation with them this summer. Provoking her by saying, “come visit your family before you die.” “This is the last vacation you went on with grandpa.” etc. I kept telling her I did not want her to go, and that I was not going to go because we were planning a vacation together in October that we needed to save for. The distant cousin told her she would come all the way to our house, pick her up, and drive her back to the home state, then they could go on vacation to the beach. After the beach, she would drive her back home.
After stealing and spending all of my grandmother’s savings ($8,000+), the distant cousin is refusing to bring her back home. My grandmother has been calling and texting me saying she is hungry, she is out of insulin and she wants to come back home. The cousin says she is broke so she cannot bring her and doesn’t want to bring her, yet she just finished emptying all of my grandmother’s accounts.
I called the non-emergency police number in my city and they were all for getting her back home until I said she was across the united states. They told me I would have to contact the police department in the city my grandmother is in. I guess I made the bad decision of doing that and they went to the house and the only assistance they offered was to get her a taxi to the airport.
She cannot fly as her ID has been expired since 2019, she has no other documents with her. We told them that and their response was that that was the only assistance they provide.
I have no idea how to get my grandmother back home. I cannot drive there because of my job, the kids, college, and our pets that we have at home. She cannot fly because of her expired ID (I’ve already called the airport and different airlines for assistance). She cannot ride a bus because of her body aches and the assistance she would need.
I have a family member who reached out to me saying if they had the money to rent a car and money for gas, they would bring her.
So I am asking for help to get my grandmother safely back home so I can give that to the family member to rent a car, have money for gas, money to stay in hotels on the drive, money for food, and to let them keep the extra for their time.
I appreciate anything!
The picture below if just for the car rental.
paypal.me/ciefaye