Okae then

As always, I struggle with the adjective. There was a moment where I thought I’d start this blog with a “good news” moment, and then that didn’t feel right, as we’ve all had a moment or two in the last few days where it all got us down. But I wanted to get the blog entry up, so here it is.

Not so bad news? I don’t know. I’m going to have to work on the marketing.

But we seem to be winning on one small front: the issue of all the medical machinery which we’ve been trying to donate to the hospice.

To recap, it’s been ages since the insurance companies agreed that all of these breathing machines, etc., belong to us, even though we used their money. This is not standard practice in Germany, but Christina and the kids are privately insured, which means the rules are a little different for them. It also took a while to convince everyone since, apparently, some of the forms used to procure these machines were the paperwork for the regular insurance system, not the private insurance system. But we got everyone to agree a while ago that the items actually belonged to us.

And then the hospice said they wouldn’t take them. Or, to be more precise, they will take the items, but they won’t give us a charitable receipt. And I know, our willingness to be charitable shouldn’t hinge on a receipt, but it’s been a rough year and we’re not broke, but it’s had its costs, emotional and tangible. So, if we do own this stuff and we can get a tax deduction for donating, we’d much prefer that route. The hospice argued that they were leery, since we couldn’t prove ownership. Finally, some friends of ours in the banking and legal professions essentially told the hospice to shut up. If A gives B a car and then B decides to donate it to C, that’s B’s business and C doesn’t have to worry about how B came into possession of the car, especially if B has legal paperwork proving ownership.

This seemed to satisfy the hospice, because they’ve now asked for the purchase paperwork, so they can confirm the price of all this stuff when making the receipts. At least that’s what we assume. It was no fun for Christina, who got to spend too much of this week going through all those old receipts. You’d like to think they have no emotional weight, but they are tied so closely to Colin that you just can’t go through all of those without feeling like someone is kicking you in the chest. But this ball is at least rolling and hopefully our tax return this year will be supersized.

Meanwhile, in all of this, one of the breathing machines ended up back at the supplier’s office. We have no idea, since the hospice was under orders not to let these people walk away with anything. But the supplier brought it back here and we’ve got it tucked in a corner somewhere so we don’t have to look at it too much. Even better, Christina found a doctor named Samuel Okae based in Germany who is looking to open up a children’s clinic in Ghana and they’re looking for just about every kind of piece of equipment you can imagine, so they’re very excited about our donation. Let’s just hope they make the writing of receipts a little easier.