Better Late Than Never

There was no blog post last week. Sorry about that. I got a little busy filing a lawsuit, right before we launched our first-ever charity vendor booth at Spooky Empire.

It has been a wild, chaotic ride, but just yesterday, I was handed a stark reminder of how poignant the phrase "better late than never" can truly be. I will get to that in a minute, but first, let’s address the elephant in the room.

I filed a lawsuit Pro Se (on my own). After a year and a half, it became abundantly clear that nobody else was going to do it for us. That happened right under this booth.

The first public appearance of the Honoring Julian Booth!

The statute of limitations waits for no man. Or woman. Or Vogon, for that matter. When the day comes due, it comes due. But this January brought a surprise that accelerated our entire timeline by months: Julian’s Principal was given a statewide award.

Go ahead and let that sink in. A person who refused to speak to a grieving family after a tragedy rooted in their school—who went entirely silent despite every effort on the family’s part—is being hailed as the "best" Middle Level Principal in the state.

That didn’t sit well with me. I figured it was time to set the record straight.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the DD2 School Board isn’t terribly interested in facts when they are inconvenient or “negative.” While I suppose that’s standard institutional self-preservation, I was still under the naive impression that the First Amendment applied in their chambers. During the January 12th board meeting, they proved it did not. I reacted to being silenced as best I could. They tried to make a spectacle of me, but honestly, I didn't feel embarrassed. I just felt galvanized.

That meeting confirmed that waiting was no longer an option. I had explicitly told the DD2 board several times that a lawsuit wasn't my preferred route, but they left me no alternative. I began researching everything required to initiate this process without a law firm, knowing I had a drastically reduced window to beat the statute of limitations.

Did I plan to move things along so quickly that I’d be able to file the suit on Julian’s 16th birthday? No. But I was persistent.

I looked up the requirements for establishing an estate, which is the mandatory first step. A year ago, I simply assumed a lawyer would handle this for us. It turns out, it’s a mountain of procedural paperwork. I had to get Lisa and Jolie to sign Primary Representation over to me (I later learned Jolie's signature wasn't strictly required, but the system doesn't make these nuances easy to find).

When the probate office warned me about how long the process usually takes, I politely informed them of the hard legal deadline I was up against. We came to an understanding. Due to Julian’s age and the lack of complex property to search for, the process was expedited. It took a surprising amount of persuasion, but two weeks later, I received a letter scheduling me for probate orientation on January 27th.

It was happening so fast. It was barely two weeks after they trampled on my rights at the DD2 meeting, and I was suddenly standing in front of a judge—who, unsurprisingly, already knew exactly who I was—getting my Letters of Administration to file a lawsuit Pro Se.

There was no time to breathe. Spooky Empire was right around the corner, and we didn’t even have our custom booth yet. Fortunately, Jolie and I had finalized the designs a couple of weeks earlier, and our new Honoring Julian guitar picks had just arrived. 2026 was already shaping up to leave 2025 in the dust in terms of things we’d never before attempted.

Right in the middle of this momentum, Lisa had to rush to Oklahoma for a family emergency. You can never plan these things, and naturally, it coincided with a generational winter storm. Lisa managed to navigate the frozen chaos to Oklahoma and back, while Jolie and I held down the fort in Summerville, literally trying to keep our water heater from freezing.

It was a weird, exhausting time. But we kept the plates spinning.

And that brings me to the serendipitous thing that showed up in the nick of time. Better late than never.

I was able to have the Verified Complaint served on Julian’s 16th birthday. That alone was a massive milestone, arriving just months shy of a few dubious "cutoff" dates for the statutory limits.

But there was still a loose end from the past year.

One of my most contentious interactions with the district occurred at the April 2025 DD2 Town Hall. When Lisa and I walked into that meeting, we clearly noted the presence of cameras and microphones. Yet, in their infinite quest for "transparency," DD2 intentionally decided against recording that specific interaction.

There were several points of contention that night, but one specific exchange got under my skin. Later, when I reached out to the individual involved to "clear the air," they conveniently claimed to have no memory of saying anything at all. They then proceeded to expertly attempt to denigrate and gaslight me regarding the events of that evening.

Then I submitted a FOIA request for the recording of that Town Hall, the district claimed it was lost to the void. Unrecorded. Gone forever.

Then, yesterday happened.

An anonymous community member, likely following the news of the lawsuit, decided to leave a small package for us. After safely verifying the contents, I found the truth. It turns out, someone in that room was diligent enough not to trust that DD2 would push "Record" just because they brought the equipment.

The audio is clear. The gaslighting is exposed.

Now, the district will have to answer for the very words they claimed were lost forever. They constantly claim to be interested in transparency. Well, now they are going to have to deal with the actual, unedited reality of it.

Better late than never. They are so incredibly close to reaping what they’ve sown.

On my left wrist, you’ll see a bracelet made for me by loving empaths, something to keep my hair out of my face, something to remind me of how my meat suit is functioning, something to remember Love is Eternal, and that we only fail when we quit trying. Edison had a bunch of ways to not make a lightbulb, and I’ve found a few dozen ways that this message won’t get out. I’m not done yet, though, and I won’t be until my last breath; maybe longer (it’s been a crazy year)!