Category: Family

They say there are four major stress factors in our lives; marriage, new job, moving and death. Up to this point we had three of the four. Austyn took care of the marriage part. The new job had already started for Jeff and moving was inevitable. As a fellow employee said so reassuringly; “Knock on wood that you won’t experience the fourth.”

At 5:45am on the Monday before Easter my phone rang. By the tone I knew it was Raun. I answered as most moms would at that time of day, “What’s wrong”.

“Mom I can’t believe it. Pam just left for her mom’s. The kid’s father was killed early this morning.” Raun and Pam were now living together in Wisconsin. She and her ex were beginning a custody battle. He was currently living in Indianapolis with his new wife. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a senseless robbery/murder.

Arrangements, funeral and a thousand questions. How would Pam cope with this. One day she is preparing for a custody battle with this man. The next morning she is on her way to Indianapolis to help with his funeral arrangements.

No one is sure how they will respond to the death. When someone is ill there is time to prepare for the end. This was a young man with three beautiful children who just happened to be in the wrong place and lost his life for a meaningless robbery. A thousand questions and a million emotions flooded everyone. It was a very unsettling time.

During my one week in San Luis Obispo, we had found a development that we felt very comfortable in. The development would be under construction for the next year which gave us the freedom to buy when we were ready. It seemed very easy. We liked the units and could see ourselves living there for the next 5 to 10 years. It would eliminate house shopping and trying to orchestrate the timing of closings.

I had checked the website regularly to keep an eye on the development and the pricing. From time to time they would offer a huge discount on the last unit. Seeing those prices made me anxious and I stopped looking until this particular Wednesday morning.

I pulled up the website and saw the words “reduced for quick sale”. Listed was the unit we had fallen in love with and the price had dropped $70,000. I emailed the Realtor we had met and asked if she had time to look into it.

The next day she emailed me pictures and an explanation. This would be the last unit of that style built this year. All the other units in the group were sold and they wanted to make sure this was sold as well. It won’t be ready until the end of August. Send a deposit and they will hold it for you. It seemed like a no brainier; the price was within our budget and the timing was perfect. Come to find out, the new price had been posted on Tuesday, I looked at the site on Wednesday and by Thursday we were faxing agreements back and forth. By the next weekend I had an email congratulating us on the purchase. It appeared all was settled.

Our worst week of the year flowed into the following week. The tile installer was kind enough to work on Sunday, returning on Monday to make sure all was well. That afternoon Jeff and Austyn were the first home. By the time I arrived home most of the condo was put back together. No more drop cloths or tools. The kitchen appliances were out of the dinning room and back in their proper places in the kitchen. the dining room table was centered under the candelabra. It was home again.

As we sat on the sofa enjoying the order that had been given back to us Austyn turned to me and said, “By the way there was a turkey in the oven.”

I was following a very healthy diet program since the beginning of the year in hopes that I could make it through this year of change and remain healthy. Part of the diet was turkey, so each week I would roast a turkey portion it out for my lunches. Because our place was so small and our 70 pound lab-retriever loved turkey, I had gotten in to the habit of placing the turkey carcass back in the oven to cool before I threw it out. Apparently with all the commotion of the week I had failed to toss that carcass out before the kitchen was emptied out for the tile installation.

“Turkey in the oven? I can’t believe it didn’t start to smell in here.” We laughed at the thought of a turkey rotting away inside the stove that had been sitting in the middle of our dining room for the past week.

“Well, what’s for dinner?” was the question. Well, I can tell you it would not be. It would not be turkey.

Saturday morning arrived. Today we did have a time line. We were picking up a cargo van at 9: 00am and it needed to be back by 1:00pm. The installer would be here around 8:30 which meant that one of us would stay home and two would head to the storage until. While Jeff ran to get the van, Austyn and I would begin carrying boxes down the stairs.

We stood in the dining room and looked around us.

”This is sad.” Austyn replied.

“What’s sad?”

“All of this. Leaving Chicago; leaving here. Not seeing my stuff until who knows when.”

We both had tears in our eyes. This was our college dorm. We moved in here when both kids started school and we are leaving as they are completing. We have so many memories in this small place. For Austyn this was the place she was an only child. This is the place that she remembers as Mom, Dad and Austyn. In three short months she will be Mrs. Brian Ford. We were reminded again that every event this year is a major one. Each one is an emotional one and we have them stack one on top of the other.

We were also reminded of the few pacts we have made with each other. The first is to allow ourselves to feel every emotion as we go through this year, we do not want to end the year with a flood of resentment because we allowed everything to fly by. The second is the pinky swear that Austyn and I made not to get stressed about the wedding plans.

It was time to work. We both made our trips down the three flights of stairs, boxes in hand. We stacked them on the bottom two landings. We were carrying boxes down as the installer was carrying tiles up.

The van was loaded, I would stay behind. The purpose for taking Austyn’s things out of the house was to make more room. Every Realtor will tell you to get rid of the junk and extra pieces. I began rearranging the furniture.

As I made a quick pass by the kitchen I stopped to ask what steps were next in the installation. There was a little detail we had forgotten about in all the commotion. We were not to walk on the tiles for 24 hours. In our small place everything is connected. Off the kitchen is the bathroom and our bedroom; “Can’t walk on it for 24 hours?” Well isn’t that fun. It is 20 degrees and snowing today. This has been the longest winter in years and we are all tired of it. We have no stove and now no bathroom. I guess the trips to the store will have to be planned around potty breaks.

Early afternoon Austyn and I head out to pick up lunch and use someone’s restroom. We have an appointment at 3:00 to pick up the wedding dress. How ironic to be bringing something so clean and delicate into such a mess. We had a great lunch from a new Mexican restaurant down the street. I had forgotten about needing to change clothes, so Austyn stretched her way from the dining room to our bedroom and collected what I needed. We changed and headed out. It was about a mile walk and we decided to do just that, walk. We arrived at the little boutique a few minutes before 3:00.

This boutique is by appointment only and there was a group of woman trying on dresses when we arrived. We made our way into the corner, picked up Martha Stewart’s Bridal magazine and waited. There were five woman in this group, two were mothers and three were twenty-somethings. Suggestions, opinions and emotions were flying high. We were glad it was just the two of us. There was a world of difference between that group of five and our group of two. They began to ask us questions about date, place and wedding details and the gulf between our two little groups grew; bands, whirlwind, pressure, dresses, receptions, deadlines and wedding coordinators. I was proud to be in the smaller group.

At 3:15 they finally walked out the door. There was peace again. Austyn headed into the dressing room and emerged a bride. The dress was perfection. We will need it to be hemmed and pressed. We took pictures and she danced around moving from mirror to mirror. Back to the dressing room and back to reality. We left the boutique, caught a taxi and headed home. Jeff had been given the responsibility to put a hook on a wall in Austyn’s bedroom so we had somewhere to hang the dress when we got home. He had completed his task and the dress was on display. I was looking forward to a calm evening.

It wasn’t a calm evening. It was actually quite sad. Austyn was very emotional. We talked and cried that evening. There was a degree of uncertainty in her plans from now until the wedding. She was lonely and hated being only able to talk to Brian on the phone. They are making plans to move to Alaska after the wedding and as exciting as that seems it is also very scary. Most of all Austyn and I will miss each other. We may be 25 years apart in age, but we are facing a common fear, loneliness. What if we both arrive at our new homes and find ourselves alone.

The three of us were very quiet that night as we made our way to bed. This would be worst week in 2008. Promise.

I stood in the kitchen this morning, Sunday March 9, 2008 and declared “This was and will be the worst week of this year!” It was a way of acknowledging the stress of the past week and promising that going forward the stressful weeks were over.

It started the Sunday prior. Raun drove down from Wisconsin to clean out his apartment and get it ready to sublet. I only had a few hours to help before I needed to head to work. As I walked to the bus I could not hold back the tears. Raun’s life was changing so quickly and so dramatically. This morning I was hit with the realization that we would not be here to assist. We would now begin the long distance relationship of Sunday phone calls and planning visits. We were no longer leaving him, he was leaving us.

That night as I sat in bed I wrote Raun a note. There have only been a few times in my life that I have cried from my soul. It’s a feeling so deep that it truly feels as if it is coming from your gut. In the past I’ve cried from my soul after I have lost someone very dear, this night was no different. I have a dear friend who reminds me; “we never get off the delivery table”. Our roles as parents change but they never really go away.

Monday is when we lost control of the purse strings. It was time to sign the contract to put the house on the market. Two thousand here, one thousand there, new kitchen floor, pending wedding expenses, move across the country. Today the rubber hit the road. Up until now this was all a plan, today it became a contract.

Tuesday required some prep work in the kitchen. The work on the new floor was to begin Wednesday morning. All the counter tops were cleared and stored on the dinning room table. The stove was unhooked which meant we would be eating out for then next two days.

Wednesday morning the installer arrived and began carrying in his tools, laid a runner of drop cloths through the condo and began work. It was only a short time into it that he called me in. With the age of our building, he was concerned that the floor tiles were asbestos. He said there was only one place in Chicago to have it tested but he could not remove the tiles until we were sure. I ran down to the basement storage unit. I knew we had a few extra tiles down there somewhere and was hoping that I could get my hands on them. I did and after a few phone calls we were cleared to begin work. The installer left that afternoon around 3pm. He would begin the installation in the morning.

Austyn came home that evening and we began to pack her things. She was going to be moving in April and we had decided that we would move her things into storage which would alleviate some of the pressure of doing it all at once. Once again we were feeling the pressure of all of the forthcoming changes.

Thursday was Jeff’s day to work from home while the kitchen floor was being worked on. At 11am he called me. None of the boxes of tiles matched and even within the boxes there were different colors and sizes. They were calling to get more but it would be morning before we had them. Meanwhile our small 2 bedroom condo was a disaster. There was only a path from the front door to the sofa to the bedrooms. Day three with no stove.

Austyn took Friday off and once again I received a call at 11am. There were no tiles in the country, we would have to pick out a new tile. Jeff and I are ‘do it ourselves’ kind of people. This was the first project that we hired someone from start to finish. We realized on this day that hiring out is just as much work as doing it ourselves. If I could leave work and head to Home Depot, they would be waiting for me and make sure that they could have all the supplies for Saturday.

Picking our tile is not the easiest decision for us. I am not a tile person. It is not my preference for a kitchen floor and I’m not going to be living here. It took three weeks for us to decide on the last one, now I should make a decision on the spot.

I left work, jumped in a taxi and headed to Halsted. Austyn would meet me there. I walked up to the service desk and asked, “Is Vince here?”. Three men turned their heads slowly and one finally said, “I’m Vince”. We made our introductions and off we went to the tile aisle.

“Too dark, too textured, too shiny, too peach, that’s nice. Yuck. What do you think about that one? Dad would hate that one. Too blah, too white….”

We grabbed four and walked over to the kitchen cabinet display. Fortunately they had a display that was very similar to our counter top and cabinets.

“That one is nice. That one looks like vomit. That works. That’s too peach. I like that one.” Back to the service desk to make sure it was in stock.

“Now what color grout do you want?”

Actually I don’t want any grout; I just want my stove back. We made our decision. After a few more phone calls and private conversations we were assured that we were all set and the tile would be there in the morning. We were finished.

Austyn and I stood up and made our way to the stairs. “What does that mean?” Austyn whispered.

“Well, they are giving us the new tile at no extra charge.” We looked at each other with big eyes and funny expressions and headed toward the door. This tile was almost three times the price of the original title we had selected.

That night as we returned from a gallery showing that Austyn was a part of we could not help but relive the day. Even though the time line had not gone as planned, the people that we encountered were all good people. Actually as we recalled everyone we have had contact with in the past few months, we realized that we have enjoyed working with each one. We have had some wonderful people cross our paths and it has helped to make this whole experience a little easier to deal with.

Friday night dinner was take out again. Early to bed, tomorrow we would be moving Austyn.  This was only Friday, there remained two days before this week would end.

In my adult years I have always been intrigued by the “New Age” mentality. I say in my adult years because I clearly remember in my teen years being taught that the New Age Movement was satanic. Meditation was evil and if we allowed our minds to be quiet the devil would be able to take over, so we were always thinking. I have to say I believe our inability to be still and know (Proverbs ) comes from this fear of meditating.

When the book The Secret came out, I picked up a copy. There has been a lot of discussion about this book, for many it’s another big promise book; material gain is mine if I believe hard enough. First of all I do not think we can believe hard enough, either we believe or we don’t.

What I do appreciate about these books is the focus on how and what we say. If you stand back for a few moments and really listen to people talk you will be amazed at the amount of negativity that floods conversations; “Of course that would happen to me; I’m an idiot; Why does this always happen to me; It will never be my turn.” It is endless. The secret taught me how to speak and it changed me. For me it is not about the I want list, instead it is about In My Life statements.

I am really good at making statements such as: I’ll never do that again or I won’t let that happen again. When those types of comments are second nature it is very difficult to translate them into positive statements. I would joke that I was being very positive; I positively would never allow that to happen again. Either way, it was not working for me.

In My Life statements do not focus on the things I want in life rather these statements focus on the quality of life I want to live. For instance, there was a time I was very frustrated with the fact that I did not feel appreciated by my children. In the past I would make comments such as; they don’t respect me or why do I let them take advantage of me. My new way of thinking allowed me to change my focus:

In my life, my children respect and appreciate me.

Every time I became frustrated with either of the kids I would repeat this over and over to myself. In a very short time things began to change. To my surprise I began to receive sincere acknowledgement and words of appreciating coming from both of them.

I found myself in a job that I did not enjoy nor did I enjoy the people I worked with. It took me several days of asking myself to define what it was that I wanted in a job. The much deeper issue was that I did not want to work and I was feeling trapped as if I did not have a choice in the matter. I could not define my dream job but I could define the environment I longed to be a part of. I repeated this statement every night, every morning and whenever I found myself hating work.

In my life I choose to work and the work I do is fun and challenging, it allows me to be surrounded by people who are creative, happy and live balanced lives.

I found that after a short period of time my frustration level changed. By repeating this during frustrating times I realized that this was not where I wanted to work and I was not trapped. It was an amazing pressure release valve. I still was not trilled with the job but the overwhelming feeling of resentment towards working in general disappeared making the job much more tolerable. As I began to look for a new job I had already defined the environment I was looking for. It was very easy for me to say, this is not the right fit for me.

I desperately wanted my children to be financially responsible. Both were coming to the end their college days and true adulthood was just ahead. It amazes me how two children growing up in the same home with the same parents can deal with finances so differently. Austyn was overly concerned about money and Raun had never grasped the concept of a budget or checkbook. I had worried about this for several years and was obviously not making any progress with either of them.

In my life my children are financially responsible.

Repeating these words to myself helped me to see my children where I wanted them to be. I stopped focusing on Raun’s inability to manage his money and saw him as a responsible adult. Oddly enough he actually started to become that person.

There was a period of time I felt very vulnerable in my role as a wife. I had fallen into the trap of feeling responsible for everyone and I was not cared for.

In my life my husband provides for me.

That simple phrase allowed me to move into a new level of trust, respect and love for my husband.

In my life statements take time to developed. At first I would write and rewrite these statements over and over until I had removed anything that was negative. Words like won’t, can’t, no, never were so embedded in my vocabulary that I found myself having to work at making positive statements. It has now become second nature.

As I look ahead into 2008 I could easily get caught up in all that could go wrong. The timing required selling and buying a house, making the move and not having to rent. However, in my life real estate transactions are timely and profitable with no unexpected delays. I truly believe that and am excited to see how it plays out.

My children are both leaving the comfort zone of mom and dad and becoming spouses themselves. The list of what I could worry about is endless. However, in my life my children are developing relationships that will last a life time.

I am facing the reality of being a grandmother of three. The list of what to worry about is endless. However, in my life my grandchildren are safe, protected and well cared for. No exceptions.

In my life statements have changed my life. I write them down. I read them every time I feel a little unsettled. I say them before I go to sleep. In the midst of frustration, I recite them. When life has brought me to tears, I sit on my bed and read them over and over. When fear surrounds me and I feel helpless and I boldly proclaim them. And when they become reality …I write new ones.