TRIALS

Looking back, the past several months have been a bumpy ride.

Last fall we made the difficult decision to close down our auto body business.
The company left us with many large bills and a huge amount of income tax owing.
Since then, this financial burden has been weighing us down and it has not appeared to become any lighter.

After Christmas I became very sick with some mysterious illness.
It was as though my body attempted to shut down, leaving me weak and in constant pain.
It was at least four months before I began to feel myself again.
In the meantime, life had to go on.
I had my kids to love and to feed, my house to look after and I had to be at work. My husband was already working twelve hour days and he had his hands full there.

Then our cat became very ill and we ended up with a huge bill from the veterinarian - but Scat is okay now.
Soon after, our dog became ill and that added to our vet expenses. Unfortunately, Murphy never did fully recover and we had to have her put to sleep just over a week ago. That was a very sad day for all of us - but she is free now.
One of our goldfish, Chicken Nugget, died...

My son, who has a brilliant and inquisitive mind, began having trouble at school.
Apparently he does not fit into that "normal" bracket and the teachers and staff were having a bit of a time trying to deal with it. In the end, Bobby simply refused to do his work...
As a result, he was sent home with his school work to be done here - but George and I have to work!
We attended a meeting with the school board last week in order to get Bobby reinstated in class, but the final decision was for him to continue his work at home. The up side of that is there are only three and a half more school days left.
That has left us with some psychological assessments to be done with Bob.
He is the most gentle and sensitive soul one will ever meet and it breaks my heart.
I have no doubts that the evaluations will come back in favour of our son!

Then there is my teenage daughter, Beth.
She and I have a very good relationship, but she is a teen and I am an adult... I think that might say it all.
Not to mention the fact that I am her mother.
Beth was having trouble - and getting into trouble - at high school.
We ended up having to make the decision for her to attend an alternative learning institute called Open Doors.
We are very happy with the outcome, as Beth has gone from failing grades to a B+ average in just two months!
She has also completed some Grade 11 courses although she is technically in Grade 10.

And just when we thought things were going smoothly, I met up with a friend who was in dire need of a place to live with her two young girls.
So, of course, having a long history of dragging home stray animals, I offered her a place to stay in our camper in the back yard.
I couldn't not do it!
It was an extra burden on all of us, especially me, but I ended up forging a wonderful friendship.
This episode also included she and I having to go with a police escort to where her ex-boyfriend lived to collect her belongings. It was quite scary at the time, as this individual has a history of violence, including assault.
Their family became a part of our family, and it was a very sad parting when they left to follow their own paths forward.
My friend and her counselor both thanked me from the bottom of their hearts.
She and her family would not have been able to move on had it not been for me.
The irony of the whole situation being that how could I have been so much help when I could use the help myself...

Yesterday we received the best news in a long time.
We had applied to refinance our mortgage in order to pay our bills and get out of debt.
The area where we live is quite a hotbed for real estate right now and our house is worth over three times as much as we paid for it nine years ago!
We just got word that we have been approved for financing - at a very good interest rate, to boot!

Beth is home.
Bobby is happy to do his school work at home and George and I will take turns helping him with it.
Jenny is our little Jenny - for now.
George is still working hard.
And I have moved away from the edge...

I found a bridge.