Today, like always, I woke up and got dressed, and while I rested from getting ready for the day—such is life with chronic illness—I checked Facebook.
A memory popped up on my feed that made me cry. It also made me sit and reflect on the past year. A year of change—both good and bad, of upheaval, frustration, tears, laughter and firsts.
This is the picture that came up.
This is the picture taken as we were loading the trucks for FINALLY moving to Florida. The dream we had been working towards for almost 3 years.
The dream that we had longed for, strived for, almost given up on, cried many tears over, but still held on to even through everything.
In 2014, my health got so much worse again and after 3 bouts of pneumonia in one winter, my doctor told me that we needed to get out of Michigan. I was in constant pain. I couldn't leave the house because if someone sneezed on the other side of Walmart I got sick. I couldn't go to church. I couldn't do theater anymore. I couldn't go to a movie. Basically, I was housebound and I was dying (literally).
The doctor suggested either Florida or Arizona. I had only ever been to Arizona briefly but I had lived in Albuquerque and I knew it was hot there. I knew it was hot in Florida, too. One was "dry heat" one was "humid heat." Let me tell you something. When you get to triple digits, hot is hot, and it doesn't matter whether it is dry or wet. We loved Florida and vacationed there often. We also considered Branson, Missouri because we love it there, too. We loved Chattanooga and considered it, but of all of the places we considered, we always came back to Florida.
Jim did some research as to where would be best for him to find work and we knew that Florida was where we should be. Then the question came where in Florida. The answer to that was easy. We didn't care. I was hoping for Orlando area because that is where I was the happiest. Jim started sending out his resume and soon after got a job interview with a local TV station running the promo department. He came in second behind a former employee at Apple. Still, the hiring manager was impressed enough to want to create a new position for Jim, but a few months later the General Manager retired, and the new guy revamped the entire department. Opportunity dead.
A few other interviews happened but no real bites. So the process of moving began and promptly went NOWHERE! He kept trying and I kept praying, but nothing happened. I would be lying if I said we didn't get discouraged. In fact, VERY discouraged was more like it. I got angry with everything. I was angry with life, with Jim, with being sick, and mostly with God. Where was He? Why didn't He listen to my prayers? Why didn't he help us move? Why didn't he just make me better? Why did life have to be like this?
This continued for two more years. We had almost given up but still felt like this is what we needed to do. Finally, in October of 2016, Jim, Stephen, and I came to Florida for 6 weeks. We spent part or the time with Jim's sister, Pat, and her husband in Venice, Florida over on the gulf side. It was beautiful but I was struggling with breathing while we were there. We finally figured out it was a particularly bad Red Tide (an algae that appears once or twice a year) season. So being right by the Gulf was not helping me at all. When we left Venice and drove to Orlando for two week stay, I almost instantly improved. For two weeks I couldn't sit still. I had pain but only a two out of ten on the pain scale. It was lower than it had been in years. I didn't have to do any breathing treatments at all while we were there. It was a confirmation to us that Orlando needed to be our target.
Still, how we were to get there was the question. Jim and I talked a lot about it and we determined he needed to come here first and find work. That was the only way it would happen. Stephen and I would stay behind in Michigan and get things ready to move there. So that is what we did.
The day after Thanksgiving in 2016 we left Florida and headed back to Michigan. Before we even reached Kentucky my pain levels were between 8-9 and I couldn't even drive. I rode laying down in the back seat of the car. I couldn't stop crying I was so depressed and discouraged. I knew, not only was I going back to the pain, I knew Jim would be leaving there to go back to where I wanted and needed to be and I would be left on my own. That was scary.
We got through the holidays and on January 5, 2017, Jim pulled out of the driveway and returned to Florida to set up our lives. We thought at first it would be a few weeks at most. NOPE! Five months later he still didn't have a permanent job but he did have enough work coming in as a freelancer that we would be able to make it (we hoped). Now we had to find a place to live. I looked and looked and couldn't find anything online that we wanted or could afford. Finally, we found a house in Tavares (te-VARE-eez) that would work, so Jim got a six month lease and the move began in earnest.
From the time Jim left Michigan, I had moved my Mom from her house in Redford to a condo in Jackson. We cleaned out 40 years of Mom's pack rat life, had 2 garage sales, packed her house and moved her into the condo. We then prepped her house to be show-ready. I continued to homeschool Stephen, drove him everywhere, looked for houses in Florida, held my son while he cried for missing his Dad, and cried myself to sleep—missing my husband, praying, waiting and hoping it would happen. Then, FINALLY!
June 23, 2017, we pulled out of the driveway in Michigan for our new lives in Florida. It took two days longer on the road than we expected, but the trucks did not like the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee.
It was hot. Stephen rode with me to start and cried most of the way through Ohio. He was leaving his best friends. He was sad, but knew why it was happening. It didn't make it hurt less. Three trucks in tow with Jim, me, and our friend, Ruth, each at a wheel, we maneuvered rain, food, and diesel truck stops. I had to drive across the bridge in Cincinnati on the Ohio River that crosses into Kentucky (did I mention I HATE bridges?). This is a picture of me after crossing the bridge. I was proud of myself.
A memory popped up on my feed that made me cry. It also made me sit and reflect on the past year. A year of change—both good and bad, of upheaval, frustration, tears, laughter and firsts.
This is the picture that came up.
 |
| Half way done with truck one of three. |
The dream that we had longed for, strived for, almost given up on, cried many tears over, but still held on to even through everything.
In 2014, my health got so much worse again and after 3 bouts of pneumonia in one winter, my doctor told me that we needed to get out of Michigan. I was in constant pain. I couldn't leave the house because if someone sneezed on the other side of Walmart I got sick. I couldn't go to church. I couldn't do theater anymore. I couldn't go to a movie. Basically, I was housebound and I was dying (literally).
The doctor suggested either Florida or Arizona. I had only ever been to Arizona briefly but I had lived in Albuquerque and I knew it was hot there. I knew it was hot in Florida, too. One was "dry heat" one was "humid heat." Let me tell you something. When you get to triple digits, hot is hot, and it doesn't matter whether it is dry or wet. We loved Florida and vacationed there often. We also considered Branson, Missouri because we love it there, too. We loved Chattanooga and considered it, but of all of the places we considered, we always came back to Florida.
Jim did some research as to where would be best for him to find work and we knew that Florida was where we should be. Then the question came where in Florida. The answer to that was easy. We didn't care. I was hoping for Orlando area because that is where I was the happiest. Jim started sending out his resume and soon after got a job interview with a local TV station running the promo department. He came in second behind a former employee at Apple. Still, the hiring manager was impressed enough to want to create a new position for Jim, but a few months later the General Manager retired, and the new guy revamped the entire department. Opportunity dead.
A few other interviews happened but no real bites. So the process of moving began and promptly went NOWHERE! He kept trying and I kept praying, but nothing happened. I would be lying if I said we didn't get discouraged. In fact, VERY discouraged was more like it. I got angry with everything. I was angry with life, with Jim, with being sick, and mostly with God. Where was He? Why didn't He listen to my prayers? Why didn't he help us move? Why didn't he just make me better? Why did life have to be like this?
This continued for two more years. We had almost given up but still felt like this is what we needed to do. Finally, in October of 2016, Jim, Stephen, and I came to Florida for 6 weeks. We spent part or the time with Jim's sister, Pat, and her husband in Venice, Florida over on the gulf side. It was beautiful but I was struggling with breathing while we were there. We finally figured out it was a particularly bad Red Tide (an algae that appears once or twice a year) season. So being right by the Gulf was not helping me at all. When we left Venice and drove to Orlando for two week stay, I almost instantly improved. For two weeks I couldn't sit still. I had pain but only a two out of ten on the pain scale. It was lower than it had been in years. I didn't have to do any breathing treatments at all while we were there. It was a confirmation to us that Orlando needed to be our target.
Still, how we were to get there was the question. Jim and I talked a lot about it and we determined he needed to come here first and find work. That was the only way it would happen. Stephen and I would stay behind in Michigan and get things ready to move there. So that is what we did.
The day after Thanksgiving in 2016 we left Florida and headed back to Michigan. Before we even reached Kentucky my pain levels were between 8-9 and I couldn't even drive. I rode laying down in the back seat of the car. I couldn't stop crying I was so depressed and discouraged. I knew, not only was I going back to the pain, I knew Jim would be leaving there to go back to where I wanted and needed to be and I would be left on my own. That was scary.
We got through the holidays and on January 5, 2017, Jim pulled out of the driveway and returned to Florida to set up our lives. We thought at first it would be a few weeks at most. NOPE! Five months later he still didn't have a permanent job but he did have enough work coming in as a freelancer that we would be able to make it (we hoped). Now we had to find a place to live. I looked and looked and couldn't find anything online that we wanted or could afford. Finally, we found a house in Tavares (te-VARE-eez) that would work, so Jim got a six month lease and the move began in earnest.
From the time Jim left Michigan, I had moved my Mom from her house in Redford to a condo in Jackson. We cleaned out 40 years of Mom's pack rat life, had 2 garage sales, packed her house and moved her into the condo. We then prepped her house to be show-ready. I continued to homeschool Stephen, drove him everywhere, looked for houses in Florida, held my son while he cried for missing his Dad, and cried myself to sleep—missing my husband, praying, waiting and hoping it would happen. Then, FINALLY!
June 23, 2017, we pulled out of the driveway in Michigan for our new lives in Florida. It took two days longer on the road than we expected, but the trucks did not like the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee.
It was hot. Stephen rode with me to start and cried most of the way through Ohio. He was leaving his best friends. He was sad, but knew why it was happening. It didn't make it hurt less. Three trucks in tow with Jim, me, and our friend, Ruth, each at a wheel, we maneuvered rain, food, and diesel truck stops. I had to drive across the bridge in Cincinnati on the Ohio River that crosses into Kentucky (did I mention I HATE bridges?). This is a picture of me after crossing the bridge. I was proud of myself.
 |
| Just after driving across the Cincinnati Bridge into Kentucky. Shaking, breathing hard, but proud I did it. |
We arrived in Tavares on June 26, 2017. The house was cute and pretty but small. We had a lot of stuff that we had to go through and purge. We spent weeks unpacking and making trips to Goodwill. We donated and threw away and it still didn't ever become home. There were spiritual things in the area too that just felt creepy. I hated being home. We knew that wasn't where we needed to be and were relieved that we had only signed a six-month lease, BUT that meant we had to pack and move AGAIN!
 |
| Standing in front of our house in Tavares. |
We began looking for new homes. We looked all over (primarily west of Orlando) but our hearts (or mine) always came back to Clermont, which is where I wanted to be from the first time I drove through it in November of 2016. Finally, we found our house. My cousin, Casey, who is a realtor, drove there with us to show the house, and we really liked it. So, December 10, 2017 we moved AGAIN to Clermont, FL and I LOVE our home.
A week later, my Mom came to visit on December 18 to stay for the Holidays, or so we thought. The second day we ended up taking her to the emergency room because she wasn't acting right. Thinking Dementia, or Alzheimer's, we were shocked that they found a brain tumor. All the dreams we had for our first Christmas in Florida were gone. She had the tumor removed on December 22 and we quickly celebrated Christmas between hospital visits. This year, however, we will still be here and can properly celebrate the birth of the Savior.
After three weeks in rehabilitation, Mom is now in a Modified Independent Living Apartment about 15 minutes away. She is recovering nicely, but has a way to go to regain independence. All the activity surrounding the brain tumor put our moving in on hold. It was mid-February before we were able to finish unpacking.
We are happy in our new home. We are a family again. I am even starting a new business. My health hasn't really gotten better as expected. In some ways it has gotten worse, but I believe I will get better. The stress of moving, tumors, and jobs has lifted, and I can now take the time to heal. I have not had a cold, flu or Pneumonia in over a year. We are learning what my new "normal" is.
I have lived by the verse Psalm 46:10 for the past 3 years. It pretty much says it all for me.
"Be still and know that I am God."
I struggle sometimes to remember to let him lead but I am still working on it. Everything isn't perfect yet, but for the first time in six years I have my "home" and I am grateful.
Thank you to my friends for the support and love shown to us. Thank you to my family for loving me enough to completely adjust our lives to accommodate my health. Thank you to my husband for continuing to "Love me through it". Thank you to my son for just being awesome all the time. I am so proud of the man you are becoming. Thank you, God, for bringing us home and help us to always remember, even through frustration, that you love us.
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