Genuine goodness, the kind that overwhelms you and leaves you speechless, and makes you wonder if you are deserving of such an act, stays often hidden. Actually, truth to be told, it can show up in the dark.
I know, because it parked in front of our home. I watched it arrive!
We spend the biggest part of Sunday in the car, driving through the neighborhood. We had noticed people were pulling out the trashcans for Monday already. Like most people, we had picked up things on the street before, but we never intentionally went out to go garbage shopping. We were hoping to find a dining chair, or maybe we would get really lucky and someone would throw an old table away.
The first night in our new home was special in so many ways. How did it feel to close and lock the door behind us after so many months of not knowing in what state or what city we would end up, always wondering if -and when- we would have a place to call home again? Feeling unsettled for so long, always worrying if we could keep our dogs and if we could stay together. Being at home again, felt like nothing I had experienced before. When you regain something that was lost and could have been lost for a very long time, it’s a feeling of humbled victory.
We turned left on the old gravel road and waved a last goodbye to my best friend, who was holding our little dog in her arms. Then we closed the windows, and we focused on the road ahead of us.
We waited for Kurt’s background check. We were both nervous and fearful, for different reasons. “He wants me to co-sign for a car,” she told me and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “You will not do that, right?”
All we needed was THE ONE PAYCHECK people always talk about. The one that can make the difference between being homeless and having a place to call home. We had fallen off the cliff, and now we were trying to climb back up. We were ready to move mountains, and desperate enough to jump into the unknown -blindfolded. All we needed was one chance to make it all happen.
Mardi gras was over, Lent, the time of fasting and sacrifices before Easter had begun. Just like every year, my friend hauled me to a Catholic church on Ash Wednesday, and we left with an ash cross on our foreheads. Remember that you are dust, and to dust, you shall return. I didn’t need that reminder. We had just hit rock bottom, and I felt lower than dust or dirt.
It was the first time we openly shared the fact that we were broke -it felt odd. Part of me was relieved, the other part felt ashamed. Later that evening, we told him OUR STORY, not for pity or sympathy, but because we needed to confront reality. We had been so sheltered and comforted at my friend’s home, we had been so busy, it almost felt like we had been hiding from the harsh truth that we still were homeless (house-less), and had nothing but debt to our name.
She sat outside in the cold on the kitchen steps, smoked a cigarette right under the new quit-smoking sign we had now taped to the entry door. Our health inspection had gone well. We only needed an exit sign on the side door, like it would be possible to overlook a double door in a building that’s only 26’ x 20’. Minor complaints, easy fixes, and we passed with flying colors.
It all started out like an ordinary day. Kurt would leave the following morning and would be gone for two weeks. He stopped by the kitchen for a short while, we enjoyed a few test patties, later he went back to the house and spent the rest of the day in their bedroom, watched films, and packed his things.