As I face the emotionally and physically daunting task of
packing up our lives and moving away from a truly great situation, from family,
friends, church and community that we love, I sometimes start thinking, “What
the heck are we doing??? What if the next place is not as good as this
one? (And how can it be?)”
And then I remember my grandmother, Audrey, and the life
events that transpired after a similar move….
When Audrey was about my age, with
kids at about the same ages and stages of my kids, they lived in a big, grand
home in a charming town, surrounded by friends.
She was a hostess extraordinaire, throwing numerous fancy dinners and
parties in their large dining room, and was the president of the local Woman’s
Club. She imagined living in her
beautiful 3-story home with parquet floors for the rest of their lives, someday
filling it with grandchildren and even more laughter.
Audrey’s husband and my grandfather,
Lou, was a former test pilot for the military who had been forced to retire
from service when one of the planes he was testing crashed and he got injured. In the years after, he had worked various
jobs and entrepreneurial ventures, until one day he came home and announced out
of the blue that they were moving. He
was itching for a new adventure.
 |
| This was their house |
Let me pause here in the story: Audrey’s story inspires me and gives me
courage to make this move, so you might be imagining that the rest of the story
goes something like this: Lou and Audrey
move to an even bigger and even more beautiful home and their whole family
thrives even more in their new life and they all live happily ever after.
No…. not exactly.
They sold their beautiful home that
my grandmother loved…. and moved to a large property of wilderness several
hours away, which my grandfather was determined to build into a
campground. A campground. In the wilderness.
Audrey was an adventurous gal in her
own right, having spent many years sailing, traipsing around the world, playing
sports, etc., but giving up all her friends and life in the town of Mountain
Lakes was not her choice. Building a
campground was not her dream -- at all.
Her new life now consisted of an old
house in the middle of nowhere with a tiny kitchen, full of fishermen barreling
through with all their waders and dirty buckets and muddy boots (the campground
included a Trout Club). Her daughter was
off at college now, so she was surrounded by men and boys all the time. Lou and their sons spent all their time
working hard to tame the land and build new structures.
And then the campground became an idyllic reality and it
turned out even Audrey loved it, and they all lived happily ever after??
No…
They did eventually get everything
built, and opened for business. Then, a
few years later, the campground was sued.
They lost the lawsuit and went bankrupt.
Audrey and Lou and their youngest
son now found themselves with no money and no home.
Right about that time my mom, Lynn,
got married and my parents bought a ramshackle of an old farmhouse with the
intention of trying to fix it up. They
offered to let Lynn’s parents and brother live upstairs, and since there was no
other good option, that is what they did.
Lou, who had become an alcoholic
over the years, finally got his drinking under control. But then he was hit with a terrible
diagnosis: jaw cancer.
So now Audrey was living in her
daughter’s run-down house, taking care of a very sick man for several
months…. Until he died.
This story just gets worse and worse.
It was right about this time that I
arrived in the world, in that old farmhouse, in time to meet Lou, but we didn’t
have much overlap.
After Lou’s death, Audrey now found
herself a widow at age 53, penniless, living at the mercy of her daughter and
husband, with a son still in college.
So WHY does this sad story encourage me?? Here’s the rest of it…
If anyone had reason to be bitter
and angry, I would say she did. BUT,
from as early as I can remember her, until the day she died over 40 years
later, I only remember her smiling. Her
eyes were always twinkling, she rarely complained about anything, and she loved
all things and all people.
After a few years of singleness,
during which she sped all over the Northeast in her fast car, she met Bud, and
they got married. He was also poor,
having spent his life savings on health bills for his first wife, so they
continued to live in the small apartment of the farmhouse, which my parents had
by then sold to someone else. They ended
up living in that apartment for almost 30 years, happy as clams.
Bud and Audrey had incredible zest
for life. They saved enough money to buy
a little trailer to pull behind their Saab and spent the next several decades
crisscrossing the U.S. several times, staying with friends everywhere they
went. Even without a lot of money they
were always generous to us and were full of joy and life every time we saw them
– which was a lot, despite the distance.
Eventually Bud died, at the age of 98,
and Audrey continued on for almost another decade in widowhood again. But right up to the end of her life she
maintained her sense of joy and contentment, never becoming bitter or
resentful.
I don’t know what this next chapter of our lives will look
like. I don’t know if we will look back
and think this was a “good move” or a “bad” one. Things could spiral downward fast, as they
did for Audrey. But her story reminds me
that my state of mind, my contentment and joy, should not be based on my
circumstances. No matter what, I do not
have to choose to be bitter or angry. No
matter what comes, I can choose joy.
I like to use a word I made up, “circumcircumstances.” If the word “circumstances” comes from the
root “circum,” which means “around,” then I figure “circumcircumstances” should
mean the reality that is true beyond our circumstances. If I am standing in the center of a circle,
my circumstances would be the circle immediately around me, but the bigger
circle around that circle is my circumcircumstances.
“Good” and “bad” things happen, but ultimate reality around
it all, my circumcircumstances are always Good.
God is working for my good and His glory and He wins in the end. So, although giving up my “good” life here in
NC feels a little bit like a gamble, and I know the next chapter could be
better or worse, I can stand on the Rock of my faith and move forward in
courage, knowing that joy is always an option.
