How my grandmother's story gives me courage to move far away

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.