Monday, December 22, 2008


Saturday we left early for Sacramento to spend time with our families before Christmas. We got home 12 hours later, tired and happy. Grandma gave the kids flashlights, always a fun. We came home to our neighbors packing up their house. After raising a family in that house for the last 20 years they were foreclosed on. Hard times for them, contract work run dry, back surgery and finally forcloser. They had to be out by midnight last night, our garage is filled with their stuff. This morning as I sat and drank my coffee I looked at their empty house and felt the dull weight of sadness, the kind that comes when you can really do nothing to help. I think of the 4 kids they raised in that house, homeschooled in that house, and how they really planed to remodel and spend the rest of their lives there. I think of how fleeting things are, how slippery the material world is. I know they will be OK though, because there must have been 20 people over there last night hauling their stuff into cars to move, way into the night. People that they knew and some they didn't. I think of how loved they must have felt despite the circumstances and how that must have brought them some comfort. Anyway, I don't want to be a bummer here, really I just want to count my blessing. The good people in the world, my family, my friends, and those who suffer, yet carry on and can still find some glimmer of hope through the darkness.

5 comments:

Heidi R. said...

wow! that is so sad! I do not understand how all these big companies are being "bailed" out, yet us as individuals are not. It is very sad to me. Will they come for the stuff in your garage? Do they have somewhere else to live?

Helen said...

Oh man. This is so rough and a reality for too many. How awesome of you to offer storage space.

Anonymous said...

These are just sad times. And right at Christmas. What a terrible thing!

gonzomama said...

this just breaks my heart.
i read this on monday and i have thought of your neighbors often since then. i really don't know what else to say. just so sad. hope they are surrounded by people who love them.

beth said...

how lucky are they to have someone as sweet as your family "by their side" during a very tough time...

prayers and thoughts to your neighbors and all the other families going through the same thing...