There it goes, another limb of life, down, lying lifeless now, another casualty of the storm of events that in this short year had wiped out every foundation I had been building for a lifetime, all but one.
I could feel the ripple of the break throughout my body. Pain, bewilderment, the unconscious desire to keep my eyes shut and experience simple nothingness in the salvation of denial. It was as if everything tangible was vanishing from my life. Things you hold onto believing they will someday be useful. So many things, and the dead weight of all the accumulations truly is an anchor, but just like an anchor, sometimes the very things you believe are in place to keep you safe, are the very things weighing you down.
Downsizing was the theme running it’s course through my life at the moment. I had been downsized from my career of some 15 years, suddenly and unexpectedly. The house was soon to follow, in an unforeseen foreclosure, the notice sat on the corner of my desk like a living time bomb, ticking, tick-tock, 30 days to auction, 29, 28 ……and in the days ahead, packing and pondering becoming homeless, or should I say, residentially challenged, I was forced to come to terms with the accumulation of things that had so little meaning now in light of the untimely revelation, that my husband of some 38 years would not be joining me in the move ahead. He was finally coming out of the closet, and this was the perfect time, his perfect time, to forge into his new life adventure. He asked me to be the one to tell the kids of course. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because you see, I had prayed about how to keep the family alive in the midst of this new crisis, the core of stability and love that had predominated the past. I broke the news with the words “I love him enough to give him his freedom” . They understood it was a sacrifice for me as I told them I still loved their Father with all my heart but had made the choice of allowing him his freedom, without judgement, for the change ahead. The best thing a parent can do is set an example of preserving the love to the highest degree possible as change is always inevitable.
So when the news of the cancer hit, I was reminded that the only thing I had been holding onto, believing I was healthy enough to survive the upcoming move, the divorce and finding a new career, the final branch snapped like a twig as well.
“God”, I said, withholding the torrents of emotion for a moment, believing that coming to God while in another emotional state of turmoil might prevent me from hearing any clear answer or response. “God” It’s me again, but then you know don’t you? You always know so I guess I don’t need to be long winded on this one. You must believe I’m strong. I’m not.”
I could hear my breath, in the quiet of the moment, slow, steady, not at all matching the pace of my heart that was working hard to find it’s pace, to beat without the steady stabbing pain of another heartbreak. Grief of loss is a palatable thing. It is tangible. Emptiness leaves a taste. Survive, I told myself, just survive, this too shall pass, but would it?
It was the one last bastion of hope I had, that I would be healthy enough to start over again, because the broken branches of the previous year, were still strewn across the landscape of my life, not completely removed or resolved. The news of the cancer came before the news that the divorce was final. Thirty eight years. Gone. Just gone. Breathe, I told myself, and God will show you what you must do next, and here is where the family thought I was completely nuts thinking it was an acute overreaction on my part to my current circumstances.
A houseboat? You’re going to do what? pack it all up and move onto a boat? You must be crazy. Well, I told them, I may be crazy but I will not be homeless. You see, I had listened during those dark and quiet moments of despair and what was spoken to me was to find a quiet small place to park myself for a while so I could get back on my feet again. What I heard was, “you’ve always liked the water”, and so it was, that with the last of my meager savings I took a drive to look at a small houseboat that would start the most surprising, outrageous, unbelievable chapter of my life. When God pruned the branches, he took off the dead weight that had been holding me back from everything he had in store for me. The next chapter of my life I would come to name “Home is where your boat floats” and so it was that I drove two hours all the while mulling over the fact that downsizing meant that anything not essential to my well being would be left behind, nobody really needs 22 pairs of shoes and three thousand square feet filled to the brim was obviously beyond shelter. On Saturday morning, June 27, 2008 I set sail on the adventure of my life, with my soon to be ex-husband reluctantly in tow. I told him I had been looking at boats and some of my fondest memories were when I lived on a little houseboat when I was 17 and my Dad managed a resort in the Bahamas. I remember nights sleeping on deck, the heavens stretched out above me, and the voice that brought me to this moment, the God voice that reminded me I loved the water, so I found her, the little boat, “The Vagabond” and she couldn’t have had a more appropriate name, and at 178 square feet of living space, just enough to call home for extended periods of time over the next five years. As I made the deal and planned on how to break the news to the kids, all three of them, who had also been displaced during the divorce and the move, I was cognizant of the radical, permanent change ahead that would force me to take the rest of the journey quite seriously. Although the kids were essentially grown adults, they still wondered where we would have Christmas. This was the question that made me cry. Our family was moving apart, forever changed by the necessity of survival. We would have it on the boat of course I stated matter of factly and I would indeed have a tree and though it might be cramped, we would enjoy many holidays and family gatherings in this small but quaint setting. They didn’t buy into the hot tub on the back deck and my soon to be Son in law joked that next thing we knew I would have a helipad on the upper deck. Why not? I quipped and began to describe to them a way of life ahead for me that could help save my life.