Silver Lining

There were still days that I couldn’t get out of bed for the pain was too much to face. My son was suffering too. We were there for each other. Our family and the people of Laurel embraced us like nothing I have ever seen before. God winks; sometimes those winks get you through your one step at a time moments and you desperately keep searching for the next one. I had a few here and there.

I had a lot of pressure from different people asking what I was going to do with the buildings, and for those first several months I really couldn’t think clearly enough to answer any of those questions. I cannot tell you a date that my sun shined, the clouds broke away, and I was happy again. It was a slow fade. In fact, one step led to a bigger step and so on.

One big blessing that happened was that we were accepted as one of the families to get their home remodeled by HGTV’s HomeTown. We lived with my sister and her husband through the remodel. As grateful as we were to my sister and her wonderful husband, Michael and I didn’t feel settled into Laurel yet because we still were not in a home that we could settle into. So for those few months, all of our crap was crammed into one bedroom. Surprisingly to my sister, her husband and myself, we ALL got along pretty dang good considering the circumstances. Michael and I were BEYOND excited to know we could move into a newly and much needed renovated home.

During the time we were staying with my sister, I had to make a decision on what to do with the Arthur’s building and what I will refer to as the Front Street building. After being gutted, Arthur’s needed a lot of work and is such a huge space that I couldn’t see myself starting our new lives with so much debt from restoring such a large building. The more I thought about the Front Street building, the more I liked the idea of using it instead of the Arthur’s building. I think ALL of my friends and family had been telling me for months that the Front Street building was my best opportunity. They all may have gotten very frustrated with me taking so long to make a decision but it was something that I had to take time processing. I had to let the dust settle from the divorce long enough for us to gain what little footing we could before I was mentally able to make that decision and I had to be the one to make the decision.