Chapter 5

     It was a lovely late summer day; sunny and warm outside.  My daughter and son-in-law had gone to the Big City to conduct some business, the 4 children and a friend were all at home as were my husband and i.  Everyone was in various parts of the house doing their thing.  i was in our bedroom at the back of the house and my husband was in the living room on his computer.  It was around noon and i heard the kids running through the house.  i asked one of them what was going on and i was told that the oldest sister was taking them out for lunch.  That was pretty unusual but i thought it was a nice thing to do.  After they left, i went out to ask my husband if he wanted lunch, which he did.  i fixed us something, we ate together and went back to our various activities. 
     A little while later my daughter and son-in-law came home sans children.  i came out to greet them and i could tell by the looks on their faces that something was very wrong.  My daughter had been crying and my son-in-law looked angry.  My daughter went straight to their bedroom and my son-in-law told me to go with her as she had something to tell me.  He stayed in the living room with my husband.  As i entered the bedroom my daughter's face told me that something very serious had happened.  She then began to tell me amid tears that my husband had molested her then-10 year old daughter (my granddaughter).  R (the granddaughter) had had presence of mind (and good training) to go to her older sister, use her phone and call her parents.  They told the older sister to take all of the children out of the house immediately and to stay away until sent for.  My daughter and son-in-law left right away for home with a stop on the way at the pastor's house for prayer and counsel. 
     My son-in-law had talked to my husband who admitted what he had done.  He was told to pack a bag and to leave the house immediately.  When i left my daughter, my husband was in our bedroom packing some things preparing to leave.  i was so overwrought and in shock i didn't even know what to say to him.  i kept repeating "What have you done?"  He admitted to me that he had done it but said he had no idea why and that he had never done anything like that before or even had a thought of it.  in a few more minutes he was gone and my life was forever changed.

to be continued.

Chapter 4

So, in January, 2013 my husband and i moved out of our big, old home in Kansas to start a new life in the Pacific Northwest.  i was very excited about it as the PNW is the place i feel most at home but there were also a few concerns.  i had lived my entire life in the midwest ~ Nebraska and Kansas ~ with a 3 year stint in Colorado.  Even though it wasn't always pleasant there, it was at least familiar.  2 of my children live in the midwest and my sister lives in Colorado; i was moving farther away from all of them and as before i could get in the car and go visit them, now i could not.  i was ready for something new, however, so off we went.  The trip was 4 days on the road with the first night being spent at my youngest daughter's house in Kansas, the second night at my sister-in-law's in W. Nebraska (also visiting my middle daughter and her family) and the third night in a motel at my husband's request as it was his birthday.  In spite of the fact that we moved in mid-January we encountered no bad weather on the way.  Quite a miracle, i think.

We arrived at my oldest daughter's house amid much welcoming and excitement.  The children switched bedrooms around so that we could have a large bedroom in their home and so we moved in.  When the moving truck arrived, all of our "stuff" except what we had in our bedroom was moved into a storage unit nearby.  i had made sure to bring plenty of books and yarn and also my computer.  We were living very comfortably with the added blessing of grandchildren right there.  We set to work figuring out where we would live.  The plan was that we would have our home on their property ~ a small acreage.  3 years earlier we had looked at manufactured homes and we planned to go that route, but when we went back to the sales lot that we had been to before we discovered that the prices had risen appreciably in the intervening years.  So it was back to the drawing board.
My daughter and son-in-law then offered us their attached garage and we had some plans drawn up to add on to it and make that our living space.  The architect came up with some very good plans and we were excited to get moving on it when we talked to the contractors.  The cost of converting their garage into living quarters for us was astronomical!  At least to our thinking.  We wanted to pay cash but we didn't have nearly enough, so once again ~ back to the drawing board.  We started looking at used manufactured homes but they were either also too expensive, too small or in bad shape.  Needless to say, i was getting rather discouraged at this point.  We had been living in the back bedroom for nearly 6 months  and i was ready for my own place.  The family was extremely gracious and considerate of us but there's nothing like having one's own home.
We then went back to the manufactured home sales lot that we had visited originally and Lo and Behold! they had a new model that was very nice, good-sized and most importantly of all ~ affordable!  We were able to choose color schemes, flooring and a few other options.  It was so exciting!  Now we just had to wait for the house to be built.  i admit to having a hard time waiting but by the end of July it was finished and it was being delivered to our site.  (We had spent the previous month doing dirt work, taking out trees, putting in the septic, etc.)  Finally!  there it was.  i was so anxious to move in but i had to wait a few more weeks for everything to be put together, hooked up and inspected. 

And then, my world turned upside down.

to be continued...