I Forgot

I had a minor melt-down after the car left us stranded in town before Christmas, and when it did so again just before New Year's Eve, the melt-down was more severe. It just all got to be too much and I was flooded with a feeling of helplessness that I haven't felt in well over 30 years.
The chimney still needs to be fixed, the kitchen roof needs to be replaced, the barn and shanty need to be torn down for safety reasons. The car problem is intermittent and we can not find what it is so it is not dependable, and our locked in financial situation has no solution. I just could not see a way out.

Keep reading, it starts to get better..............

The road crew that spent the summer rebuilding the under-side of the bridge had promised to repoint the chimney as reparation for the cedar tree and rose bushes they ruined. They did fix the lower driveway and cleaned up down there as best they could. When they went to repoint the chimney, they discovered the cement had blown out from between all the ceramic liner pieces and the bricks at the top were rotten. This was due to the original mason using inferior materials and taking shortcuts, but there was no way we could make him come good on his work.

The head of the road crew thought he could cut a hole in the bottom of the chimney and break the liner pieces out one at a time with a sledge hammer, then replace it with a steel liner, dropped down from the top. He successfully removed the liner, repointed the top of the chimney, covered it with a piece of plywood, brought some new bricks, sand and cement and then disappeared before Christmas.

Yesterday, he phoned and told us that the Highways Department was not willing to foot the bill, but he wanted to come and discuss it with us. In the afternoon, he arrived and told us he was going to be able to get a liner, and that he was also going to replace the kitchen roof as he had some shingles left over from another job. We had offered him the timbers and boards from the old barn and shanty if he wanted to tear them down and cart them away. There is a real market for old barn wood and there is a lot of salvageable beams and boards in ours. I think he is doing the roof in return for the barn and shanty and he assures us he will not be out any money on the whole deal. He went after the brick manufacturer for the rotten bricks and plans to get a new liner from the previous mason, whom he has known for quite some time. He will be back next week with liner and shingles.

In being so involved in the here and now, I forgot that when I do everything I can to be the best person I can be, the Cosmos looks after my needs. After all these years of being looked after, I forgot to trust. It certainly does not provide everything I would like, but it has always looked after what I needed, often just in the nick of time, but I have always had enough to eat, a roof over my head and clothes to wear, in addition to being blessed with so much love and caring.