Curveballs

Clearly, emotions and tensions were running high that Christmas in Florida. My mother, aunt, grandfather and I, who were all there living in the thick of it, were reeling from our sudden loss and trying to deal with our own shock and grief while trying to soothe each other—and it wasn’t working very well. Winnie was a rudder. She was an irreplaceable touchstone for all of us, and coming to terms with what her absence would really mean was devastating.

Needless to say, it was a somber Christmastime, and I was grateful for my husband’s natural detachment from such emotional curveballs--he had the energy to carry on with the children and keep me somewhat attached to their reality. I’ll say this about him: he is an expert at dealing with the here and now. He always finds a way to stay grounded in crisis, and he’s a fixer. Sometimes to a fault, but at that point in time, I loved him for it.

With that said, what happened next seemed to come entirely out of left field, but in retrospect, this is exactly how my husband operates. In the short time between my grandmother’s death and Christmas, he told me he was offered a job. A good one. In Chicago. And they would pay to move us. And he took it.