How Easily Your Life is Changed

The day is marked on our calendars as the day all life as we knew it had changed for the worst.  And just like that, with little pomp or circumstance, we tried to pick up the pieces of our ruined lives as best we could.  For we are a strong family with a deep foundation to weather any kind of storm that lays in our path.  Yet, we have come to the brink of our capacity with this single action that was inflicted upon us.  And each week, we sign a little harder and longer with no end in sight and no where for the pain to go.....

 



Friday night, 5:30 pm, one painful year ago..........................

I make the weekly call to our favorite pizza restaurant, Three Tomatoes and a Mozzarella, and the line is silent.  No message.  No explanation of why they aren't answering the phone to take my pizza order that we will pick up, just like the last 300 Fridays in a row!

Panicked, we drive over to the restaurant. It's dark and there is a sign on the door.  We worry that someone has been in an accident but we were unprepared for what we were about to read.........."We are closed for good due to poor negotiations with the landlord", or some such nonsense.  I can hardly read the words as my heart was pumping at an unsafe, fast rate.   It says to please visit their westside restaurant, only 45 minutes away.  How convenient!

Now, we knew the owners, all the employees and just about everything about them.  Yet, without a simple call, they have vanished from our lives.  We try to pick up the pieces.  We try every pizza joint within 15 minutes of our house.  None are even close to the perfect crust, fresh ingredients, not to mention a delicious tomato mozzarella salad from this wonderful little restaurant!  I told myself I was not going to cry when I wrote this post, but it's just TOO hard.  Why does life throw us these awful curves when we are so vulnerable? 

They are a franchise....so maybe we should buy one and put it very close to our house.  It's only $35,000 and restaurants are so easy to run and are often times profitable, right?  But the new place would have to be an exact replica of our family room, because we like to take the pizza home, drink our own wines and watch a movie.  Maybe our place could do that for a bunch of strangers. 

For now, we must suffer until we can figure this major life change.  I hope you and your family never have to go through such agony.  I would not wish this on my worst enemy!  I hope our marriage can stay tight.  (Maybe Al and Tipper had something like this happen to them....who really knows the true story?)  Wish us luck....