By Kristin Schumacher

Three years ago my husband accepted a new job in another state. We have three children and the plan was to put our house on the market in Minnesota and move after the sale. This all happend around the time that the housing market was flailing. Unbeknownst to us, the sale of our home took longer and cost more than we expected which created challenges for us. We had the house on the market for over a year and during that time, my husband was commuting weekly to his new job six hours away. When it finally sold, we moved from our 4000 square foot home in Winona, Minnesota, to a temporary 1700 square foot townhome in a south Chicago suburb. We have lived there now for about two years.

Recently my husband and I made a decision it was time to buy a new home so we began house hunting. After looking for a while, we eventually found a 2500 square foot place that was cozy and adorable. Despite it’s charm, I felt uneasy about purchasing a home that was so much smaller cost and size than we were accustomed to over the years. We had moved our family at least 10 times in 12 years and have always been fortunate to live very comfortably with plenty of space. The day we decided to put in an offer on that house, my emotions were all over the place. I was stewing and feeling anxiety, sadness, happiness, gratefulness, anger, frustration, etc. It was taking me a while to come to terms with the idea of this change in lifestyle.

Later that night I sat down with my 10 year old Jack to read the The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo. In the book, there is one part where the author speaks to the reader and asks the reader the following questions:

1. Do you believe in happy endings?
2. What is your happy ending?
3. Is there such things as happy endings?

I stopped and turned to Jack and asked him what he thought about that. In one great big breath he started to give me one of his poignant and long winded answers. Here is how it went:

“Welllllll. Happy Endings are usually never ending because you’re not really sure when the end is. But when I think of my own life, I’m not really sure what a happy ending is. But when I think of YOUR life, I know you are IN your happy ending now because of how you grew up and now you fell in love with Dad and you have Kasey, Declan and the greatest-son-in-the-world: ME!(He pointed to himself while smiling sweetly.) He then continued by saying: “And we all make you happy and proud, so that is why this is your happy ending. He became silent for a moment and with watery eyes he said quietly; “Oh I don’t know why I’m cryin, but bein happy is good, right mom?

His perspective was humbling. I was raised by a single mother who struggled financially and somehow managed to keep it all together. That experience shaped me and helped me to know what I wanted for myself and my family. Jack, my ten year, old gave me a teachable moment that caused me to take a step back and ask myself; ‘Who am I to have a sense of entitlement? Had I forgotten where I came from?’ His words gave me an “AHA” moment and is helping me “get over” the fact that I’ve been wallowing in my own pity party about life. I was walking around with expectations about the kind of life I thought I “should” have materially. But it is not the material things in life that we remember. It is the moments.

It was a gift and reminded me that I must be doing something right to have him make such a genuine statement. His comments caused me to take a step back and say to myself, “Jack is right. I am living my happy ending.” It sort of swells up my heart. Great perspective, just when I needed it. I am grateful.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under Community Board. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.