IT TAKES YOUR BREATHE AWAY

About eighteen months ago a young couple with three small children was in the process of searching for a larger home. Because the “downsizing” market was in full swing, they could not sell their home for the amount that would make the purchase of the larger home more affordable. The weeks turned to months of frustration and uncertainty while the walls closed in on them.
Just when they thought they had reached their level of frustration, their basement flooded the morning of their well advertised open house. As soon as the basement was cleaned up and the problem remediated, their Realtor scheduled another open house that had to be cancelled due to the onslaught of ants that followed the flood.
With limited options, the young couple persevered and reduced the property price again. To their delight, a buyer called to schedule a showing…..just before the heating system started to smoke and required the replacement of vital parts.
This couple believed that “when you are going through hell, keep on going”, hence they reduced the price again and bingo….it went under agreement!
The young couple began to pack up their lives but just before the closing, the young wife was attacked by a swarm of bees in their back yard. She was hospitalized with IV antibiotics to combat severe cellulites in her arm.
With her arm in a sling, she and her now horrified husband continued to prepare to move. There were boxes everywhere in between diapers, dolls and toy trucks. The young wife and children went to the mall for last minute supplies. It was there that she saw the St. Bernard puppy in the pet store window. She and the children stopped in their tracks as the huge puppy pressed its nose up against the window. All the real estate catastrophes of the previous year receded in the big wet eyes looking back at them. The young wife reached for her cell phone.
When the young husband answered his office phone, he could hardly believe his wife’s request that quickly turned to a plea and a campaign to purchase the very expensive and destined to be very big pet. In vane he reminded his wife that they were already in chaos. They could not afford a St. Bernard. With one arm in a sling, his wife was limited to what she could accomplish as it was.
The children joined the campaign. They needed the dog. They would walk the dog. They would clean up after the dog…..honest they would. The dog already loved them back and they all would live happily together in their new home that had a bigger back yard that was perfect for their new dog. Their dog’s name would be Nicki.
The young husband lost the campaign. The closing took place and the big back yard became the receptacle of Nicki’s increasingly larger waste products that only the young husband seemed to notice. The dog food bags emptied quickly week after week and the happy growing dog swiped the coffee table bare with it tail daily. One of Nicki’s favorite games was to run off through the back yard woods any time she could and be chased by the young husband who grew more and more tired of the “game”.
Shortly before this author’s bi weekly article became due, the young husband, whose job requires that he leave for the office at about 3:30am, slipped on the ice in his driveway and fell down very hard outside his home in subfreezing temperatures. Not only had the impact taken his breath away, but he could not move as he laid outside in the pitch dark cold and complete silence.