A Letter Home

It was one year ago this week that the Spouse lost his job. The timing of this only occurred to us a few days ago as we drove to the airport. Toronto was hot, the highway crowded, and the afternoon broken up with sudden storms that did nothing to relieve the heat. We were excited and stressed, the car way overweight with our too-heavy luggage, the kids feeding off our excitement. And then we remembered the end of last summer.

Spouse came home early that day. I had been out for a walk with the kids in the wagon. Coming home, something felt odd about the house, like I’d left a door unlocked, but I hadn’t. We’d been home about 20 minutes when Spouse came down from the third floor, looking grim.

The days that followed that afternoon were a bit grim, too. We were confused about what had happened, bewildered about the future, and more than just a bit furious, too. It felt like our life had been taken into unseen, uncaring hands, roughly shaken up so all the bits jiggled out of place, and then roughly handed back to us to see what we could do with it.

And so we did.

There’s a lot of work to do when you are out of work. Suddenly the mundane tasks of life spring up to enormous proportions. The dishes becomes mountainous, and the planning of dinner is almost insurmountable. And always in the background is the deafening question—what to do next? Finding work seems crucial, but you also don’t want to close doors by jumping too quickly. We were lucky and had some time to spend re-imagining life. I am so grateful to our community, our families and our friends for the space and gentleness they provided as we tried to find a way forward. We could have stayed in Ottawa. I had recently started a good job. We had friends and family nearby. Beangirl would start junior kindergarten this fall just down the street from our home. But it felt like we had been given an opportunity as well as a shake-up, and we wanted to explore what might be possible.

There was a lot of work in that exploration. Imaging what shape our life might take requires a lot of creativity.  So a couple of weeks after he lost his job, Spouse headed down to the States to a retreat centre in the Appalachians where he spent his time in silent retreat, working towards the future. While he was gone, the kids and I made a room-sized poster to outline our activities each day. We used a long roll of paper, unrolling enough for each day, writing and drawing and gluing on bits of coloured paper to our hearts content, then, after letting it dry, rolling it up so that the new day’s paper was visible.  That poster felt like prayer. Here is the day, Lord, all that we could make of it. We don’t know what there will be tomorrow, but our crayons are ready for more. At the end of the week, Spouse came home, and we shared our week with him and he shared with us.

In the following weeks, there was a lot of sharing and a lot of listening. Spouse had some ideas for the future, but the discernment process isn’t just individual–God also gives us communities. Our friends who know us and know our interests helped us to discern our futures–the spaces where we might use our talents best and where we might grow.  We are blessed with an international community of friends, and so perhaps it isn’t surprising that we’ve ended up in England. Spouse will be starting a fascinating program through the University of London. All summer, he’s been working through a pile of appropriate reading, titles provided by friends and colleagues in preparation for his studies. These are the books that weighed down our luggage as we left Canada, but hopefully they will equip him for the seminars that start in a couple of weeks.

When we arrived at the airport, we were met by a dear friend, and we’re now holed up at her lovely English house–a fresh garden outside the kitchen door with fruit trees along the fence, a kitchen I can play in (yes, I’ve already roasted a chicken and it was good), lots of space in the living room to spread out the toy trains. We will have our own flat next week, and Beangirl will be starting nursery school soon, too.  What’s to become of me and Blue is still a little vague, but I’ll keep you posted as the days unfold. But we’ll be at a Presbyterian church here in London on Sunday, and the kids are looking forward to Sunday School.

Now, to find an iron to work out the travel-wrinkles…