My boss agreed to let me file for unemployment to supplement my income while I looked for a new full-time position. I would go into the Digital Variant office once every other week to calculate and submit payroll, and deal with accounts payable and receivable. In the meantime, I scoured the local papers and hudsonvalleyhelpwanted.com and amped up the number of dolls that I was selling, developing a more weekly routine. Since I had this bit of income coming in I didn’t feel a weighted pressure to find a job and find one fast. I wanted to hold out for something that I could really sink my teeth into, something that I would thoroughly enjoy. It was the perfect opportunity to figure out “what I wanted to be when I grew up”, but try as I might I couldn’t seem to figure out what exactly that was. I was enjoying the freedom of being a work-from-home kind of girl too much to take the job hunt seriously and I think that’s when I realized that I could pay my bills and get by just fine if I could boost my doll sales. At the same time my mom’s health was starting to rapidly decline and the guy that I had been dating for a couple of years was looking into moving to China… CHINA!? I was all sorts of confused and had little energy to do anything but have fun with friends; it was my way of escaping the realities of my current state of life. My mom passed away on May 2, 2008, the previous Christmas she complained about her knee hurting and was having difficulty walking; we all thought, or should I say hoped, that it was arthritis or something similar. Deep down, however, I think my sister and I knew it was more serious as we both had been noticing changes in her for the last year. She was losing weight, coughing for no reason, and her appetite was lessening; but she refused to go to a doctor. After Christmas 2007 came and went she finally agreed to seek medical attention for the knee pain. At first they diagnosed her with arthritis and we were all somewhat relieved, but the doctor wanted to run more tests since it had been 30+ years since she had been for any type of check-up. A few weeks later we were, once again, presented with the C word; the cancer had metastasized to her bones and that was causing the knee pain. We talked on the phone every day until she just didn’t have the energy to do so. I had booked a flight to go home Mother’s Day weekend figuring it might be the last chance to see her alive, but it was a weekend too late. The drive from NY to WV that day was long and when I arrived the house, the house I grew up in, felt… changed. Things definitely were not going to be the same going forward.
Thank goodness for furbabies!