How Do I Explain the Unexplainable? - Mortgage Crisis Part II

Part I of this story below.

After I hugged her, she started to sob uncontrollably.  When we finally pulled apart, she said, “How do I explain the unexplainable? I couldn’t think about it anymore. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking. He’s never going to forgive me.”  With that statement in mind, I had to put to paper the anguish that I felt within my sister that day and the struggle I had witnessed these past years.  I was trying to answer her question, to explain the unexplainable. 

To my sister:

“How do I explain the unexplainable?”  The final eviction notice came. Fear gripped me and I just hid.  I have carried this secret for so long, I hid things from my husband and my kids. My sisters couldn’t understand why I didn’t come to them and tell them of the terrible fears and hurt I was holding in. I couldn’t ask them for help; I couldn’t make myself do it. I promised I wouldn’t. We agreed to keep our financial problems to ourselves.  I couldn’t think about it anymore. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking.  I hid by reading my books, finding work to do outside of the home, anything that could be a distraction. I wish I didn’t have this perpetual migraine, this headache that’s been with me the last six years, and the mother of all stress headaches these last six months, starting in March when we were informed that the house no longer belonged to us.

I would cringe when the mail came, knowing I would have to hide the letters from the taxman, the mortgage company, the school, and the insurance company. I kept negotiating, trying to work things out, hoping to save us.

Everything is on my shoulders. I must shoulder all. I shoulder all of it.  All the responsibility will be placed on my shoulders.  My perceived inept attempts to make a single paycheck stretch, I stretched it until it was paper-thin. Then holes and rips started to appear.  I would run from one end to another trying to patch the rips that were getting bigger and bigger until the only thing left was to stop. I had to stop myself from thinking, thinking, thinking.

A wall of debt stretched high above me. I was constantly under its shadow. The shadow was with me always. I could only wait until it decided to fall under its own weight. The wall was holding back the floodwaters of secrets, pride, shame, worry, anger and failure behind it. Slowly, the cracks appeared and the water started to push through. Even though he knew it might come, I didn’t tell him that it was finally upon us, that we needed to get out.  I chose to ignore it. I chose to hide from it. Finally, the trickle became a river, washing my home, belongings, and secrets away. I was at the same time in crisis and in relief.

Responsibility was the one thing I was given so that no responsibility or liability fell on anyone else. He didn’t want anyone to know about our situation. I couldn’t ask anyone in the family for help. He didn’t really want to know what I knew. He kept saying where is all the money going? I tried to explain, to lay it all out. As long as it was an abstract idea and no hard facts or figures came his way, he could go on.  If a hint of it touched him, he would fall into such a depression and anger that it made it very difficult for me to broach the subject again.  Clues such as garnishment of his wages, avoiding calls from collectors, or attempts at the ATM all brought his frustrations, temper tantrums, and accusations of my ineptitude. He ignored the lawyer’s advice. But the inevitable was still going to happen. Long ago, he refused to sell the one thing that could have averted this tragedy. I chose not to argue. That maybe was my biggest mistake.

It became impossible for me to bring the subject of our finances up any longer. He didn’t want to know. He never wanted to know the score. I was to keep all unpleasantness from his view and when I couldn’t he would shake his head and find other things to do or wallow in self-pity.  I was supposed to fix it.  I was supposed to fix everything. It is my job to make all of their lives easier.  I knew then that I was alone.  I would be the one to hold the brunt of the responsibility no matter what happened because no one else wanted to share it.

So alone, after years of struggle, I will forever be the fall guy. It was me that did this.  It will always be my fault.  Why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that? Consequently the debt is gone, and the credit that was for so long non-existent remains so. But the secrets, the inner turmoil, the thing that no longer needed saving is gone. I am finally free of the many millstones around my neck. How can I explain the unexplainable? I don't know how. My children and family supports me still; they don’t sit in judgment of me, sans one.  I await his verdict.

Mortgage Crisis - Part One

My sister lost her house a few months ago.  The fire started in her bedroom.  The source of the fire was an electrical cord that ran under her bed to a lamp. Due to lack of closet space, my sister and husband store many belongings under the bed. This combination overheated the cord and started the fire.  Luckily my parents live next door and were able to raise the alarm.  Little Sister rushed home from work and we rushed to her aid to help with the clean up.  We wore old clothes, brought boxes, garbage bags and facemasks to protect us from the fumes. 

When we pulled up three men were in front of the house, one had a badge around his neck.  At first we couldn’t figure out what was going on.  They were taking things out of the house and so was my sister.  She was working furiously and with such a concentration that I don’t think she even knew that we were there. Were the men helping her save her belongings, getting them out of the smoke filled house?  Our confusion turned to disbelief when we finally realized that they were not helping my sister, but these men were here to evict her.

We asked her what was going on and she just kept on working to keep her belongings from ending up in the dumpster.  Soon we were helping her, dragging out soot-covered possessions before the men could get a hold of them.  We started filling my mother’s garage and backyard with the salvaged belongings, a stove from the garage, televisions, stereos, and other valuables from inside the house.  Luckily or not depending on how you look at it, the crew that came to evict her was a three-man crew when the number should have been six.  With a six-man crew they would have emptied that house quickly and more efficiently. They kept mumbling under their breath about the fire. They mumbled how they wished they had facemasks.  But when the fire marshal came in and gave his verdict that the fire was definitely an accident, the men became more sympathetic.

The three men seeing the scope of possessions that my sister’s family had accumulated in 25 years quickly became tired and became more concerned with their own health, inhaling all that soot. and so their resolved weakened. And when they saw my sister’s tenacity and single-minded determination of retrieving her belongings their resolve weakened further.  They started asking her if she wanted this item or that item and helped move a piece or two.

Apparently they were commissioned to take out only very large pieces and were not interested in the smaller items.  Besides with most of the surfaces covered in the house by papers, bills, books and the like they just tossed them to the floor.  Not only was there soot everywhere they added to the debris pile creating soot clouds, which made it harder for them to breathe and harder for us overall. We scoured every room making split second decisions on what was expendable and what should be left behind.

Her husband hurried home from work expecting to deal with the fire situation. To say he was taken aback by the eviction is such an understatement because it in no way describes the range of emotions that came over his face all at the same time. He kept asking the same question over and over to his wife. But she kept on working. He wanted to have a show down, but she kept on working.

The fire was contained in hallway and rear bedroom.  I had never been in a house after a fire and was shocked to see how every wall in the house was black as though charred but in reality covered in soot.  We worked until nightfall to begin again the next day.

My sister was still very quiet, exhausted, but still concentrating on all the work yet to be done. She wasn't ready to talk about it. It was too soon. I took a few moments to cry my eyes out.  I know how hard she has struggled the last few years trying to keep it all together and I felt her anguish.  As nightfall came, the work stopped for us, but it kept going for her.  She began the laundry, trying to remove the smell of smoke from the clothes we saved. Finally, I had to ask her the inevitable question, “Is it all right if I give you a hug before I leave?”  When she answered yes, I put my arms around her and as soon as I touched her, she began to sob uncontrollably.

The mortgage crisis has finally hit too close to home.