Looking up my Past

 Infiltrating the change in my fortune is important because despite all the horror of the last few years:  The death of my best friend in my twenties, my first husband’s death, my parents’ deaths, The death of my friend in the safehouse in Colorado, the reversal in fortunes made me more independent, and rescued me from a life of misery, so that I could live a life I wanted without fear of retribution.  

 The part of my life after my parents’ deaths freed me in a strange way.

My mother had been an alcoholic, and my parents’ squabbles were now behind me, for better or worse.  I had my first Christmas without my parents arguing, and it was delightful, and that Christmas the older two kids went back to Colorado, and the rest of us had Christmas at a rented cabin in Pinecrest.  That next year we began looking for a cabin of our own, and by November that year it was ours.  What a difference the cabin made to all of us.  Ramiza came up, and Riyad and all our friends came as well.  We had a new house, and we had a second home where we’d already traveled to for years.  

That house made living in the city much more bearable.  I loved getting away, and so did the kids.  Now we had a second home, and various combinations of us frequented it a lot.

Being free of the parents’ and of Sadiq opened our minds precipitously.

So many stories to tell about the time Nate left the cabin without seeing it was smoldering in the campsite below.  We came home to it having been put out by the rangers.  Nate took some heat for that!

Another time Ramiza and Brandon got stuck in the snow, shoveled it out, then the plow came around again, and they had to dig it out a second time!

Or when we came for Memorial Day weekend and refused to let Choe and Jessi swim on Saturday, then Sunday it snowed, and we missed our chance of fun.

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