" I think of you so often as a little boy and I want to take away the pain, but you’re a man now and you’re acting like one. I’m proud of you….I always have been."
I have read those specific lines over and over again since they landed on my blackberry just a few hours before my mom died. Such a few words that I know will always remain in my memory.
Since my mother's death I have begun to take some things a little more seriously. Things including my health, weight, time, finances...etc. Included in that process is making sure that my wife and eventually the rest of my family feels secure and safe and one of the things that is a large part of that is our finances. At the beginning of the week I took a closer look at how I can help my wife and our bills and what is really more important in certain areas.
The biggest thing that we agreed upon changing is our car situation. Brittany's car is a lease. That was a deal that went down before we were married so we have been paying about $250 a month towards a car that we know that we will not want to buy once the lease ends in October of 2010. Instead of paying that money to "rent" a car we decided that we needed to get rid of the lease asap and put that money towards something else more constructive. It all worked out rather quickly and Brittany's parents actually wanted to take the car from us so as of the end of July we were ready to be a one car family.
One car would be a tough thing for us because Brittany goes to school and I was going to start back again in August and riding the public bus to work would be my transportation, but we were ok with that and believed that we were doing our best to sacrifice a little to be better with our money. Wednesday night I finalized our insurance policy to remove the car as of the end of July (when her parents would take it form us). I felt great about it.
But also a little worried about how I was going to get around.
Tonight, Thursday, Brittany and I went over to where my mom lived to see her husband and go through a few things that now belonged to us. There were some incredible priceless things that I am so thankful to have. I believe that being a pack rat is not good, but please save some things. I found pictures and random things that I have never seen before. We all teared up as we went through things that were close to my mom's heart and the idea that she is no longer here was very real.
As we took some of the boxes to our car Darold, my mom's husband, said "Since we are out here I want to give these to you."
He handed each of us the keys to my mom's car and told us that she had a policy that allowed the car to be paid off completely after she died and given to us. He cried as he told us this and I believe I laughed at first and then cried all within 5 seconds.
The crazy thing is that Brittany and I had just discussed that we would pay for cash for whatever car we owned in the future and never again have to deal with a car payment. I was planning on saving up about 6-8k for a decent used car eventually.
The car that we now own because of the generosity of my mom and her husband is something that we would not be able to buy until we were very old. I would not brag about my own car if I had bought it myself, but I am going to tell you a little about this car since, I believe, it shows what a great gift it is.
-2007 Nissan Altima
-25,040 miles
-Complete navigation system included
-Bluetooth included
-Power seats, windows
-Seat warmers
-Camera when you reverse to show you what is behind you
-Leather seats
-Keyless ingnition, keyless locking/unlocking
-Sunroof
-6 disc CD changer and mp3 accesible
-Seriously, everything is digital. Everything. And there is a screen in the middle where the GPS is that is touch screen.
-Darold had it deatailed before he gave it to us
The only reason I am going into all of this detail is because I am incredibly overwhelmed by my mom's final gift to me and my wife. I am also almost speechless to the fact that this came just the day after our plans were final to get rid of one of our cars and begin the long process of saving enough money to buy a decent used car.
My next post will be on heaven. I am not sure exactly what that means, but I have been thinking a lot about it lately and will get to it.
But for now all I can think of is how thankful I am to my mother for loving me. She had this planned almost two years ago before her first surgery. I believe that God had something to do with all of this. When I had a conversation with my mom about her death that I described in my last post she was about to tell me what she was going to leave me and I told her that we didn't need to talk about that.
Two years in the making and God worked out the timing in such a way that all I can do is sit here on my couch and be amazed at everything. I understand that none of you will know how incredible this really is, but I just had to write about it.
