“I don’t know if Fort Worth doesn’t want us to leave or if it’s kicking our butt on the way out,” Mike told me as Christa and I circled the DFW metroplex.
Ever since Mom died back in 2019, the words, “God has a plan,” have set me off. I believed that the world wasn’t total chaos and knew that I could look back on my life and see the hand of providence. In theory, I trusted that God placed me where I was supposed to be, but there was a catch.
People would say, “God’s got a plan,” when I was experiencing something miserable. Instead of feeling comforted, I felt invalidated. I didn’t want to face reality. I wanted all my problems to go away.
They said, “God’s got a plan.”
I thought to myself, “I don’t like His plan.”
This sinful world is so full of suffering, sorrow, and death. I want a life for me and my friends that has all of us comfortable, healthy, and happy. I don’t like living in a world where people die. I don’t like a world where people have car accidents and get hurt. I hate a world in which people traumatize other people. Even my plan to move back to Albuquerque hasn’t worked out the way I thought. I absolutely love living here, but my kids are having a hard time adjusting and that takes away some of my joy. Why can’t we all be happy?
After our last weekend in Fort Worth, I am taking “God’s got a plan,” as a rallying cry to stop and look for the mercies in the situation and to find ways to be thankful. Basil, Jonah, and their friend Alex were in a car accident on their way out of town. Looking back, I am amazed at all that led to my being nearby. I am thankful that no one was hurt. I am thankful that the accident was at a time and place where I could be there to take care of everything. How horrible it would have been if they had been driving down I-40 in nowhere Oklahoma as was our original plan! How grateful I am that the kids were able to go to camp and so many of my friends reached out to help me. Having children in a car accident is horrible, but I can see how much we were all loved and cared for throughout it all. In my thankfulness, I see God’s plan for me, and as I see God’s work in my life, I give thanks.
I don’t remember spending two other weeks with more ups and downs starting with Esther’s wedding and ending with me standing in a funeral home parking lot viewing the devastation done to my minivan after a five-car accident on the Sunday morning we were supposed to leave town. My friend James’s death just hours earlier made me all the more aware of how much my children had been spared. Cars may have been totaled, but thankfully that morning no one was hurt. I knew without a doubt that everything that happened in the weeks before led up to me being who I was and where I was when Basil called me that fateful morning.
Esther’s wedding was the best day of my life. The celebration continued as our guests departed until only Mike’s brother Zach and his family remained for the full week afterwards. Many happy memories were made though that was also the week my back went out and Justin had a horrible fall from the wall separating our side lawn from the neighbor’s stony backyard. When he stood up he looked like a character in a slasher movie. The ER doctor gave him a couple of stitches and advised us to have him wear a bandana around his head to help his torn ear heal flat, so he came home looking like Rambo.
Mike left the day after Zach because our new house had been infested with a neighborhood-wide plague of elm seed bugs. He was also needed to help supervise the half remodel of the kitchen. I wanted to have as little disruption to his work schedule as possible which would happen best if he was staying with his mom. My friend Christa flew out to help me manage the move on the Fort Worth end, and she brought Kelly’s son Alex so that he could join my kids going to Camp Raphael in Oklahoma. We had everything planned out. Justin and Xenia would take the church bus to camp. Basil would drive Alex and Jonah up separately in my Honda Odyssey minivan, and all the boys would drive to Albuquerque the following week. Xenia would come back to Fort Worth on the bus, stay with her friend Zaylynn one night, and fly to Albuquerque the next day. If all went according to plan, they would have a house with bedrooms all set up to come home to.
Christa divided her time between working with me on the house and helping Sophia take the kids out and about to keep them out of the house and out of my way and out of the way of the moving company who came to box everything up. The packing team descended upon us like locusts, and it was all I could do to clean ahead of them so that the workers didn’t empty drawers of trash into boxes. My friends Maria and Luis came over and helped me keep order in the mad rush to pack everything up. They made it possible for me to break up each day with as many last-minute meetups and goodbyes as possible.
Our last day in town was Saturday. Christa left in the early afternoon to take Xenia to her violin recital and stayed for vespers. My friend Mary picked up Justin and planned to keep him for the day so he could play with his friend Fred and then took him to his friend Beckett’s house for a sleepover. Basil was up early in the morning to go hiking with his friend Emmanuel, but he came home in time for me to take a break from supervising to drive him, Jonah, and Alex to Basil’s friend Ezra’s house. I promised to return the minivan to him as soon as possible. All the children would spend the night with friends since their beds were in the moving truck.
Maria and Luis stayed with me until the end of that last day. I did multiple inspections on all three floors and found a cupboard or two that was forgotten. I didn’t worry about the boxes in the middle of the second-floor living room, assuming they were on the way out. I swear I didn’t see the massive flat-screen TV boxed up, leaning against the far wall, ready to be taken downstairs. Apparently, no one else saw it either.
When it was time for me to leave for Vespers, the movers were almost done loading the truck. They told me that all the boxes were out of the house, that they would be driving off shortly, and that I could go. On my way downtown to pick up Magdalena and her fiancé Seraphim for our last Saturday night service in Texas, I also called my friend Christy Sparkle Sparkle Robinson to try to fit in one last meetup since she lived close to my church Archangel Gabriel in Weatherford. I was happy to see the regulars at the service like my dear sister in Christ Ruth and her husband Bert, Father Chrysostom and his lovely Matushka Katherine. It was supposed to be my last few hours in town as Christa and I planned on heading north that night to avoid the traffic in the DFW metroplex the next morning.
After the service, Magdalena, Christa, and I took pictures of ourselves in front of the iconostasis to remember the day. Christy showed up as we were finishing. We couldn’t bear to let the evening end, knowing it was our last together so the five of us headed over to the nearest Cracker Barrell for a farewell meal. I’ve never had such bad service, but we were having such a good time together that I figured it was for the best that we’d have an evening to remember. Christy and Magdalena chased off the incompetent waiter and the manager served us instead. Three hours after we arrived it was time to part ways. I have a picture of all of us posing for a picture with some flamingo paraphernalia. Magdalena, Christy, and I all have smiles on our faces, the tears in our eyes held back out of consideration for each other.
It was well after ten o’clock when Christa and I met back at my house where we had left the luggage. There were some last-minute things that I needed to label for some friends to pick up, and I checked and double-checked that I had brought the cables and modem that were ours and left all the things that belonged to the house. We packed my car with bottles of olive oil, electronics, Xenia’s succulents, and boxes of important papers that I didn’t want to go with the moving truck.
I ran through the house one more time to make sure that there weren’t any other random toiletries or sundries that should be packed in what little space was left. That’s when I saw the two boxes and the flat-screen TV! I broke out in a cold sweat. What? How? The leader of the moving team has asked me if I had checked everything. Yes, yes, I checked the house over and over again.
Part II
I carried the two boxes down to the front door. The TV was too big to manhandle even with Christa’s help. We needed a strapping young man. My cell phone rang. It was Basil.
Basil said, “Hey Mom. When are you going to get me the car?”
“I don’t know Basil. We’re in crisis. They left a TV behind. It won’t fit in my car. We’re going to see if it can fit in the minivan.”
“Why didn’t the movers take it?”
“I don’t know?”
“Well, I’d prefer to drive the minivan to camp, and having a TV in there all week is a bad idea.”
“You might just have to drive my car, and Basil we might need your help to get the TV in the minivan for us. Don’t go to sleep yet. I’ll call you when I figure it out.”
Christa and I tried to pack and unpack the car and the minivan to find a combination in which we could bring the TV with us. The TV was bought to fit in the opening of our entertainment center. It had to come with us. We measured the TV and the width of the minivan and couldn’t figure out how to fit it in along with everything else. By midnight, I wanted to leave it, but Mike reminded me how much it would cost to replace it and told me to figure it out. I lamented to friends on Facebook. I cried about it to Christa. At no time did I think to pray except to ask God why my life was so complicated.
I was too tired to think straight, and we still had no solution. Poor Basil was up waiting for us and was losing the sleep he needed to drive safely later that morning. We unpacked both cars, and Christa followed me to Ezra’s house where we met Basil and gave him the keys.
“Here are the keys,” I told him, “But don’t leave town without talking to me. We may still need you later this morning.”
I drove to the hotel near my house where Esther put up her wedding out-of-town guests. No vacancy. I tried two more hotels on Byrant Irving Road also no vacancy. Then I parked in the third hotel parking lot and called around. The only place with a vacancy on a Saturday night was a scary, roach motel. The check-in clerk hid behind a wall of two-inch plexiglass separating him from the tiny, beer and urine-scented waiting room. Such a difference from the sofa and chandelier affair at the first hotel I tried. Memories of the police and FBI TV shows I had been watching flashed across my mind as I looked for random strangers lurking around. We triple-bolted the motel door behind us. I still couldn’t sleep so I checked Facebook which was full of people wondering why I didn’t contact the moving company. I texted the head driver who had texted me earlier that week and told him the situation. Somehow I fell asleep for a few hours.
Six the next morning I got a call from the moving truck driver who asked me why I waited till two in the morning to tell him that they left a TV. They hadn’t started driving and would be able to stop by my house if I could meet them and open it up for them. I posted the good news on Facebook and went to wash my face and brush my teeth in the cracked and stained bathroom sink. Before I went to get dressed, my phone rang again. It was Basil who was up at six thirty with Ezra’s family who were getting ready for church. I told him that he could go ahead and leave. We didn’t need the minivan or his help.
Then the phone rang again. It was my friend Amanda who had been following my plight on Facebook. She wanted to check in with me and ask if there was anything she could do and had sad news for me as well. Our dear friend James from the years we spent at St. Barbara’s Orthodox church in Fort Worth had died in a motorcycle accident coming home from vespers the night before. Singing in the choir with him had been one of the greatest joys of my life. I frantically rethought my decision to spend my last vespers in Weatherford. If I had gone to St. Barbara’s would James have stayed ten minutes longer talking to me? Would that have saved his life? I passed the information along to others I knew would want to know and then hurried to get out of that motel room and back to my house.
Christa and I did another walk-through before packing up the car with everything we needed to take. We put sticky notes on the stuff I was leaving for my friend Beth and my friend Mary and put the key on the flower box for the movers who wouldn’t be coming by till the afternoon.
We were ready to walk out the door and drive off when we got another call from Basil.
“Mom, hey…we had a crash.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes. Someone called the police. They are on the way.”
“We’ll be right there. I’ll use the Find Friends App on our phones to get to you.”
I was ten minutes away. Everything that had delayed me the night before had worked towards my being just ten minutes away when Basil called. I felt God’s providence in our lives. In all my hours of anguish, I had never looked for a way that God was using those circumstances. I had not had one moment of trust. What a different story it would have been if there had been a sense of peace and purpose on that crazy busy Saturday and that my patience and trust had been well rewarded. I let go of some of the bitterness that I have been holding onto and let myself believe once again that God has a plan.
Basil had left his friend’s house exhausted. I had kept him up till late the night before, and he woke up early. He wanted to stop off at Target on the way out of town and was turned around because he was coming from a different direction. The intersection he crashed in was a confusing one. Granbury Road is a four-lane boulevard at that point with Wedgewood Drive running parallel separated by a median. You have to be careful not to confuse the two parallel streets with two sides of one street. Basil turned right into the oncoming traffic. There were three cars in one lane coming straight at him. Basil swerved to miss them and tried to turn around the way he came. The first car slammed on the brakes and was hit by the car behind them who then took off and left the scene. The third car swerved to miss the cars in front of them and hit Basil on the side of the minivan where Jonah was sitting. The side airbags deployed. Even though the windows shattered, the glass was kept away from the seats. The impact sent the minivan into the path of traffic coming the other way and another car hit the minivan on the side where Alex was sitting, shattering the windows on the other side. An old man jumped out of his car and yelled at Basil, “What are you doing?” Then he jumped back in his car and drove away. Out of the five cars involved in the accident, only three cars remained when the police and paramedics arrived.
Nobody was hurt. The nice man who was rear-ended was fine, as was the cheerful couple who were in the third car that hit the minivan first. Their vacation was put on hold since their car was ruined, but they took it all in stride. Jonah and Alex had a couple of scratches and Basil’s left arm had a huge abrasion from the airbag. When Sophia and her boyfriend totaled our last minivan a few years ago, they both had fractures from the airbags, so there was much to be thankful for. I was so glad that Christa was there because she knew all of Alex’s information and was able to help the police fill out their report. Alex called his mom, and Kelly trusted Christa and me to take care of everything.
Justin’s friend Beckett’s parents were there for us too. His mom had been following everything on Facebook. She texted me that Beckett’s dad could come over to help me, which he did. He met us in the Funeral home parking lot where Basil had parked the minivan and took Alex and Jonah and all the suitcases and sleeping bags straight to the church which was just starting their service. After dealing with the police, I brought Basil too. In past years the bus to camp left before the service, but this year it left after coffee hour, so all the kids got to go to camp.
Christa and I headed back to my house and met up with my friend Mary. I had meant to bring her a box of things the night before but that was canceled because of the long dinner. Then I thought I’d have to leave her the key, but after all the sorting out of the kids, we were still in town when her church service ended. She and I were able to share yet another moment of friendship together and a huge hug. I am so glad that we got to see each other one last time before I left.
Christa and I drove off. I got gas and then tried and failed multiple times to get on the freeway going north. I have driven on the 820 multiple times, but it has never felt so much like a carousel that I couldn’t get off of as it did that day. Mike was watching our progress on the Find Friends App and called to check in. I had missed my exit for the second time and was headed towards Fort Worth instead of away from it trying to backtrack to the correct interchange.
“Mike. I’m doing my best to get out of Fort Worth. Really I am.”
That’s when he said, “I don’t know if Fort Worth doesn’t want us to leave or if it’s kicking our butt on the way out.”
Christa and I had no more trouble on our drive back to Albuquerque. We thought we would stay at a hotel if we got tired, but after our bad motel night, we kept going. Christa drove us late into the night even after I drifted off to sleep, and we arrived at her house in the East Mountains in the wee hours of the next morning. I slept until dawn and headed out by myself to my new house to meet the lady I had hired to clean out the dead swarm of insects before the movers came. I made it just in time for her and she finished just in time for the movers.
The camp nurse called to let me know that the kids had woken up feeling fine after their accident. When camp was over, they all went back to Fort Worth where my friend Mary picked the boys up. She took them to the airport the next day where they met up with Xenia. By the time they came home, I had all the furniture in place and most of the unpacking done. It really was home.
I’m still struggling with trusting God and being grateful in everyday life. Since we have moved to Albuquerque it’s been one sickness after another passing through the house. The kids attend an excellent school where I teach mathematics, but it starts earlier than their last school and instead of being five minutes away we are anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five minutes away depending on traffic. The kids are all having a hard time waking up in the mornings. Both Xenia and Justin are having trouble making new friends. They were so young when we moved to Fort Worth that it’s all that they have ever known. Xenia especially is miserable. I’m trying everything I can think of to make her life easier. The middle of the story is always full of tension. I am trying to hold out for the future when I can look back and see how all things were working towards a resolution.
In the meantime, I have my minivan story to think about, and I’m surrounded by friends who are inspiring to me.
My friend Savanna was in a sling when we met up for lunch last week because when she was chasing a dog who was chasing her goats, she tore her wrist open and had to have surgery to repair the damage. She was thankful for the ways God was using her circumstances to slow her down and give her extra time with her six kids while she was too incapacitated to accomplish all her homeschooling housewife life usually entails.
A girlfriend recently told me about a traumatizing situation. I would never have wished that miserable time upon her, but of all the people who were hurt by that same perpetrator, she was the right person to bring light to the darkness. Her life experiences, her character, and her support system made her the person who could go to the authorities and make the world safer for her brothers and sisters. She is in the midst of it all now, but she told me she could see a good ending of healing, recovery, and growth. I can give thanks for the way God has placed her where she is doing much good even while grieving for her.
I have a friend whose husband has cancer and another whose husband has kidney stones. I have friends living paycheck to paycheck and friends who are estranged from their children. I hate their circumstances and yet as they walk through these valleys of shadow, they tell me about the many mercies that abound in their lives, the kindness of others, the extra check that was sent, the mention of a saint that brought encouragement, the friends who have come alongside them. They are able to be grateful for the pain they are spared and the way their lives have been orchestrated to give them strength, comfort, and hope in their time of need.
I think of the story of Joseph in the Bible. I don’t believe that God wanted Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery, but He wove it into the story of salvation for the people of Israel. Looking back over that hectic last weekend in Fort Worth, I can see the abundance of coincidences, kindnesses, and mercies that show me that even in my little adventure, God had a plan.
By God’s grace and the encouragement of friends may I keep all these things in remembrance when life isn’t going according to my will. Let me start by finding time to be thankful for all the mercy I experience and may I embrace the plan that God has for me whatever the circumstances.
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