The Dirty Word

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted a column. The past couple of weeks have been filled with big news and changes for our family. A couple of weeks ago Tom had to utter what has typically been a nasty word in our family to the girls and I. It is a word filled with stress, heartache, and chaos. The dirty word of all dirty words…relocation.

My family has already had to relocate a couple of times now for my Tom’s job. There are definitely positives and negatives with relocation. One great positive is that it really pulls a family together. When you don’t know a single person in your new hometown, it’s best to cling to your family like Brett Favre clings to football, like Detroit clings to the Redwings, like Michael Phelps clings to….well we’ll just stop right there.

The one thing that people always bring up when we relocate is how the relocation will affect my children. That’s understandable. I worry about them too. What I have learned on our most recent relocation is that children actually have it the easiest. My children get to go to school everyday where they are surrounded by kids their age and plenty of friend potential. They also have the added benefit of adult intervention to force interaction between the new child and the current students. Of my two daughters, Megan probably struggles the most with the changes of a new school, new home, and new friends. Hailey, on the other hand, approaches her first day in her new school with a “who gets to be my new friend” attitude. I imagine her in her new classroom boldly telling the kids to step aside and give her some room so she can evaluate them for friend worthiness. The girl has confidence. What can I say?

Tom doesn’t work in a traditional office setting. I think that would make things much easier for the two of us if he did. At least then we would have Bob from accounting who would approach Tom and explain that he and his wife would love to have our family over for dinner this weekend. At which time Tom would enthusiastically accept the offer. Our family would arrive at Bob’s house with dessert and wine in hand smiling ear to ear. We would enjoy a fantastic dinner prepared by Bob’s wife Louis. Megan and Hailey would be thrilled to meet Bob and Louis’ daughters Becky and Jane who coincidentally are the same ages as our daughters and totally into all the same things our daughters are in to. We would become instant friends. We would plan annual family camping trips to the lake. We would have regular dinner and game nights, join a bowling league, and swap babysitting needs. We would cry and snap pictures as our daughters headed off to prom together with their dates and share scary student driving stories. When the day arrived for our children to head off to college we would rejoice and cry together. We would celebrate together at our daughter’s weddings and the birth of our grandchildren. We would hold hands when one of us is diagnosed with cancer and when Tom is officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Wow, what a dream. Alas this will not happen because like I said Tom doesn’t work in an office. So, no office means no Bob. But thanks for the dream Bob and Louis you are both beautiful people.


This will be our family’s third relocation in four years. Under normal circumstances, I would lock myself in my room and cry for hours but not this time. Why? We are relocating back to the same town we just moved from a year ago. I am happily looking forward to reuniting with my friends that I left behind. No worries that Bob and Louis don’t exist in our old/new hometown because I have replacements. No, in a strange turn of events when Tom mentioned relocation rather then burst into tears I screamed joyfully and jumped up and down. I also then thanked God that I never had the ambition to finish unpacking all the boxes and didn’t waste time hanging all the pictures. I did, however, bother to change my driver’s license and license plates. Crap! Oh well, no bother. I wasn’t crazy about that picture on my license anyway.

Yes, we are heading back to another Midwest location. To a town I often marveled at how lucky I was to be living and raising my daughters in. A town where neighbors bring Bundt cakes to new neighbors and pans of lasagna when a new baby is born. A town where families gather for Little League softball during the week and soccer tournaments on the weekends. It’s a town where garage parties still exist and neighbors compete for being the best decorated house during the holidays. It’s a town where people aren’t afraid to proclaim their love of God. Where farmers work endless back breaking hours and a cops busiest day is catching a teenage driver who tried to creep through a stop sign. Simply put it is in my opinion one of the greatest places in this great country and I just couldn’t be happier to have heard that dirty word, “relocation”.