Day 576: 5 Minute Freewrite: Sunday - Prompt: halcyon days

The winter of our discontent was very long.

It began in 2006 -- all I was trying to do was get my family indoors permanently. I had a good job, and was making my payments on a mortgage I thought I understood.

I was wrong. It cost us everything. When Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 and took the world's economy with it, my job and my house went with it, and my family and I were suddenly on the verge of homelessness.

Winter lasted five years. I worked every job I could. I learned humility quickly. I had all kinds of degrees in math and tech, but if there was an opening at some fast food joint or retail spot or packing and shipping spot, I had to take it. I couldn't bear to lose the last thing that was important to me: the respect of my wife and family. My wife never reproached me, never threatened to take the children and leave -- I didn't want to give her any reason to.

My wife actually saved our family.

They say in Greek mythology that the original halcyon days have to do with a very beloved daughter who died with her husband in a storm, but the gods had mercy and turned them into kingfishers, and stilled the weather for two weeks in mid-winter on the Mediterranean sea so the kingfishers could nest and lay their eggs in safety.

My wife's grandfather had a timeshare in Hawaii. He usually went every year, but instead of going in 2011, he listened to his granddaughter and let us go instead. My wife is proud and it took a lot for her to ask her grandfather, and I loved her for doing it.

We had two weeks in Hawaii: one week to just decompress from all the terrible things that had happened, one week to relax and enjoy each other again. That same two weeks, one of the employees at my third job flipped out, shot up the place, and then blew it up before killing himself. It was a terrible tragedy. Because of where I worked then in the building, I would not have survived, and that third check was what was keeping my family going. If my wife had not gotten us our halcyon, I wouldn't be here to tell the tale.

I went back to my third job for the cleanup and recovery. It was a horrible situation. But, when the company recovered, it promoted all of us who stayed, and the money was enough so that I could go full-time and not need two other jobs. My wife's home-based business also started taking off in 2013, and at last our ordeal began to come to an end.

We never would have made it without those halcyon days, and my wife who was the beloved granddaughter even before she was my beloved wife.

Grandfather-in-law went on and left us the timeshare when he passed. We now use it to give others halcyon days.

Photo credit: Deeann D. Mathews, the author