#26acts

The photo on the front of the card

Friday I got a voice mail. It was explaining that on December 29, 2012; "because Congress has not acted, my federal extended unemployment benefits will stop."

That small drip from the faucet that has been keeping us afloat, is no longer dripping. When I told my wife sitting across the table about it, the color drained from her face. I retreated inward, trying very hard not to show my anger, frustration, and self-loathing I have had for myself. This was just another night where I thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel coming and I feel like I just got run over by the train that was coming. All of a sudden all the money we have saved, all the sales we found to help Santa deliver an amazing Christmas for our kids seemed like a stupid stupid decision. We felt guilty. We felt stupid.

I was scared. I was uncertain. Not only did unemployment help pay the rent, but it also helped pay Audrey's school tuition. Now all that was up in the air. What was going to happen? My wife was visibly upset. Fighting tears all night and losing that fight a few times. She's been working all that she could possibly work to keep our family treading water in the sea of uncertainty.

In situations like this I have felt that my friends have grown tired of hearing how bad we have it. I often feel like you are growing tired of my ranting and venting on what has been happening. I had no intentions of even writing this post, because people have come forward to try and help where they can. I don't want anyone to feel like their help isn't/wasn't appreciated, because it is. The emails I have gotten from folks. The people who have come back into my life working behind the scenes to make something happen for me and my family. Their efforts are all appreciated and one of the greatest gifts I could have ever asked for.

Saturday morning was a groggy morning. I know Jenn cried herself to sleep and so did I cuddling on the couch with my 10 year old Friday night. Feeling like a failure does that. Whether or not I am a failure means very little when you feel like it. So when I woke up, I hear friends are driving from PA to see us before Christmas. They had a "card from Santa" which, because of their ongoing generosity  over the years, was probably a card from them that we would reject if it had any kind of financial help in it. Our friends shouldn't feel any obligation to help us outside of being friends. I don't ever expect friends to give us financial help and they are simply my friend because they are good people.

When they got here they brought lunch and handed Jenn a card. It simply was a card with Santa in the forest. On the inside it said Merry Christmas. What was inside was completely amazing and when we said, guys we cannot take this, they looked at us and said, "it isn't from us...we had nothing to do with this other than to deliver it". They were just told to drop it off. It wasn't from their parents or family. The card was simply a card from someone anonymous who said to tell us, simply, it was from Santa.

I got up and left the room. My daughters have probably seen me cry once. I fell to the floor in the other room and started sobbing like a baby. Last time that happened I was by my Grandfather's side as he slipped into the other side. I haven't been this overcome with emotion in a long time.

It was an amazing gesture and the second time someone we didn't know came to help when we thought all hope was lost and we were in a corner. My mom has been saying for this entire time, you have to have in Trust Him. She said our way of thinking is changing. It isn't changing, it has changed.

I can't help but think of Ann Curry's 26 acts of kindness campaign. I have been sitting here thinking of various things I could do. Lots of people have given money to people, like paying for coffee for the people in line at the coffee shop, or donating to charity. I have not been able to do those financial gifts. So what was I going to do? I have been giving all the coin change from the stores to the Salvation Army, the only thing I could really do. We give them a smile and a Merry Christmas, but I felt like it was nothing compared to the generosity of what others have shown strangers and, in particular, us.

Watching the news I never thought I would be on the receiving end of an act of kindness like the one shown to us, not just this past Saturday, but since May. That isn't just me trying to be humble, that is a God's honest truth.

I have had some friends grow closer, some grow apart, but I love every single one of them. My way of thinking has changed forever. Life is teaching me to be a better friend, a better brother, a better son, a better husband, and a better father.

To Santa or whoever you enlisted to help you, I say thank you for helping us. I know you didn't do it for public adulation, but I say thank you many times anyway.

I hope the job interview I had this past week turns out well. I will find out the second week of January.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, because I know this Christmas is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I hope it has been amazing for you too.