“Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms.” — Paulo Coelho
Before I went away to India, I was so busy with all kind of activities that I totally forgot to mention to Lynda that I had an opportunity to send $100 to the lottery which was running by the City of Brampton for affordable housing. In all the honesty, I never expected to hear back from them. However, when I got back from India, the next day Lynda wanted me to get in touch with the person who had contacted her in my absence.
If I remembered correctly, the City of Brampton was in the process of creating a suburban district called Bramalea by developing as a separate community from the city which was located in the former Chinguacousy Township. It was going to be the first satellite community developed by one of the country’s largest real estate developers. Therefore, they decided the best way to start this initiative to run a lottery.
Lynda also shared with me the conversation she had with the guy who called. Accordingly, we won the lottery for a detached home in Bramalea and we were supposed to deposit $5,000 within 10 days to start the process. She tried to explain to the person on the phone that she will deposit the money immediately as I was away for 4 weeks but he said that wasn’t acceptable. However, he said to Lynda that as soon as I get back from India, I can get in touch with them and there’s a possibility that there may be some townhomes instead of detached houses, available to purchase.
To make a long story short, I spoke to the person on the phone and he confirmed that all detached houses were gone but they had a couple of townhomes left to be allotted. We rushed to go there and made the deposit to secure a 3 bedroom townhome. Lynda picked the townhome and she went through the selection of carpet, type of flooring for kitchen and bathrooms, appliances, colour of walls, etc. Then we were taken to show the plot where our townhome was going to be built. We were told that it will be built and ready to move in within three months.
The next thing we did to take the girls and mom to show them the plot and explain the features of the townhome. We started going there almost every week to check the progress of the construction and drive around to check the other city facilities, in the area. We found out that the Bramalea City Centre Mall was close by and the City was providing the dial a bus service for the new community which will allow Lynda to go to the mall as we had only one car and Lynda was so busy with all other things that she never got around to get a driving licence yet.
While I was away, there were some changes at the store where I used to work part time. The Assistant Store Manager was promoted and transferred to a different store in the Dixie Plaza which was a 35 minutes’ drive from where we used to live and he offered me to work for him as a Section Manager in his new store which was promotion for me. I discussed the opportunity with Lynda and she thought it was a good idea but she also realized that as a result of the change I will not be able to come home for lunch. Consequently, I used to leave home around 9:00 in the morning to go to work at the store from 10:00AM to 4:00PM and then used to go to my main job and work until midnight before I come home.
Our new home was going to be another 20 minutes far from where we were living. While driving time wasn’t necessarily a problem and gas wasn’t that expensive either but I missed seeing my family. Lynda still used to wait for me with a hot meal every night but the time I got home I used to be bone-tired. Therefore, as soon as we moved in our new home, I quit working at the store.
The mortgage for the house wasn’t any more than what we were paying rent for the apartment and Lynda was very happy with the house. She already had ordered drapes to go with the light-blue carpet in the house. She bought new furniture for the house and garden including a barbeque for the garden. She bought bits and pieces for the garden as Lynda loved gardening.
The sad thing was that Ruth decided to go back to living with her dad as she thought the only reason we wanted her to live with us because we needed a permanent babysitter for her brother which wasn’t true. Furthermore, I was ashamed of myself that I failed to be a good step-father to the girls as they didn’t have any confidence in me. I attempted to justify my lack of enthusiasm towards the girls by thinking that I was terribly focused on working hard and making enough money to make a living but that was an excuse.
