Friday, December 28, 2012

It Just Takes One

It Just Takes One




Years ago I went to my first Writers’ Conference hoping to get encouragement or insight, even if it meant discouraging me from becoming a writer, because I wanted to write a memoir about how I got into and out of the drug world. I left the conference with a lot of information about what the literary industry wanted, and also with a little book titled “You Start with One” by Deo Miller and Susan Titus. It was the story about how Deo and his wife wanted to help abandoned children in Sri Lanka find homes. They were overwhelmed by the needs of these kids, but they decided to find one child a home and they ended up helping multitudes.

Later on in my journey to be an author, I read Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird another book about doing things little by little. So that is how I wrote my memoir, little by little over 20 years; one idea, one memory, one line, one chapter at a time.

When the economy tanked I spent over a year filling out mountains of paperwork, month after month, trying to save our home from foreclosure: contacting our bank and every program we fit into, trying every lead, and getting nothing but overwhelming stress and buckets of tears. Then as I was ready to give up and walk away, my husband who has learning disabilities, handwrites one letter with spelling and grammar errors included, to one person; the CEO of the bank, and sent copies to every politician and news media he thought might help. Immediately the bank called, and started helping us get a loan modification. We are finishing up the trial modification and should get the permanent loan Modification in February. From that one letter we now have letters from The White House, the governor, 2 senators, an assembly man, a state representative, the Department of Justice, The Department of Treasury, including a call from our district attorney’s office, another assemblywoman, and a personal contact with our attorney general’s office who is working closely with us to save our house. Everyone made phone calls and sent letters to our bank to help us, and many more people prayed that we’d get help. When all else fails remember it just takes one; one person who goes that extra mile and doesn’t give up.

As we head into the New Year the news is filled with pending doom of the Fiscal Cliff, the people we put into office can’t seem to find common ground and yet if one person, one Party, would shift a little, to do the job we asked them to do, to look out for us and put us first we could break through this quagmire and start the year united.


We have just celebrated Christmas, a time where we remember that one young girl said yes to God and put her needs aside, and she changed to course of mankind forever. Will we be the one that looks at the impossible and says with God all things are possible? I hope so. A Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.

Lilly, our newest foster dog, who had a broken back
and still lives her life running at full speed.