“Grieving doesn’t make you imperfect. It makes you human.” ― Sarah Dessen
Gord knew that Lynda wasn’t happy with my driving time and occasionally he used to tell me that have some patience, everything will be just fine. He definitely gave me the impression that he doesn’t like to lose me and that was a very good thing for me.
In due course, we found out that Gord left his job at Molson Brewery and accepted the position with Beaver Lumber Company along with the team of folks who was working with them.
We also found out that Gord and Margret sold their beautiful house and moved to Oshawa where Gord’s mother used to live and it was relatively closer to the new location of our office. Furthermore, Margret was pregnant with Stephaney.
I kept telling Lynda that if she doesn’t like me to keep driving long distance every day, we do have a potential solution. We were aware of the fact that there’s no way we could afford a house where my office was located, but a few miles away could possibly make a difference in prices. Based on this theory, we started exploring the possibilities and discovered a beautiful little community, not too far from my office, called West Hill. We also found a nice townhome there with the features Lynda liked very much. The townhome was absolutely attractive. We knew that we would not have any problems arranging the mortgage even though the price of the townhouse we were considering was more than double to what we had paid for our current home in Bramalea. However we were faced with the following two challenges:
- We were not going to make any money on our townhome because it was a buyers’ market; and
- Like anybody else, the young couple that was interested in buying our townhome were hard working folks but they had no cash in the bank for the down payment.
What they had was a piece of paper from their grandparents as a wedding gift saying that they own a small piece of land somewhere in Bancroft, Ontario and they were prepared to transfer that piece of land in our names as a down payment to the townhome.
I wasn’t too captivated with their story but Lynda was always sucker for those kinds of tales. The minute she heard “Bancroft”, she told them that we had been there recently on our holidays. The place was absolutely booming which indirectly recognized the fact that the land could be worth more in the future. They were very smart. The next time they came to see us they brought both their kids and Lynda was so thrilled to see them. I tried to impose the following two conditions:
- The real estate agent should have the responsibility to determine the possible value of the piece of land; and
- The lawyer who is doing the transaction should verify the validity of the piece of land.
Lynda wasn’t that excited with my conditions but she supported me.
In a nutshell, we ended up buying the townhome in West Hill in 1976. One of the attractive features of the townhome was that it was located across from an elementary school which Maxine started attending. Maxine used to volunteer her mother in the school for anything and everything. Lynda ended up helping kids in kindergarten with the reading and writing two or three days a week. She was allowed to take Adam with her and Adam really enjoyed going to school with his mom. Once the teachers found out that Lynda was available, willing, and located right across the school, they started sending kids for lunches and Lynda started making some money.
Lynda started making friends with other parents and going out for coffee. She was really enjoying her house and new environment colossally.
It took only a few weeks for Gord to figure it out. He transferred George to Winnipeg and promoted me to the position of Manager, Data Processing. Now everybody on the floor including computer operators, data entry operators, and support personnel were reporting to me. In this position, I was reporting to Gord directly which I liked better. I was given an equitable raise and a new office in the corner. Lynda was very happy with the promotion. It didn’t bother her that now I was a part of the management and I wasn’t entitled for overtime.
Margret invited us over to their new home in Oshawa and we met Gord’s mom Dorothy. Lynda was chatting away with Dorothy and she thought Dorothy was a wonderful person and they became friends for ever. Adam was happy to play with Melody and Stephany. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed hamburgers, hot dogs, and steaks cooked on the grill by Gord. Of course, Margret’s dessert was out of this world. We all had a wonderful time.
The first thing I did to celebrate the promotion, I booked a conference in Atlanta and Gord didn’t have any problem with that.
The ulterior motive for booking that conference was to see a friend of mine who used to live in Montgomery, Alabama and I had told that to Gord, too. The plan was to drive down to Alabama and spend a couple of days in Montgomery before we go to Atlanta. Unfortunately, it started snowing like hell on Friday night and it continued on Saturday. Lynda was packed and ready to go regardless. My justification for not changing our plan was that I thought we were driving down south and we will leave the snow behind. It turned out to be wishful thinking. When we got to Buffalo border-crossing, we stopped at a restaurant to grab some breakfast and we met a number of truck drivers who were literally camping there. They advised us not to proceed with the plan. We unenthusiastically decided to get back home. When we got back, Lynda was kind of upset as she was looking forward to spending some time in the sun. I made an executive decision and called the airline to book a flight on Sunday.
It was so cold in the townhome that in spite of the heaters working everywhere in the house, we were cold. We had to put our coats on to go to bed.
Next day we managed to get to the airport in the afternoon without any difficulty and had no problems with our flight. My friend, Sabir, met us at the airport and we were transported to his house. It was so nice in Montgomery weather-wise. Sabir was the youngest brother of a friend of mine. He lived in Chicago when I was living there. He was single and he was a student at the University of Montgomery, Alabama. He had a nice house which was financially supported by his brother in Saudi Arabia. Lynda liked Sabir. He was very respectful to her and took us out to a seafood restaurant for supper which Lynda enjoyed a lot. He had decorated the house for us, dedicating a bedroom for Adam and another for us.
Next day he invited some of his friends over to meet with us and he took us around in the city to show the university and several other places which were tourist attractions. Lynda did some shopping in Montgomery the next day. Sabir drove us to Atlanta on Friday as Lynda wanted to do shopping on the weekend before my conference started.
We did a couple of sightseeing bus tours but mostly we took a bus to go to different malls to do shopping. Lynda really enjoyed the city and in addition to buying everything else, she bought a beautiful long dress for the Christmas party. She never got tired of mooching around in the downtown of Atlanta, either. We went to eat in different restaurants almost every day and experienced different types of food. We were sorry that we had to get back to reality. The conference I attended was very interesting, too.
The next day when we got back, I went to work and had a coffee in Gord’s office and he wanted to know about the conference. He told me about how everything went when I was away and he was relatively happy with the way I was minimizing my dependency and making my staff empowered.
It took a couple of days for me to put together my expense report. I knew that if we had driven, the cost of the gas and hotel charges would have been the same regardless of how many people were in the car or how many people were in the hotel room. But when it came to air fares, there was no way I could have justified charging everything to the company. I was only happy that we had a nice time and I was prepared to pay for it. I was also extra careful about charging only my meals to the company. In any case, when I went to see Gord with my expense report the next day, as soon as he looked at the total amount on the report, he got up and closed the door and told me that it doesn’t appear to be correct amount. I was completely surprised with his comments as he had never ever said anything like this in the past. So I asked him what seems to be the problem. He said you forgot to include the other expenses associated with the other members of your family. I said I appreciate that but I cannot justify those expenses. He said that’s not your decision. As a result, I ended up re-doing my report and I said thank you.
