He looked at me for a moment, then nodded.
For the first time in a long while, I felt as though I wasn’t facing the future alone.
That afternoon, we sat at the kitchen table and made a plan.
I called the mortgage company and explained our situation. I asked about hardship options and whether we could arrange a payment plan. Then I contacted the hospital billing office to discuss financial assistance and payment arrangements.
Ray reviewed our food supplies and calculated how much the garden could reasonably produce over the coming months.
We wrote down every expense, every available resource, and every possible way to reduce what we owed.
The numbers were still frightening.
The garden couldn’t pay the mortgage by itself. The savings couldn’t solve every medical problem. And no amount of careful planning could guarantee that my mother would recover completely.
But for the first time since losing my job, I could see a path forward.
