I'm not really sure where to start, except to say that I never thought I would ever be in a situation like this. I never thought that I would be so desperate that I had to ask strangers for help.
Our house is being foreclosed on. I am still unable to think about
what this could mean for my children. With everything my family has been through the past couple years, we had re-assessed our lives and set very modest goals that we were more than happy to be slowly inching toward. We thought that we were finally at a point where we could look forward to the future again.
Then our mortgage company decided to demand that we immediately make our account current within 2 weeks. Though we were behind, we had been making a regular monthly payment, and even sent in a little extra last month. I initially thought that it might be a hardball tactic to try to get payments out of us at a faster rate, but then I found out that our home had already been advertised for foreclosure in the legal section of the newspaper during the previous months.
Our story of how we got to this point is not uncommon. My husband and I both worked for the same company that suddenly went out of business around a little over a year ago, leaving us both without a job and 3 kids to support.
The following week my husband was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease.
The weeks immediately following that were a very dark period for both of us that I can't go into now, but we slowly climbed out of our respective mental depressions enough to accept that we would have to make permanent changes to our lives in addition to dealing with our temporary unemployment. We had both been working as independent contractors, so we did not have any health coverage, nor did we qualify to file for unemployment.
The medical bills were piling up fast, and the work we were able to find was not enough to keep up with our utilities and other living expenses, let alone huge medical bills. Each of us were depressed, sometimes deeply, but there were brief moments where we were determined to make it through everything. We cut our expenses to the bone and sold everything that wasn't nailed down on ebay and craigslist. My husband managed to get a full time job making about
half of what he was making. I had found 2 part-time jobs. We took any extra weekend work we could find. My husband was even delivering pizza 3 nights each week.
Over the next year, we very slowly managed to get better work and we were able to work out payment plans that we could manage with all of the doctors and clinics. Our lifestyle was strictly necessity, we were working all of the time, and we considered ourselves extremely fortunate because we were able to keep the lights on and food on the table. We were actually very content with our minimal existence. We were slowly, but consistently, catching up on our bills. We were simply looking forward to the day where things would be less of a daily struggle and we could just enjoy being together as a family and focus on dealing with my husband's disease, and the other challenges that people face in life.
Everything changed a few days ago with a certified letter and subsequent phone calls to the attorney for the mortgage company.
We've sold everything we can, and have managed to get some help from friends and family, but it's not enough. We're willing to work, but there's just not enough time. I don't know what else to do.
Jolene
********************
I edited your post: no solicitation of funds on the forum - Ivy.
Post Edited By Moderator (ivy6) : 11/8/2009 6:43:50 PM (GMT-7)