Baby Steps

"I know it's hard to see it now, but everything happens for a reason."
"Every ending is a new beginning."
"It's a rough start, but this will end up being a great new opportunity for you."
"What doesn't kill you will make you stronger."

Those are just four of the many, many supportive comments my husband and I have gotten over the past week. These last seven days have been filled with some of the most frustrating, sad, angry and challenging moments that I have ever experienced in my life. It continues to astound me how people are more willing to choose dishonesty and drama over transparency and honesty in their lives. While it is so, so tempting to stoop to their level we will not. The lies that were told were simply a feeble-minded person's attempt to discredit Jerry. What he doesn't realize is that there are too many people who know and support Jerry for his weak comments to make a difference. When Jerry is ready to start his own business there are people all ready to help him be successful.


But we aren't there yet.


Right now, we're just trying to figure out what our new life looks like. Silly as it sounds, we're trying to figure out where we're going to buy the food for our pets, and we're worried about the well being of the animals we left behind at the store. We're very, very sad that we won't get to see Piggly and Wiggly, the guinea pigs, or Bobofish, the Oscar, ever again. We're sad that Jerry didn't get the opportunity to buy the business like he was told he would be able to, and we're sad that the years he and his dad gave to the "family" were thrown away for the right amount of money. We're sad that somebody who barely knew Jerry saw him as such a threat that he fired him and then spread nasty rumors about him. We're sad that another, who needed the job, has also lost his job just because he would not stoop to the new owner's level. And we're sad that people we helped during difficult financial times and thought were our friends really were not.


That's a lot to be sad about. And it all happened right around Father's Day so that made things even more challenging. But the good news is that after all the sad, we are starting to turn a corner. We're making baby steps.


Jerry has started working on his business plan to start his own business, he has a potential partner, and he also has some leads on jobs to help us out until he can get things up and running. As I mentioned earlier, he has a tremendous amount of support from people in the industry. I still have my job, with benefits, and we both have our health. We have an amazing network of family and friends who have been nothing short of incredible these last few weeks, and we have our puppies who keep us exercising and laughing.


Trust me, there are still sad times, but they are getting shorter and shorter. What doesn't kill us will make us stronger, and more resolved than ever to start a business run by people who do things, not because they want make a buck, but because they are honest and care about people and their animals.