Hope is powerful

I’ve resisted writing about it because I don’t want to face it: the foreclosure process has begun on our home mortgage.

Wells Fargo sent us the letter last week. I was at work and Mark got the letter and emailed me, “What do we do?”

Practical-minded, all-business me, I replied with a string of questions. I said he should call them and get all the questions answered. I approach roadblocks as games, most of the time, when I’m in a good frame of mind. “You can’t” hardly ever really means that. It translates almost perfectly to: “Many people wouldn’t, and if you think you should, be prepared to struggle.” And those are terms I can accept.

He got through to Wells Fargo and was told our mortgage may qualify for re-negotiated terms and is currently being reviewed by attorneys. We will be contacted. Otherwise, there’s nothing we can do. …unless we want to pay up.

I am worried that the boot-us-out-of-the-house team will be more efficient than the work-out-a-plan team. I have no intentions of moving out of this home. We will somehow, somehow find a way. I want to stay here, where Miss T can walk to school. We love our neighbors, our old creaking house, our aging postmistress who lumbers painfully up all the steps to our mailbox.

Actually, it could be a good thing, right? Maybe they can work out a plan that will help. We’re really only a few hundred short, now that I stopped contributing to my retirement, and stopped having withholdings taken out for the girlie and me. We’ve almost given up completely that Mark will get a job. Have you listened to the news lately? People finding jobs are not what’s in the news. At the very least, having our mortgage reviewed could buy us a little more time. I’m due to get a tax return one of these days, which we could use to buy our way back into the contract. I’m due a promotion in November because I’m a spoiled federal employee who gets a raise even when the economy is in the tank.

So, we proceed again. Heads tucked down against the barrage, determined, pressing forward, trying to hold on to hope.

Omar chatted with me from Palestine this morning. “Things are the same, but we have hope,” he said.

“Hope is powerful,” I told him.