What if • day 11

My family has always lived within a three block radius from one another. I grew up being able to walk to mema pats. In college I often thought I would eventually buy in the same neighborhood. We couldn't afford our first home to be in that neighborhood and bought the house I grew up in from my dad. It was about 5-10 miles away. I loved that house. We loved the neighborhood too but felt like it was declining-fast. One night we were eating dinner with my aunt and uncle and mentioned that we would like to move into their neighborhood( same one as mema pat and my dad). They mentioned that they owned the house next door and that they would sell to us if we wanted. Weeks later, we had sold our house and had a moving date.

We had been trying to get pregnant for close to two years at this point. I was still very up-beat and felt like it could happen any day. I pictured us playing in the backyard with a new baby and I knew which one would be his/her nursery.

Later that year my aunt(who is like my mom) started taking her father back and forth to Houston for chemo. He had an aggressive form of cancer. I took her and my uncle dinner about 3-4 times a week. I prayed daily for them. Her father was the kind of man that EVERYONE loved. Everyone knew him, everyone respected the man he was and at one time or another had been on the receiving end of a huge Greek kiss! He was, in one word, the best.

My aunt kk was beat. She drove back and forth from their apartment in Houston. It was a long, hard, trying time. There was very little good news and Karen carried a lot of the burden. All the while, carrying her own burdens, daily family tasks... An mentoring me.

She always had an ear for me. Always willing to listen and talk me off "the tower". We became close when I came home from college. Maybe in my early twenties. She and my uncle always showed an interest in my life... And then in whits too.

I know that my aunt couldn't have carried my failed cycles at the same time... Maybe that was why God set the stage for us to move. He hadn't set into motion a fertility plan yet. He knew we needed to be there together- just over the fence. He knew we needed the support of being neighbors.

What if we wrote our own timeline? What it I didn't have an aunt and uncle that loved me enough to shape my life?