The property sprawled over several acres of land. A small house with two bedrooms stood at the outer edge, close to the main road in Jackson, New Jersey. Inside the house lived my family. It started out small enough, just me and my husband Franklin. But soon God blessed us with our growing family. First our little daughter, Jenny Marie. Then came our wonderful son, Andrew Joseph. And finally our baby girl Mary Margaret. The property belonged to my in laws, who had moved on to live in Virginia, where they had many more properties. My dear husband had spent much of his entire life in this home, graduated high school there, and even went on to join the United States Army, where he served our country with honor.
In the beginning, I was very hesitant to move to Jackson, because I was used to living further north in an area that I had spent many years. But after much convincing, I decided to give Jackson a try. Being that it was my in laws home, they rented it to us for a cheaper rate, and we settled in. It was very hard for me to obtain work here, the area was so different than where I was used to being. But eventually, I was blessed with a good job about forty minutes from Jackson. Six years went by before we were blessed with our first child, and the other two followed very closely behind. You see, I was told that I would never have children. And had tried all the procedures to have my own child, but these were met with failure. So when I was told that I was pregnant, it was exactly four months after I lost my dad to suicide. I didn't believe the doctor and had to have proof, which was given to me in the form of an Ultra Sound. Only after I saw the baby growing within me, for myself, did I finally believe that I was pregnant. It was a joy that words can never describe.
My husbands work began to fade. He is in construction and has helped to build some of the tallest buildings in New Jersey. My father in law even worked on the World Trade Towers in NYC. But the economy began to falter, and many folks found themselves without any work. After the unemployment ran out - well, things got even tougher. We had no heat, for we couldn't afford the oil to fill the tank. So we burned wood which we cut from the woods which surrounded the property, in the wood burning stove in the living room. We had no cooking gas because we couldn't afford to purchase the propane gas, so I used a simple single electric burner. We had our electric shut off as well, but a dear friend helped us to put it back on. I was out of my other job by then, due to having three children in the space of four years. Which as you can imagine was very hard on me physically. My son was cord entangled, and a very difficult birth. He was a blue baby, and his eyes were red from the vessels bursting in them during the birth. My last little blessing was ten pounds when I was only eight months pregnant, and a C-Section had to be performed. My body was hurting and I could barely manage to walk after Mary was born. But we had nobody to help and it all fell on me.
I went to work right after Mary was born, because hubby couldn't find work. I went to work with a cleaning company. Going out at the wee hours of the night and morning to clean businesses. We had no money for food so I was getting food from a church that I cleaned. We relied upon them heavily, we did not have food stamps, because we didn't want to sell the only vehicle we had. A beat up old Thunderbird. But by having the car, they told us we didn't qualify for any food stamps.
It was very hard trying to survive during these times dear readers. And many times I felt very depressed and very alone. I was worn out and trying so hard to take care of three little babies, and trying to cut wood and find food to eat. Soon rent became a problem. We were getting behind. Three months went by and my in laws were calling and yelling for their rent money. But we had none to give. We were barely making it as it was, and soon, my husband's Unemployment money ran out as well. I started to get sick, stomach problems and bad migraines from the stress of worrying about so many things. But I would take refuge in the beautiful property. The woods surrounding us, the birds, the fields of corn which lay next door to us. The peacefulness of the area. We could go out at dusk and actually see deer feeding on the land. It was so beautiful, and even though we were suffering so much, we loved to take our little ones out on the land and share nature with them.
