Doing the Right Thing Sucks 

After paying over $43,000 over the last 4 years in rent to the owners for the lease of our auto shop, they decided to go behind our back and have us evicted. We are not sure what is really going on. Are they foreclosing or possibly have someone lined up that agreed to pay more than we were paying? To be honest, I have never had a fondness (a polite way of saying it) for this couple. They had zero sympathy for our family after the accident. 

While closing my store this summer (’cause the wreck seriously flipped every part of our lives upside down) they tell us we have to pay double what we had been paying on the storage units we have been renting over four years because all of their units were full and they could now ask full price. If I wasn’t willing to pay it, I would have to move out by the end of the month, which was 2 weeks away. Didn’t matter that I was in the hospital with Jackson at the time and physically couldn’t do it. They illegally took the contents of our storage units by not giving us 30 days notice. Yes, we are taking legal action, but it shouldn’t have ever happened. Who takes from someone that is in the circumstances we have been in for the last year? Especially while they are in the hospital with their child. These people do. 

While moving our things out of the shop, my two oldest sons asked me why I was cleaning after what they did to us. Because, I told them, “It is the right thing to do. Yes, what I would really like to do is not spend my time cleaning after the way they have treated us, but I will continue to do what’s right because I believe that you reap what you sow.” They pointed out that this principle doesn’t seem to be working for me. True. Here lately I wonder why I strive so hard to do the right thing. We have had bad luck on top of bad luck. During the 10 days they somehow illegally forced us to move in, my uncle suddenly passed away. During the funeral, my son went into Diabetic DKA and had a pancreatic attack. I rushed him to Vanderbilt and we spent 4 days in the ICU. While there, he fractured his tooth from clenching in pain and had to leave Vanderbilt to be rushed to the dentist to have his tooth extracted. After getting him home, I had to finish moving the shop. All of this in the span of 10 days! 

Yes, sometimes it seems like no matter what you do right, nothing good ever comes from it. It can feel incredibly unfair, and you wonder why you even bother. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you doesn’t always have immediate results, if any. But as I told my sons, at the end of the day I am responsible for MY actions. You have to treat people the way you want to be treated. When I choose to not do the right thing, it is on my conscious. I have to live with the decisions I make. And when I make it to my forever home in heaven, I will then have to answer to God for those choices. Not to mention, I have my 5 children watching every little thing that I do. I am teaching them, through action, how to live their lives. I want them to choose to do the right thing, even when it feels pointless. 

So, despite the fact that this couple has stolen from us and treated us deplorably, the building was handed over to them in the allocated 10 days completely empty and clean! Sometimes it sucks to do the right thing, when you really just want to treat people the way they treat you. Just remember, doing the right thing is for YOU, not them. 

Love & blessings, 

C.C.