....a friend that is more like family...

Don't know if it started the day he walked into the store I was working at or if it happened after he finally saw what all of us in the back of the club were talking about.  This store was a beast all of its own.  The home office would send manager after manager to us thinking they could turn the shrink around and bring down the cost of spending.  When you sell more than anyone on the west coast, your shrink and cost will always look ridiculous to the higher powers that be.  Always trying to look for a way to make more money....they were beating a dead horse.

He walked in and thought that we would all jump at his beck and call, boy did he get a surprise.  Tried to change a few things off the bat without consulting us gals in the office....poor guy, they just threw him to the lions.  He stood his ground with us, talked it through with us.  There was compromise, some on his end some on ours.  He caught on, understood why we had to keep doing like we did, after a while we took him in as one of our own.  Saw what a good husband and daddy he was.  We were so angry at the GM for making him work long hours away from his family.  There were times when I left in the afternoon, he was just coming on to work.  I would come back in the morning and he was still there...She almost killed him.  We know, she was doing it to us too.

He would come to the back office for refuge, a place for some quiet.  A place to laugh and giggle in such a horrible work environment.  We got to hear about his family, grow to really look forward to him making us laugh.  He would tease my husband about me (yup he worked there too), was always a good sport when he was the butt of practical jokes.  He was family.

Then, the day came that he had enough.  He had to leave us.  Talk about devastated.  We all spent so much time with him in such a short block of our lives.  We knew it would be the best thing for him and his family, still it rocked our worlds in the back office.  We knew that if he couldn't stand it any longer it wouldn't be very long and the rest of us would be on our way too.

He was so good at keeping up on us.  He called no matter where they ended up and kept us abreast of they're on goings.  Eventually, we exchanged cell phone numbers and texts each other when we could.  It was like having an older brother for me.  Always with the good advice, always honest and kind.  His wife and kids were always the talk, he had the most hilarious stories of raising their kids.  I always hoped that I could be that good with my kids.

When I left that store, he was one of the first ones I called.  I could hear the relief in his voice, he was so proud of me.  I told him how nervous I was about moving on and really he told me it would be fine.  It was. Six months later, my husband and I finally got pregnant after a year of trying. The next two years were rough on us and baby but who wasn't having a rough patch? He kept on with me, checking on my little family.  He told us to get out of Cali, it was the state of living there that made stuff so rough on us.  He promised that it wasn't like that all over the US.

Two years ago after seeing my husband be denied a shot a the correctional facilities as an officer, and every other opportunity that we tried was shutting us out.  I email him on FB.  Asking him if he had an ideas on how to start up where he was at... He did us one better and got us interviews at where he works.  We drove out and fell in love with the sweet little town.  We were a bit disappointed when they called us back and told us that we just didn't have enough experience for the jobs.  Devastated really, we put our hearts into it too much.

So, we did what we had been doing for the past two years and survived.  Check to check, barely making ends meet.  Things eased up or maybe we just decided to not be miserable and look to the love we have for one another.  We had scraped enough money for my husband and daughter to take a road trip to see his folks.  I had to stay, I had finally landed a job and was the new kid on the block.

My husband called me half way through their trip to tell me that he got a call from the place our friend had worked at, asking if he was still interested in a job.  The three other people that they had hired had all up an quit at the same time.  It all happened in just two weeks, from the offer to the hiring.  My husband is so happy, his future so much less bleak.

Our friend and his family are searching for homes for us as we speak.  He never tires of helping us. Its almost as though he enjoys it.  I can write pages and pages of praise for him and his family, but it just won't tell how deeply indebted and grateful we are that he never gave up on us.

He would say that that is what family does for each other, I would have to agree.