Trust

 For a long time, I have asked myself on indeterminate issues, “What is your gut feeling?” For example, just a few weeks ago  Eddy had a mole, that had bled profusely, biopsied.  We missed the call from the doctor late on a Thursday afternoon. Friday when we returned the call, they were out until Tuesday, since Monday was a holiday. So we have to wait five days to find out the results? I will be a nervous wreck. Stop. “What is your gut feeling?” It’s benign. I relax.

More recently, after our experience with the $4000 scammers, when we thought we had the trailer sold, we got really nervous because it was an out-of-state bank and they planned to pick up the trailer before we found out whether or not the check cleared. DeRay called the bank and they said they had money but he just didn’t feel right about it. “She didn’t really even look at the trailer. What is going on?” So he calls and ask if they could bring cash. She thought they could. We cleaned it out but even the morning they were to pick it up, he was concerned because the phone numbers on the check weren’t different than the ones on the Internet. He spent the morning calling the bank and verifying everything. Will they or will they not show up with the cash?  I decided to check in with myself.  “Yes,” myself answered.  And they showed up right on time and were the nicest people in the world!

It’s a good way to see if your intuition is still alive and healthy.  Just after Eddy was born, I felt more in tune with divine guidance than ever before or after. I had all these feelings that turned out to be right. Someone, maybe one of the kids, brought word that Ellen Mae and Mel Manning had been killed in an auto accident. Unbelievable. I checked in with myself, “No, it isn’t true.”  I have no idea how the rumor got started.  I read in the paper when Mel died last week—44 years later—Ellen Mae is still alive. They are both well into their nineties.
     Even when I lie there thinking I have something fatal, I don't even have to ask, a thought just comes to me, "You are fine."
My main messages are more like: Don't be so hard on yourself. It's OK to miss one day of not exercising. It's OK the kitchen is a pigpen. You're doing the best you can.  You've done enough today.  You can miss a normal swim day. It's not the end of the world.  If the frontroom doesn't get vacuumed today you can do it tomorrow. Go to bed; you can catch up on your daily journal tomorrow. No guilt. Things like that. If it were me talking, wouldn't it be in first person? Personal pronouns? 

I think we have more gifts and blessings than we sometimes utilize.  

DeRay put the trailer on the market rather late on Tuesday August 15. We have never sold anything. We donated the motorhome to the kidney foundation; everything else to DI, MS, or Catholic charities. We didn’t use the trailer once last year and we planned to put it on the market. Never did. We need to sell it while the weather is nice. “Perfect to travel to view the total solar eclipse.” “Seldom used.” In the end, DeRay did a blah ad (even a misspelled word "to" instead of "too" which is one of my pet peeves). By midnight, we’d had five or so inquiries.

 

  
 Next morning, this woman and her daughter from Tooele show up to look at the trailer. She wants it, hoping to hook it up and take it now. She gave DeRay a check for the asking price.  They agreed that she could come back Friday after the check cleared.

An out-of-state check, the bank said it could clear by Friday but would likely take 5-6 days. He calls her back and she agrees to try to get the cash. They came at 12:30. At 2:30 we were still visiting on the front porch. He has been deployed twice – once to Iran and once to Kuwait; will probably be deployed again soon. He’s from Cedar City so we talked about the Iron Mines where I started my secretarial career, and where his father and grandfather worked. She’s from Moab. If we had known they were from Southern Utah, we would never have questioned their integrity. On the way home, from one of his deployments, she and her daughter met him and they toured Greece. We didn’t see 2000 pictures but we saw a lot!  We talked about the severe medical problems in his family. When we explained our caution, they said they perfectly understood because they had been scammed. I had two school desks that Jerry gave me from the schools in Malad. I had painted them; but for 20 years, they have set out on the front porch and the paint was peeling. Three times, I asked Blaine, a fellow in our ward who owns a playhouse in Ogden, if he wanted them. “Yes,” each time, but he never picked them up.  Out of the blue, much later than when I told her I was ready to find a home for the desks, she says, “If you’re serious, I’ll take them.” Oh my goodness. They loaded them in the trailer and were off.  I gave them the sheets but forgot to throw in the pillows of which I have too many. I fretted all day and all night that I didn't call them before we cleaned everything out. I would have if we hadn’t still been leery that it was another scam. I'm sure they would have taken everything and it would have been furnished for them and saved us a day's labor, including a trip to Deseret Industries. It would have saved us more than a day’s labor. Verla helped us the first day get everything out of the trailer. I spend most of the next two days, putting things that I neither need nor want away.

 Even while they were connecting,

we were still gathering evidence.

 In the end, the thing that tugged at my heart strings most,

was the tricycle carrier DeRay designed and installed.

Taking the front wheel off, connecting to the top,

while the back two wheels rested on the platform.

Every time you sell something or take it to DI, a little piece of your life goes with it. Does our trailer miss us as we will miss it? All the reunions at Duck Creek. The trips back to Missouri to ride our bikes on the Katy Trail. Thanksgiving in the Ozarks.

Ed says, “I don’t miss the trailer; I don’t miss the houseboat. But we sure had a lot of fun”.

Now DeRay knows the ropes and the joy of selling something you don’t use anymore, maybe he’ll have the impetus to sell the motorcycle that’s been setting in the shed for 30 years!

Looking at the pictures, Eddy says, 

"There's the trailer I don't miss. 

I'm surprised they bought it. 

I hope they enjoy it."