Author: Carol De Leo
I was living in Truckee, California, helping my Father take care of my Mother. She had suffered a severe stroke, which left her paralyzed on her left side, unable to walk, and she had lost all speech.
I had been living with them since she had gotten out of rehab, about 9 months. She was becoming stable, life was in a routine, and it was time for me to find a part time job. My financial resources had dried up, and I need to go back to work.
Scanning through the local want ads, I found one job that seemed like a good possibility. Someone was looking for a care taker for an elderly woman, some one to fix her breakfast and dinner, help with bathing, and provide TLC.
What got me was the TLC. I thought that was really cool.
I called the number, and was told by a deep gruff voice on the other end that the position had been filled.
Hmm, there were not too many other job opportunities in Truckee, my parents seemed stable, so I decided to move back to Sacramento, where I had come from before my Mom’s stroke.
Back in Sacramento, I found a job quite quickly.
After about 6 weeks of being away from my parents, my Father got sick, and asked me to come back up. He ended up in the hospital for a few days, I ended up back in Truckee once again.
When my Father recovered, and was back at home again, I started looking at the want ads again. And there was that same ad!
Once again I called the number, and this time the gruff voice on the other end asked if I could meet on Monday morning at his Mother’s house.
Just as I was about ready to knock on her door, it flew open, and her son was just leaving. He was as startled as I was, since I hadn’t had the chance to knock yet, and he almost knocked me over charging out the door.
And that was how we met. The deep gruff voice on the other end of the phone.On my part, it was definitely love at first sight.
I met with his Mother, Helen, that morning, and we hit it off right away. I agreed to start the next day.
Eventually her son, Frank, and I became good friends, and ended up getting married!
When ever I look back on our meeting, I think of how it almost never happened.
If my Father had not called to ask me to come back to Truckee, I would have stayed in Sacramento.
If the person Frank had hired before me had worked out, there never would have been that second ad in the paper.
He often joked about finding love through the classifieds. He had no idea when he hired me he was also finding love.
And I would have missed out on sharing a good part of my life with Frank, filled with love, adventure and happiness.
About the author:
Carol De Leo is now living in Thailand, having lost Frank to cancer several years ago. She maintains a photography website of all the photos from her great adventures with Frank traveling in their RV across North West United States, and her travels in Thailand, Lao, and Bali. Her website is Wallpaper by Design.com
