Memoir
Two-Thousand Dollars and a Dream Led Me to Homeownership
How I transformed my shattered life and found a place to call my own.
I’m lying under the eaves in my upstairs bedroom listening to the wind howl outside my 1890 brick Victorian farmhouse. Sleet clatters against the windows and the old house creaks and shudders, but I’m warm beneath my down comforter, scrolling Redfin on my phone looking at houses 2,000 miles away in Washington state.
Why not move? What’s stopping you?
My mom died suddenly just over a year ago. One moment, she was a vibrant, 65-year-old smartass with a sailor’s mouth and a nicotine addiction she tried to hide from her concerned family. The next, an ambulance whisked her to the hospital where, 24 hours later, a combination of heart disease and the flu took her life.
Just weeks before her death, I’d been sitting at Mom’s kitchen table. We were talking about how life often forced us to change directions, rethinking and reshaping our dreams.
“I have this wild idea about moving to the Pacific Northwest,” I confessed. “Ever since I visited Washington, I keep thinking it’s where I belong.”
I expected Mom to resist — she liked being surrounded by family. But she chirped, “You…
