Erma is one of my best friends in the whole wide world. We’ve known each other since 1979. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know, and she’s an incredibly trusting soul. She’s a helper. Ask anyone. Seriously, ask people. She doesn’t give to receive. She doesn’t function like that.

Over the past few years, she has undergone two knee replacements and is a three-year breast cancer survivor. Last year, a close mutual friend made an incredibly generous offer for her to move to Florida rent-free for a year to try out the Sunshine State. Our friend bought a property the year prior, fixed it up, and she thought it might be good for Erma as a way to escape the cold of CT (as well as extending the invitation to a couple of other friends, myself included).

With typical faith in God and the universe, a sense of being welcomed, and abiding trust, Erma made the decision quickly to accept the invitation and embark on this great new adventure.

Erma let her job know she was headed south and stopped working in January after training her replacement. She let her roommate know she was going to rent her CT condo while she tried out life in Florida. Over the next several months, she got rid of so many possessions. She did all the things - transferring prescriptions, hiring a realtor, getting the space cleaned and painted, certifying the cats for travel, and packing a life’s worth of living into boxes.

Then the offer changed from an invitation to be in FL rent-free to paying something that Erma found to be reasonable and affordable. All is well, even with this late-in-the-game twist. 

Florida at last! Everyone is cheering!

It’s going so well that our mutual friend jumps in to help with unpacking. She extends an invitation to the friend that drove Erma down to consider also moving in. 

It’s looking good!

But is it too good to be true?

Our friend leaves for a trip abroad. It’s two weeks in to Erma’s new life  when our friend returns and shares, “this isn’t going to work,” and “I don’t want to be a landlord.” 

Later she explains that while she was on her trip she received an offer for the house she couldn’t resist.

How would you feel if this happened to you?

Now Erma is back in the Nutmeg State. She’s fortunate to have many friends helping to get her resettled. She’s lucky that she didn’t sell her own home to make the move. She is happy a new roommate will be moving in to lighten the load.

But, Erma is out four months' salary she would have had if she never went to Florida. She is out two months of rent payments from her previous roommate. She came home to no food (zero food), no bathroom supplies, no cleaning supplies, and a shortage of funds from paying the cost of all the moving supplies (both legs of the trip). She’s also out the cost of the airfare to fly home the friend who drove her and the cats to Florida. And the cost of paying for help to pack up her life. 

And the emotional cost. 

Erma turned her life upside down to accept an invitation offered from the heart, but which went south in a different way than intended.

Erma says she needs a little help getting back on her feet. Whatever you can give to make this happen will be enough. And you have my thanks for doing what you can.

Full disclosure, our mutual friend paid the movers both ways, plus airfare for a friend to fly down to Florida to drive Erma and the cats back to CT, plus money to cover some of the gas, food, and shelter on the way home.