A New Series of Unfortunate Events

It has been a super long time since my last post… actually I am not going to lie it has been one heck of a year. Our little sugar family has been on an adventure of major life changes and I felt like I needed to share these with you today.

To start, on March 1st we made a decision to leave our beloved Lebanon and come back to the US. Things in my home country were becoming too dangerous and escalating at a fast rate, and to be honest we couldn’t see a proper and safe future for our children, so like many around the world, we packed up our essentials and off we went.

We first started this move in Massachusetts — we wanted to try out the New England area to see if we could make a life for us there.

We stayed there a few months with the gracious help of our family friends, but it didn’t seem to work out the way we had hoped.

Every time we would apply for an apartment that seemed child friendly and a proper size for a family of four, we would get rejected. It was the weirdest thing and it seemed that life was giving us a sign that we were not meant to be up North.

During our stay there, we were trying to figure out how life works in the US, to be honest.

From the everyday life to health insurance and car insurance and all the payments you have to make on a monthly basis — all while being 6 months pregnant remind you.

I don’t know what we were thinking making all these changes while pregnant but — hey no one can call us boring now… not that we were boring to begin with.

After I gave birth to William in June, Mario and I talked for quite some time and decided to take a road trip down to Florida and settle there for the next couple years.

We got in the car and headed towards Florida on August 1st and thought: hey things can only get better from here, right?

Yeah… No, on the first day of our trip it starts to rain, normal rain just like you see every day.

We stop for the night at some friends’ house in Virginia. We open the trailer to get some things from it that we would need for the night and see that the trailer we rented was leaking water onto all of our things. We are talking crib, cloths bags everything you can think of.

Well this sucks, we thought, but it’s okay everything will be fine in the end it’s just water.

Next day, we get back on the road and drive for a few hours headed to Charlotte.

An hour before we arrive our car starts smoking up from the front hood and we stop the car on the side of the road. I literally jump out of the car and grab the kids out of the car seats and move way away from the car until we see if its going to get worse or if its nothing to worry about.

Realizing we cannot drive the car anymore; we call Triple A and hope they can tow the car somewhere and fix it.

Sadly, for us it was a Sunday and we cannot get the car fixed on a Sunday since all the mechanic shops are closed so we have to stay the night at a motel down the street from the mechanic.

My poor husband wanting to just get us off the side of the road as quickly as possible booked us a room not exactly knowing where he booked.

Well… that was an interesting Motel to say the least.

We get there through a taxi company and see three police cars parked outside the building. I think to myself its fine maybe they are just chilling there for a bit before continuing their shift for the day or at least that is what I was hoping.

Nope, that was not the case, as we wait for the towing company to bring us the car and trailer, I see 3 officers go to the check in counter and ask the manager to give them a list of all the people staying the night.

This was the last straw of alert signals I received and flipped a shit.

I go up to one of the officers with melody on one hip and William on the other and ask the officer straight up: “Officer, sorry to bother you but should I be staying here with my children?”

The officer looks me straight in the eyes and says “Honestly ma’am, I want you to take your kids and get the F*** out of here. There is a lot of drug trafficking going on here so… There is a hotel down the street go there it is safe as can be.”

I walk out of the motel crying with the kids attached to my hips and explained everything to Mario.

Trying to keep our shit together we book another room and walk with the kids in the strollers to the other hotel, while the tow truck is following us with the trailer.

We get there safe and sound in the room trying to relax and just think of the positive, and let’s just say easier said than done. We spend the night there and hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

HA!

We wake up and call the mechanic shop that has our car there and ask them what the deal is and what will it cost to fix. Lucky for us it was only $450 of work and they told us it would be done by the afternoon.

So, we decide to see if we can have late checkout from the hotel and unfortunately, the late check out was not late enough so we just book the room for another night.

That’s it right? Are we finally good to go? Nope!

Hurricane warning gets sent to our phones as well as flash flooding, so we start praying to the dear Lord that the trailer doesn’t flood yet again.

As we wait to get through the night, the power goes out for about 4 hours, so how do I pump and heat my newborn’s milk no one knows.

It just felt like it was disaster after disaster and that the entire darned Universe was colluding against us.

Mario and I just hugged each other, taking all that stress and deciding to just let it go so that tomorrow we can just start a new day with fresh positive vibes.

And… you guessed it… things got worse, maybe not physically but this next day was the worst.

On August 4th, 2020 we get the message that a major nuclear explosion erupted in Beirut and then we went into a blur.

All we could do for the five-hour car ride to Savannah was call our friends and family and make sure everyone was alive, because half of our capital city was wiped out: killing at least 200 people, injuring around 6000, and leaving approximately 300,000 homeless without a livelihood.

I pray none of you ever have to experience having to call the people you love and hope against all hope that they answer every time the phone rings, because when they don’t your mind may instantly go to some very dark places.

Thankfully for us, everyone we knew was safe and sound, but when we arrived to our hotel, I put the kids to sleep and just sobbed for a couple hours.

I was sad for my country, sad for my people, and relieved that I didn’t have to say goodbye to anyone I loved dearly.

The next day was our last day of travel and as the hours went by, we realized that we are about to arrive to our future home: a place where we will settle for the next year at least.

We were finally home after an unforgettable adventure of tears, fears, laughs and lots of singing.

When you go through such things, still stick together and hug at the end of the day that’s when you truly know that you have something strong and unbreakable.

Mario and I stood by each other and have been through thick and thin and that is what I call a true marriage.

We have gotten down to zero so now there’s nowhere to go but UP!

Until next time…

Mama Shugar OUT!