Doug found out ten days ago that Champion would be closing the Elkhart plant January 8th. He always thought that might be a possibility, especially with the new expansion being built in Ocala. He just didn't believe that it would happen this quickly.
I was bummed when he told me. It had been a lot easier moving when I knew that we would be coming back every month. Then, I would still be able to see my children regularly and visit my parents. I could also keep my monthly hair appointments and dental check ups twice a year. I wasn't quite ready to give all of that up.
Doug reminded me that we could still visit Indiana and Illinois, we would just have to pay for it out of our own pocket now as it wouldn't be part of his work trip. He also would still be able to work remotely, so he cold travel with me a lot of the time. Our children would be visiting us as well, so we'd still see everyone. I had already thought about spending quite a bit of June in Indiana if Cameron was there, and we'd be traveling to Bloomington for sure in July because of Meg's wedding. Thus, I knew that he was right, I just wasn't mentally prepared for it.
Once I got over the shock of the closure, I started thinking about the people in Elkhart that would be losing their jobs. I felt terrible for them. Some had been at Champion longer than Doug. I also felt bad for my Mom when we told her about it. She had planned on us traveling to the Midwest monthly as well. We had spent a lot of time in August setting up their house for our visits. It made me sad to think about it. I knew that we'd still visit, I just didn't have anything scheduled after our January 5th trip. I will feel a lot better about it once we do. Until then, I will stop feeling sorry for myself and think about those who just found out that they were going to be unemployed after the first of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment