Grates Agere

To everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute and toeveryone who has contacted me with their stories of generosity, hope,synchronicity and grace and messages of encouragement, thank you somuch. You are helping to reunite a family and to birth new potentialand a new life.

May you be blessed always.

For personal reasons I've kept my identity private. However, that isnot permanent, as the closer I get to being back on my feet andreunited with my sons, the more of a photograph of me will be revealed.

In the meantime feel free to write to me at gratesagere@gmail.com

Thank you

I am not a person who has ever sought favours from othersand certainly not asking for help in a direct manner. I have always shied awayfrom seeking the assistance of others, believing I had to do everything on myown, for myself and for my family.For many years I have felt responsibility for everyonearound me and for the greater time, was able to maintain that responsibility. Throughout the course of my life I have had dreams, setgoals and worked hard to achieve them. Often being successful in reaching thegoals I set, though learning there is often a price to pay for getting what youwish for. When the dotcom bubble burst on March 11th 2000, I was two weeks awayfrom an IPO with a profitable company that I had co-founded. It was my secondstart-up having exited from the first, which I ran for four years with anotherpartner, via a trade sale. The fact that the company was profitable and workingin a highly needed sector of the internet industry was of no interest to anyoneat that time, for as many people witnessed and some experienced, investors ranfor the hills with whatever they could save. Having put all of my own available cash into the businessand having seventeen employees to think of, I had to focus on saving thecompany. First I had to give everyone the bad news, which in itself is one ofthe most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. I offered everyone three monthsat full pay to find other work and if they could find something faster, thatwould help. Our plush offices went and we moved into a very cheap, butperfectly functional and much smaller space. We cut back from seventeen to justsix of us and refocused on the direction the business would have to take toboth survive and grow. A year later, having done all that, I couldn’t see my wayforward with either my co-directors or with the business. My marriage was veryrocky by now as the strain of the rollercoaster ride was felt at home.I decided that I would leave and take some time out toconsider what my next move should be, work on repairing my marriage and spendmore time with my sons.It was a hard decision and there was angst and tears allround, at work and at home. The following weeks lead me to look at full-timeemployment again, though I had not been employed by someone else at that pointfor eight years. I interviewed for several high level roles within I.T. butdidn’t find anything that took my fancy; that I could ‘get into’. Then over thesummer of 2001 having been really enjoying my ‘gardening leave’ with my sons, Iwas interviewed for the role of CEO of an Anglo-Icelandic company. The role wasto be based week on week off in New Yorkand London. The package wasexcellent, the role seemed exciting and as my marriage was still not ‘fixed’,my partner and I agreed that this might actually help, (absence makes the heartgrow fonder being the thought process). So I accepted the post in August of2001. I was due to be in New Yorkon September the 9th to start on the 10th. The companywas based on the 33rd floor of the South Tower at the World Trade Centre. Onthe 3rd I got a very uncomfortable feeling about the whole thing andfor what appeared to be no apparent reason, I called the chairman and told himI was sorry, but I would not be accepting the position. Everyone thought memighty strange until the 11th. I’ve never been so grateful for sucha powerful feeling of intuition as I was and am, for that one.In the following days, I realised I needed to do somethingelse with my life, but didn’t know what. I had always like the idea of gettinginto property and having some available money for a deposit, bought a very rundown and old house to refurbish.My closest friend was going through some similar personalissues and so we decided to work on it together. It was incredible hard work,but so much fun and so cathartic.We knew within the first few weeks we’d want to do somemore, so I started looking for the next one, on and off, whilst we worked onthe first. Everything went really well and in five months, purchase tosale, I was feeling great about continuing with this as my work and income. Ibought another place to refurbish, which was also fun, then another. Then Istarted looking into new build projects and acquired some land with a derelictproperty on. It all looked like things were headed in the right direction. During this time both my partner and I had started takingcourses in Reiki, with the same Master, but at separate times. This really started to create a shift in my partner at adeeper level than in me (though mine followed later), and it became apparentwithin a very few months that we were heading in separate directions in how wewanted to live and what we wanted from life. We started sleeping in separatebedrooms, telling our sons it was because of problems sleeping and not wantingto wake the other one up in the night. The signs were getting stronger andstronger that we were not going to come through this.I was devastated when finally, whilst on vacation with oursons, swimming with dolphins and whales, in what appeared to be a truly healingenvironment, the words ‘I think we should get a divorce’, descended on me. Wehad been together for sixteen years at that point. Having dropped this bombshell,we then had to carry on as normal for the remainder of the vacation. ‘Thank Godfor my sons’ was all I could think and I just focused on having fun with them.

Ironically we had a family wedding to go to when we got backand of course acted the perfect couple throughout. This actually continueduntil a little before Christmas 2002 when it all came out and everyone was leftdumbfounded as no-one had suspected there was anything close to a problem inour relationship. Our sons were bereft of course and that was as painful athing to experience as there can be; feeling both the weight of responsibilityfor what has transpired and the pain of it. We separated in early 2003 and shared our sons’ time as bestwe could, until, having gone into mediation; we were told that the childrenwere old enough by law, to decide how much time they wanted to spend with eachparent. From that day on our sons spent week on week off with each of us and itworked well for everyone. We were able to make the best of a bad situation. During this time, I got involved in a real estatedevelopment project that really got me excited for its potential.A key piece of residential land, with houses on it, partlyowned by local authorities and partly privately owned. It was very prime realestate and the partner who had invited me in on the deal had already securedthe key property and the backing of the local authority to re-develop the landinto an apartment block with requisite services.Together with my refurbishment properties, this kept me busywhilst being able to maintain a schedule that worked around the weeks my sonswere with me. During the divorce that was now in process my partner had aninjunction put on all my business dealings, whilst everything was investigatedto ensure I had disclosed it all. This, of course, created a cash flow issuefor me, which resulted in me having to start heavily using credit cards andtaking out a loan to live on. When the divorce was granted in spring 2004 it was on thebasis that all the equity from the marital home and a further lump sum was togo to my partner as a one time and all time payment, with no maintenance eitherway as we shared responsibility of the children. By now my debts were climbing high as both sons were at aprivate school and the combination of school fees, business expenses, multiplemortgage payments and living day to day compounded.I sold a couple of the smaller properties I had beenrefurbishing and that alleviated the financial pressure for a while. Howeverthe large deal was dragging along, for having found finance, we found ourselveshaving to renegotiate with the owner of the key property, who, at a crucialmoment, died. Obviously nothing happened for weeks as his widow dealt withgrief and all the other mundane things that have to be handled when a spousedies suddenly.I cast my attention to my other smaller project and focusedon getting to the point of breaking ground onthat one sooner. I had not expected the change of mind from the planningauthorities on the original plans discussed, agreed and submitted. What theycame back with meant that the project would now not only not make a profit, butlose money, whether we built it or sold the land as it was. It made nodifference either way. So I sold at a loss as fast as I could to relieve myselfat least of the mortgage payments. The focus went back to the larger deal as we were nowtalking with the widow and attempting to work out a deal that worked foreveryone. She was having none of it. We were being blamed for her husbandsdeath (he was 78 years old), though he died of natural causes. Now, even though she had had and spent some of our money,she wanted to do another deal with a large national development company thathad approached her husband before we came along. She knew about the deadline tocomplete the purchase on her property and, even though we had been sympatheticto her husbands passing and held back from discussions for a few months to giveher time, she was not willing to extend our contract of purchase deadline.Suddenly we had very little time to get everything completed, including thefinance increased to match the other offer she now had on the table. We ran out of time. In October 2005, having done the rightthing, we were not given the same grace and we lost both our substantialdeposits and the deal.At this point I didn’t know what I was going to do. Mybusiness world had collapsed and I still had mortgages, school fees, creditcards and loans to pay, as well as live day to day. I began missing payments and ‘borrowing from Peter to payPaul’. I decided to sell my car, which I did quickly. A friend lent me her oldone that had not been traded in when she upgraded. At least I was still mobileI thought and the synchronicity of her offer was wonderful timing. I had borrowings that were now well beyond what I could copewith, having lost all my capital as well as the time and effort put into theprojects.For about three months I ran around in circles trying todecide how I was going to deal with things. Having made losses I was due a taxrebate, but the Tax Office were arguing their case as it was substantial. Theydecided to investigate me. My accountant told me this would likely delay anypayout for a minimum of six months and he had known it go on for up to twoyears! Everything I tried hit a dead end. I signed on with a temp agency and started temping to bringin enough cash so I didn’t have to use credit cards to live day to day.

Then I started taking advice on my situation. Obviously itdidn’t look good. I wasn’t paying bills, was behind on mortgage payments and ontop of it the land I had left to sell was going to sell at a loss so I wouldactually have expenses to cover that too.Letters were pouring through the door and the phone barelystopped ringing with creditors calling. Legal action was continually beingthreatened.I was advised that bankruptcy was likely to be my onlyoption. I couldn’t bare the thought of that so kept on looking for anotheranswer, without success. By April I had no choice left but to tell my ex and our sonsI was no longer able to fund their private education. As you can imagine thiswas a hard thing to have to do and very hard for our sons to take on board. Myex went nuts over it.We had to find them a good new school and quickly. It washorrendous timing for my eldest son as he was coming up to exam year. The school we wanted to get them into had a waiting list forboth of them. Our eldest son was accepted straight away, but his youngerbrother was on a long waiting list. Thecurriculum is slightly different to the school they had been at, which meant ourelder son having to effectively re-do work he had already done for a differentcurriculum on half the subjects he was taking. God bless him he knuckled downand got on with it without complaint. By this time it was the start of the school year and ouryounger son still didn’t have a place at a school. We thought as he was a sibling it'd be easier as in mostschools, but it was a trauma from start to finish; particularly for our son. Wewere told we'd have to go to appeal. By now the bank had issued a repossession order request andI had to go to court to request a stay of repossession agreeing to put thehouse up for sale immediately, as there was still a good amount of equity in itand I thought if I could sell it I could get things under control and rentsomewhere for a while, whilst I either got a job or started something new.There were no takers. It was a good market to be selling in, the house wasdecorated and fitted to a high standard and was a great size family home. Eventhe agent couldn’t understand it. By the beginning of October 2006 I knew there was nothingleft to do. It was all over.I went to court for the second time but was not granted afurther stay. I was given 8 days notice to vacate. I had to now tell my sonsthat we would be losing our home as well. I went to the local authorities tosee about getting a house from them. I was told that if my ex was willing toconfirm in writing that our sons had to be with me half the time, then I wouldlikely get something quickly. Without telling me, a letter was written back stating thatour sons did not have to stay with me half the time even though it was not whatthey wanted and that was that. No accommodation. Now I went straight to the bottom of thepile. I had to move in with my parents and subsequently mybrother. Within a few weeks my ex had decided that it was a mistakeand wanted to write a letter to rescind the original letter. It was too latefor that unfortunately. On the October 15th 2006, I filed for bankruptcy and it was granted. Our younger son was still not at school and was being homeschooled, whilst an alternative was found. Just as he was accepted and startedat another school, the school his brother attended changed their mind andoffered him a place, which he accepted. The repercussions of all this have spread well beyond my ownlife. Like a pebble dropped into the centre of a pond, not only is the calm ofthe centre disrupted but waves of disruption role out further than one imaginespossible, until, like the ripples in the pond, it naturally reaches its outer edges. I still don’t have my own home and I no matter whatpermanent work I’ve applied for, I’m still not in employment. I still temp asthe work comes up and to make ends meet have been selling off my possessions oneBay. I see my sons a couple of times a week and we talk everyday. Around the same time as going bankrupt I started workingvoluntarily with a local youth organisation that focuses on disenfranchisedteenagers, offering mentoring, sport, music and above all somewhere theybelong. It’s true what they say about if you want to forget about your own problems,help someone else with theirs. In spite of it all I feel lucky and blessed that I amsurrounded by a loving family, who have done and do what they can to help. Ihave great friends who have been there for me all along the way and continue tobe. I witness little pieces of synchronicity that help maintainhope, such as a car always turning up when I need one; sometimes from the mostunlikely sources and I have met someone very wonderful, that I hope I will beable to build a life with given the right timing and circumstances. These experiences have helped me to discover and truly likemy most authentic self, the person I was always meant to be. I had neverconsidered that counselling, coaching, musing, reflecting and co-creating arethings in and of themselves, even though I get no bigger high than when I’vespent time helping colleagues, friends, family and people I have not metbefore, see their way through to the other side of their challenges. Now Irealise that I have enjoyed this more than anything for the greater part of mylife, so I am now committed to it. So there you have it; for the first time in my life I amasking for help. Help to get me back on my feet. Help to provide a home for mysons and I and reunite a family, but above all help to maintain my hope for abrighter today.