There’s a line from A Tale of Two Cities that says, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Looking back, that probably describes what my family and I lived through from 2009 to 2012 better than anything else.
The truth is, the story really started in 2006, when I opened my own business.
I came out of the gate fast. I had a lot of clients right away, many of them people I had worked with for years while I was at other advertising and design companies. They knew what I could do. They had seen how I solved problems, how I approached things creatively, and how I could usually find a different story to tell that made sense for almost any situation. They trusted me, and I loved working with them.
For a while, it felt like everything was finally coming together.
Then 2009 hit like Godzilla invading Tokyo.
At first, I think a lot of people believed the housing crash would correct itself. That things would settle down. That the damage would be temporary. But it wasn’t. It went much deeper than that. It ruined lives.
People I knew lost their life savings. Investment portfolios vanished. Companies shut their doors. Honest, hardworking people lost their jobs and had no idea where to turn next.
I honestly thought my business would be safe.
It wasn’t.
What was happening in the world all but erased my client base. We went from doing well to having to decide whether we bought groceries or paid the mortgage. My wife had been a stay-at-home mom, but she had to find part-time work just to help us hold things together. ALDI and garage sales became her survival system. She knew exactly what she could buy, exactly how far each dollar could stretch, exactly how to keep the kids fed and dressed without letting them feel the full weight of what was happening.
It got bad enough that my parents stepped in to help keep us from losing our house.
That was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.
One minute, you feel like you’re building something. The next, you’re staring over the edge, wondering if your family is about to lose everything.
For three years, we lived in that tension.
We survived on a handful of clients, determination, and whatever we could do to keep one more piece from falling apart. One thing that helped was that our vehicles were already paid off. We took care of them, and growing up on a farm had taught me how to handle most of the maintenance myself. That mattered more than ever then. When money is that tight, even avoiding one repair bill feels like a victory.
It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t inspiring in the moment. It was just hard.
There were arguments. There was stress. There were nights when fear sat so heavily in the room you could almost hear it breathing. It tested our grit, our marriage, and our faith.
But we stayed together.
Somewhere near the end of that long three-year stretch, things finally began to shift. I got a call from a former colleague. She had lost her job too, but had landed a new position as public relations director for a metro school district. They had a lot of work to do, and much of it was exactly the kind of work I was good at.
Then, a few months later, another call came in.
Then another.
And little by little, the sun started to come back out.
Looking back now, I know we didn’t get through it on talent alone. We got through it because of determination, attitude, support from people who loved us, and a lot of prayers being answered when we needed them most. Business grew again. Life steadied itself. And in a strange way, after going through all of that, our family came out tighter than ever.
People say there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
I think that’s true.
But I also think there’s one condition: you have to keep walking.
If this story resonated with you, you’re not alone.
