In the 26 years I have been in business, there have been quite a few difficult decisions that I have had to make. The most difficult of all decisions I had to face was back in early of 2014. My mother and I have owned and operated consignment boutique stores since 1995. We successfully started, from the ground up 4 stores with an enormous amount of back breaking, labor intense hours, a lot of determination and a dream. The first four were in south Florida and they were instantly successful from opening day. Everything was cruising right along and then it happened. My world was about to be turned upside down and little did I know then, that I was going to be faced with the hardest decision that I ever had to face in my life..
My Dad was visiting friends in Alabama and decided to extend his visit for a few weeks, to help some friends out on their business. Why not? He was retired from the railroad, after 30 years, and had nothing else that was going on. He called my mom and discussed it with her and she said she didn't mind. Well, and this is a big well, a few weeks later, when my dad called my mom for thier nightly chat, he laid a bomb on her. He said these exact words, "you can stay down there, you can come up here but I am not coming back.". What!? What did he mean he was not coming back? My dad had fallen in love with the small town of Rainsville, Al and the good hearted people of the town. My mother, of course decided to move to Alabama, leaving me, myself and I, to run four stores, 6 employees and 9000+ consignors all by myself. Here was the toughest part. It wasn't the handling of the employees. It wasn't the tallying up 9000+ consignors account, (no computer-old school books). It wasn't even the hustle and bustle, flip flopping travel between the four stores I had to do. The toughest part was trying to still have the joy and love for the business without my mother. It wasn't the same. It became just a business. So after 4 long years I made the hardest decision that I've ever had to make and that was that I only had one choice. I closed all 4 stores and moved the bustling city light of West Palm Beach Florida to the very small rural town of Rainsville Alabama. It was without a shade of a doubt that God put this plan into action because just after four months of moving to Alabama my Dad was diagnosed, out of the blue with a brain tumor and passed away at the young age of 65. My mother would have never been able to handle the loss if I hadn't made the decision the move to Alabama. We are coming up on 13years now with our busting at the seams, 5th consignment boutique store and we are very proud to have it together. Nu2u Consignment Boutique is whate we call ourselves and the name couldn't be more fitting because everything that had happened was New to us. Thanks for sharing along with me. God Bless
