Living in a Tent — and Still Breathing

By 2014, all the kids had grown up and moved out. The noise, the chaos, the laughter — it was all gone. The house was quiet now. And for Olivia, that silence became a heavy kind of grief. She had already tried to take her life once in 2012.

That day is etched into my memory like a scar.

She survived — but barely. The doctors had to place her in a medically induced coma. Seventeen days. Seventeen days of waiting, praying, begging God to let her come back. I didn’t know if she’d make it. Every beep from the machines felt like it could be the last. I sat by her bed, holding her hand, wondering if I’d ever hear her laugh again.

And when she finally woke up… she wasn’t the same. Something in her spirit had dimmed. She smiled less. Spoke softer. She still loved fiercely, but part of her had gone somewhere I couldn’t follow. And in truth, I didn’t know how to help her heal — because I was still trying to survive myself.

We thought maybe a change would help. We moved down to Los Angeles to stay with her dad for a few months. A fresh start, we hoped. But it didn’t take long to realize that wasn’t going to be our answer. She hated it there — the city, the energy, the feeling of being stuck in someone else's space. So we packed up what little we had and headed back to Oregon. Back to what felt familiar, even if it wasn’t stable.

I was trying to find work, anything to keep us afloat. We were staying in monthly rentals, bouncing between cheap motels and small rooms, trying to stretch what little money we had. But jobs were scarce, and my addiction — though quieter than before — was still there, whispering in the background.

And then the funds ran out.

By January of 2014, we had nowhere left to go.

No more favors to call in. No more rooms to rent. Just a cold tent, two little dogs, and the middle of a brutal Oregon winter.

We set up camp in the woods just outside of town. It wasn’t a campsite. It wasn’t safe or cozy. It was survival. There’s nothing romantic about sleeping in the cold, zippered into a nylon shell while the wind howls and the rain soaks through the ground beneath you. Every night felt like a battle. Every morning felt like a miracle.

I’ll never forget the way Olivia tried to stay strong through it all. She’d zip herself up tight and curl in close to the dogs to keep warm. Some nights, she didn’t say much. Other nights, we’d talk about how we got here, what we should’ve done differently, what we still hoped could change.

We weren’t just cold — we were grieving. Grieving the life we thought we’d have. Grieving the years we lost to addiction, to bad decisions, to the storm that had slowly taken over our marriage. And if I’m honest… I wasn’t even sure what I believed anymore.

I didn’t have some big spiritual awakening out there in the cold. I was just trying to survive — hour to hour, breath to breath. Some nights, I’d talk to the sky. Some nights, I didn’t say anything at all. I didn’t know if God was listening. I didn’t even know if I wanted Him to be.

But something in me kept going. Some small, stubborn part of me refused to give up completely. It wasn’t faith, not really. It was just this whisper of a thought: Maybe this isn’t how it ends.

There’s something about hitting bottom that strips away all the noise. When you’re cold, broke, and forgotten by the world, you find out real fast what still lives inside you. And for me, there was still a flicker — not a fire, but a flicker — of hope.

Eventually, a door opened. My ex-father-in-law had an old 18-foot trailer — small, beat-up, but it dry and warmer. And walls. And a roof. He let us move in for a few months. It was the first time in weeks I saw Olivia smile, even a little.

From there, I hustled to scrape together enough to rent a single-wide trailer in Depoe Bay. It wasn’t much, but after where we’d been, it felt like a palace.

But we weren’t okay. Not really. We were worn out. Spiritually exhausted. And my opioid use had gone from casual to full-blown addiction. I thought I was managing it. I wasn’t. Olivia was still grieving her mom, who had taken her own life back in 2005. I was grieving too — grieving the man I thought I’d become by now.

We were two broken people doing our best not to fall apart completely. But the cracks were widening.

Looking back now, I realize those few weeks in the tent didn’t just expose how bad things had gotten… it also showed me what mattered most. I still had breath in my lungs. I still had someone I loved beside me. I still had a reason to fight.

Not long after that, everything would change again. But this — this was the winter that broke me down enough to start reaching up.

And that’s the thing about rock bottom — sometimes, it’s the only place solid enough to rebuild from.