Friday, March 2, 2012
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
This is My Story
When I was nine years old, my dog Red died. I was devastated. Red had been ours since I could remember. I had dressed Red in ill-fitting outfits, tied bows in her shiny red coat, and commiserated with her over the injustices of the world, which mostly had to do with mean girls and cute boys. In many ways, Red had been my best friend, so when she fell over on Christmas Eve and was put to sleep the day after Christmas, it goes unsaid that my heart was broken in a million ways.
Well, as any mother is apt to do, my mother desired to divert my heartache, so one night she brought home a surprise. With a white terry bath towel hanging over the silver thin-wired cage, I was hopeful that a puppy could have somehow, miraculously been squeezed into that tiny rodent cage ready for me to snuggle to my chest. Frankly, I was nothing but horrified as my mother pulled off the towel to reveal that my new pet was a small white mouse. A mouse named Frodo. It took me approximately two weeks to conjecture that the name “Frodo” was the Greek word for odor. And, I was also certain that Frodo was determined to kill me, torture me with lack of sleep by running incessantly for hours on end at night on his treadmill. Frodo was not my friend. He was the most odiferous creature that I had ever met and us being friends would never happen. That’s why when my mother gave him away to my younger cousins I only mildly protested. And, when it was revealed to me that Frodo had met his demise in the terrifying clutches of their cat Tuffy, I had to feign grief, so my mother didn’t think I was completely heartless. Honestly, I thought he was better off, since to live in the human world, it was just going to be an uphill struggle for him, being so smelly and all. Looking at the upside, at least he didn’t get squeezed to death by a boa constrictor.
It has been a really long time since I’ve blogged. I’ve had ideas, but I just haven’t had the time. Well, now is my time. It all began one night, as Rick and I were watching one of our favorite shows, “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” This particular episode showed a man, a broken man, a lonely man, a very troubled man surrounded by, of all things, thousands and thousands of rats.
Now, at first glance I am apt to say, what the heck? What’s wrong with this guy? He looked like a dirty Kris Kristoferson (Yeah, a DIRTY Kris Kristoferson!), and one with a sweaty headband, as though he stopped mid-Richard Simmon’s fitness video and decided instead to start collecting rats. At least he was color-coordinated and he might have been an Oakland A’s fan, because he wore primarily Kelly green and gold shorty shorts.
This episode was shocking. All the squealing of the rats, as he fed them was repulsive. As he sat in their vile midst, they crawled all over him and pecked at him. He explained to the camera that he had stopped sleeping inside the house years ago, since they would oftentimes peck at his eyes and ears while he slept. Gross! I would have thought he slept elsewhere, because there were thousands, maybe even a million rats inside his house. Never mind the fact that some of the rats were trying to eat him alive!
Anyway, I knew from my brief stint with Frodo that this dirty Kris Kristoferson rat collecting character was not only living in filth, he was inhaling the filth, enduring the stench of thousands of rodents defecating everywhere. It didn’t take long for one of the probing producers of the show to ask how he came to collect and hoard rats. With the question barely out, the man began to weep. His face contorted and his heart was clearly breaking, as rats crawled all over him, tugging at his tattered gold sweatband.
The image on the television faded into a picture of a woman and a man embracing. They were young, happy, and seemingly in love. The man in the picture seemed like only a whisper of the man on the floor covered in rats. He was barely himself. The woman’s mouth was wide with a bright smile.
When asked the question, “How did you get to this,” the man’s face twisted with obvious heartbreak. For what seemed like long pregnant pauses, he finally released words that explained that his wife, the love of his life, had died. She had suffered a heart attack and though he had found her in time, the ambulance did not. He fought and fought to keep her alive, but she died in his arms before paramedics could arrive. Then, one day he bought a pet rat to keep him company, and soon after that, she had babies, and not long after that, they had babies, and so on and so on and so on.
Some of the rats he knew by name, while others lived behind the drywall in the studs of the house. He could not possibly know them all, but to him, it didn’t matter, because they were only there to fill the big, dark, voluminous void. Well, by the end of the hour-long show, the Rat Man got the help of a therapist and settled on keeping just one rat for companionship.
Now, you see, it’s a strange thing to write about, this rat man, but there is something romantically beautiful in his sorrow, don’t you think? Having seen the “Red Violin” years ago about a heartbroken man who, in the sorrow of losing his wife in childbirth, opens her veins to paint her blood over the unfinished grain of a violin he’d been working on. It’s Romeo and Juliet romantic desperation: It’s knowing that death may tear asunder, but love goes on. Songs, poems, novels, and movies are written about such things, about the kind of love that makes you do crazy things, like live with thousands of rats, or painting the unfinished wood of a violin with your dead wife’s blood. I’m not saying that everyone should conduct themselves like that, but I do think there is respectable behavior one should exercise after their loved-one dies. Frankly stated, there is behavior that says, “love,” and then there is behavior that says, “How much was the life insurance?” That’s all I’m saying.
To me, it’s more romantic to live with a hoard of one million rats than to quickly move on, buy yourself…say, a big stupid truck, some new off-road vehicles, a new motorhome, and let’s just go out on a ledge here, and say, move in with another woman less than a year from the untimely death of your wife! Yeah, let’s just say you move in with and buy a new house with this new woman less than a year after your wife of nearly 46 years died completely unexpectedly. Yes, let’s say you get maybe…a quarter of a million dollars and you do something freakishly insensitive like that after you sold off every conceivable thing of your dead wife’s at a garage sale. Let’s also just throw in there that you sold your daughter’s paintings at that garage sale, but you told everyone that you got them back and gave them to her, but you never did anything that honorable, because you are completely and utterly without honor! You are so remiss of honor that you probably don’t even know how to spell it!
And, let’s just say for the heck of it your daughter gets all the sympathy cards and one in particular is strangely affectionate from a woman, a friend of her dead mother’s, who apparently doesn’t have the good sense of a goose telling you how she thinks of you… (inhale deeply – go to happy place, Michelle – happy place) “daily.” Yes, let’s just say for amusement sake, there is a woman out there who acted like a friend who was all along thinking of you. Ha, ha, ha, isn’t that so funny? Yeah, it’s that same woman you took off work to help when she went to court, even though you never took off work for your own wife, even when she had surgeries. Ha, ha, ha, still funny, huh? It’s almost enough to send someone on all night drive to that little hellhole town in Nevada – oh, yeah, it’s Nevada, the whole state is a hellhole – I almost forgot. Anyhoo, it’s almost enough to send a daughter on a Dorito eating, Mountain Dew guzzling trip to make a little visit to that so-called “friend” and have a good, old-fashioned Punching-My-Mother’s-Fake-Friend-in-The-Face-Day – almost. No worries though, my honey has talked me off bigger ledges than this one and I’ve got homeschooling to do today, so…
Hmmm, whose ever going to believe you were in love with their mother when you act like this? Who???? And, just hypothetically let’s say your daughter had come to you wanting your help to get her mother healthy and you instead turned your chemically dependent wife against your daughter, I wonder what the daughter would feel about you? I wonder. I’m just saying hypothetically, of course, just for the sake of conversation really, that if you were to do something like that you’d be a total and complete moron. I would say that your daughter who watched you be physically abusive toward her mother might not ever want anything to do with you again. And, I’m guessing, you know complete conjecture here, that if you did something like and on top of it all, you blamed your daughter for your wife’s untimely death…came to her house even with her children present, and told her she was solely responsible for her beloved mother’s death and when she freaked out and kicked you out of her house, you told everyone she had gone crazy and cussed at you for no good reason, she might want to gouge your face off with her fingernails if you ever darkened her doorstep again.
And, I’m guessing that if she were blind-sided by some cards signed “With Love” from a woman she has never even heard of less than a year after her mother’s death, your daughter might want to go 100% postal on you. It might give her Vietnam War/Viet Kong torture flashbacks, even though she was only eight years old when that war was over. For the sake of pure conjecture, it might even make her husband go out, purchase a high-density rubber, anatomically-blurred kickboxing bag, which your daughter would unceremoniously name after you and kick, punch, and elbow in the face until she can no longer stand.
I’m guessing that when or if, you called her house she’d hang up on you every single time for the rest of eternity, because she knows you are evil beyond compare. And, when the cards continued to come with happy thoughts from some equally moronic woman, saying how she can’t wait to get together and quoting scripture, I’m thinking that your daughter’s husband, wanting to avoid a complete and utter meltdown, would grab that card with all of its idiotic verbiage and religious verses, run mad-dash to the nearest shredder and politely tell her, “Oh, honey, you can’t handle that,” and hold her until she is in a pile of tears.
Of course, let’s also say, just say for instance, that at your deceased wife’s funeral, which you wouldn’t pay one dime for, you wouldn’t even allow God’s name to be spoken. You gave a mandate to some half-witted, pretentious, spiritually and mentally corrupt cousin to make sure no one mentioned God, or anything religious, so let’s just say that now with these bizarre religious cards showing up from you and Shack-Up-Suzy in your daughter’s mailbox, it’s as though you’ve had a lobotomy of all common sense.
Not that any of this pertains to actual circumstances, because it would be so completely ludicrous if it did, but if something like this happened I’m guessing your daughter would revert to the Old Testament praying like David, calling on God to rip out certain people’s tongues, and hoping that jackals, bears, or lions would conduct some serious business on the perpetrators of evil. I’m just guessing, though. I mean, what do I know about stuff like this? Ha, ha, ha, I think my eye is twitching uncontrollably like it does sometimes when I…when I…when I think about these fictional things – yeah, a fictional thing that’s what it is, just fictional, purely fabricated conjecture. Silly, huh? Stupid twitch!
One might think a girl would give up on God in such circumstances, but nope. Nope, not this girl. Just for the record, some might even get stronger, stronger than they ever imagined they could be. I’m guessing there is a woman out there who will never stop loving her mother, never stop knowing the truth – a woman who believes in God and His perfect ways so profoundly that nothing that a man could do could sway her from God’s might, from His sight, from His side. I’m guessing there is a woman who has been used long enough as her father’s scapegoat, who couldn’t care less what anyone who believes him thinks about her. I am guessing that a woman like that would be a woman utterly unafraid, unabashedly honest, and strangely content, because of the overwhelming love of God, because of what an Almighty God has done for her. I am thinking that a woman like that would never ever stop praising God, because this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long:
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Well, as any mother is apt to do, my mother desired to divert my heartache, so one night she brought home a surprise. With a white terry bath towel hanging over the silver thin-wired cage, I was hopeful that a puppy could have somehow, miraculously been squeezed into that tiny rodent cage ready for me to snuggle to my chest. Frankly, I was nothing but horrified as my mother pulled off the towel to reveal that my new pet was a small white mouse. A mouse named Frodo. It took me approximately two weeks to conjecture that the name “Frodo” was the Greek word for odor. And, I was also certain that Frodo was determined to kill me, torture me with lack of sleep by running incessantly for hours on end at night on his treadmill. Frodo was not my friend. He was the most odiferous creature that I had ever met and us being friends would never happen. That’s why when my mother gave him away to my younger cousins I only mildly protested. And, when it was revealed to me that Frodo had met his demise in the terrifying clutches of their cat Tuffy, I had to feign grief, so my mother didn’t think I was completely heartless. Honestly, I thought he was better off, since to live in the human world, it was just going to be an uphill struggle for him, being so smelly and all. Looking at the upside, at least he didn’t get squeezed to death by a boa constrictor.
It has been a really long time since I’ve blogged. I’ve had ideas, but I just haven’t had the time. Well, now is my time. It all began one night, as Rick and I were watching one of our favorite shows, “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” This particular episode showed a man, a broken man, a lonely man, a very troubled man surrounded by, of all things, thousands and thousands of rats.
Now, at first glance I am apt to say, what the heck? What’s wrong with this guy? He looked like a dirty Kris Kristoferson (Yeah, a DIRTY Kris Kristoferson!), and one with a sweaty headband, as though he stopped mid-Richard Simmon’s fitness video and decided instead to start collecting rats. At least he was color-coordinated and he might have been an Oakland A’s fan, because he wore primarily Kelly green and gold shorty shorts.
This episode was shocking. All the squealing of the rats, as he fed them was repulsive. As he sat in their vile midst, they crawled all over him and pecked at him. He explained to the camera that he had stopped sleeping inside the house years ago, since they would oftentimes peck at his eyes and ears while he slept. Gross! I would have thought he slept elsewhere, because there were thousands, maybe even a million rats inside his house. Never mind the fact that some of the rats were trying to eat him alive!
Anyway, I knew from my brief stint with Frodo that this dirty Kris Kristoferson rat collecting character was not only living in filth, he was inhaling the filth, enduring the stench of thousands of rodents defecating everywhere. It didn’t take long for one of the probing producers of the show to ask how he came to collect and hoard rats. With the question barely out, the man began to weep. His face contorted and his heart was clearly breaking, as rats crawled all over him, tugging at his tattered gold sweatband.
The image on the television faded into a picture of a woman and a man embracing. They were young, happy, and seemingly in love. The man in the picture seemed like only a whisper of the man on the floor covered in rats. He was barely himself. The woman’s mouth was wide with a bright smile.
When asked the question, “How did you get to this,” the man’s face twisted with obvious heartbreak. For what seemed like long pregnant pauses, he finally released words that explained that his wife, the love of his life, had died. She had suffered a heart attack and though he had found her in time, the ambulance did not. He fought and fought to keep her alive, but she died in his arms before paramedics could arrive. Then, one day he bought a pet rat to keep him company, and soon after that, she had babies, and not long after that, they had babies, and so on and so on and so on.
Some of the rats he knew by name, while others lived behind the drywall in the studs of the house. He could not possibly know them all, but to him, it didn’t matter, because they were only there to fill the big, dark, voluminous void. Well, by the end of the hour-long show, the Rat Man got the help of a therapist and settled on keeping just one rat for companionship.
Now, you see, it’s a strange thing to write about, this rat man, but there is something romantically beautiful in his sorrow, don’t you think? Having seen the “Red Violin” years ago about a heartbroken man who, in the sorrow of losing his wife in childbirth, opens her veins to paint her blood over the unfinished grain of a violin he’d been working on. It’s Romeo and Juliet romantic desperation: It’s knowing that death may tear asunder, but love goes on. Songs, poems, novels, and movies are written about such things, about the kind of love that makes you do crazy things, like live with thousands of rats, or painting the unfinished wood of a violin with your dead wife’s blood. I’m not saying that everyone should conduct themselves like that, but I do think there is respectable behavior one should exercise after their loved-one dies. Frankly stated, there is behavior that says, “love,” and then there is behavior that says, “How much was the life insurance?” That’s all I’m saying.
To me, it’s more romantic to live with a hoard of one million rats than to quickly move on, buy yourself…say, a big stupid truck, some new off-road vehicles, a new motorhome, and let’s just go out on a ledge here, and say, move in with another woman less than a year from the untimely death of your wife! Yeah, let’s just say you move in with and buy a new house with this new woman less than a year after your wife of nearly 46 years died completely unexpectedly. Yes, let’s say you get maybe…a quarter of a million dollars and you do something freakishly insensitive like that after you sold off every conceivable thing of your dead wife’s at a garage sale. Let’s also just throw in there that you sold your daughter’s paintings at that garage sale, but you told everyone that you got them back and gave them to her, but you never did anything that honorable, because you are completely and utterly without honor! You are so remiss of honor that you probably don’t even know how to spell it!
And, let’s just say for the heck of it your daughter gets all the sympathy cards and one in particular is strangely affectionate from a woman, a friend of her dead mother’s, who apparently doesn’t have the good sense of a goose telling you how she thinks of you… (inhale deeply – go to happy place, Michelle – happy place) “daily.” Yes, let’s just say for amusement sake, there is a woman out there who acted like a friend who was all along thinking of you. Ha, ha, ha, isn’t that so funny? Yeah, it’s that same woman you took off work to help when she went to court, even though you never took off work for your own wife, even when she had surgeries. Ha, ha, ha, still funny, huh? It’s almost enough to send someone on all night drive to that little hellhole town in Nevada – oh, yeah, it’s Nevada, the whole state is a hellhole – I almost forgot. Anyhoo, it’s almost enough to send a daughter on a Dorito eating, Mountain Dew guzzling trip to make a little visit to that so-called “friend” and have a good, old-fashioned Punching-My-Mother’s-Fake-Friend-in-The-Face-Day – almost. No worries though, my honey has talked me off bigger ledges than this one and I’ve got homeschooling to do today, so…
Hmmm, whose ever going to believe you were in love with their mother when you act like this? Who???? And, just hypothetically let’s say your daughter had come to you wanting your help to get her mother healthy and you instead turned your chemically dependent wife against your daughter, I wonder what the daughter would feel about you? I wonder. I’m just saying hypothetically, of course, just for the sake of conversation really, that if you were to do something like that you’d be a total and complete moron. I would say that your daughter who watched you be physically abusive toward her mother might not ever want anything to do with you again. And, I’m guessing, you know complete conjecture here, that if you did something like and on top of it all, you blamed your daughter for your wife’s untimely death…came to her house even with her children present, and told her she was solely responsible for her beloved mother’s death and when she freaked out and kicked you out of her house, you told everyone she had gone crazy and cussed at you for no good reason, she might want to gouge your face off with her fingernails if you ever darkened her doorstep again.
And, I’m guessing that if she were blind-sided by some cards signed “With Love” from a woman she has never even heard of less than a year after her mother’s death, your daughter might want to go 100% postal on you. It might give her Vietnam War/Viet Kong torture flashbacks, even though she was only eight years old when that war was over. For the sake of pure conjecture, it might even make her husband go out, purchase a high-density rubber, anatomically-blurred kickboxing bag, which your daughter would unceremoniously name after you and kick, punch, and elbow in the face until she can no longer stand.
I’m guessing that when or if, you called her house she’d hang up on you every single time for the rest of eternity, because she knows you are evil beyond compare. And, when the cards continued to come with happy thoughts from some equally moronic woman, saying how she can’t wait to get together and quoting scripture, I’m thinking that your daughter’s husband, wanting to avoid a complete and utter meltdown, would grab that card with all of its idiotic verbiage and religious verses, run mad-dash to the nearest shredder and politely tell her, “Oh, honey, you can’t handle that,” and hold her until she is in a pile of tears.
Of course, let’s also say, just say for instance, that at your deceased wife’s funeral, which you wouldn’t pay one dime for, you wouldn’t even allow God’s name to be spoken. You gave a mandate to some half-witted, pretentious, spiritually and mentally corrupt cousin to make sure no one mentioned God, or anything religious, so let’s just say that now with these bizarre religious cards showing up from you and Shack-Up-Suzy in your daughter’s mailbox, it’s as though you’ve had a lobotomy of all common sense.
Not that any of this pertains to actual circumstances, because it would be so completely ludicrous if it did, but if something like this happened I’m guessing your daughter would revert to the Old Testament praying like David, calling on God to rip out certain people’s tongues, and hoping that jackals, bears, or lions would conduct some serious business on the perpetrators of evil. I’m just guessing, though. I mean, what do I know about stuff like this? Ha, ha, ha, I think my eye is twitching uncontrollably like it does sometimes when I…when I…when I think about these fictional things – yeah, a fictional thing that’s what it is, just fictional, purely fabricated conjecture. Silly, huh? Stupid twitch!
One might think a girl would give up on God in such circumstances, but nope. Nope, not this girl. Just for the record, some might even get stronger, stronger than they ever imagined they could be. I’m guessing there is a woman out there who will never stop loving her mother, never stop knowing the truth – a woman who believes in God and His perfect ways so profoundly that nothing that a man could do could sway her from God’s might, from His sight, from His side. I’m guessing there is a woman who has been used long enough as her father’s scapegoat, who couldn’t care less what anyone who believes him thinks about her. I am guessing that a woman like that would be a woman utterly unafraid, unabashedly honest, and strangely content, because of the overwhelming love of God, because of what an Almighty God has done for her. I am thinking that a woman like that would never ever stop praising God, because this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long:
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Wounds From a Friend
Wow, a lot has gone on since I last blogged, but most of all, I have gotten stronger. Sometimes there is no other way to get where you’re going than through the fire. I feel like I’ve been through the fire, tossed around in the rapids, shoved screaming out of a plane, chased by a grizzly bear, and walked over glowing red coals. Given that I woke up crying at 4:30 a.m. to a nightmare of being five years old again, no one would think I was strong, but you know, I’ve gotten to care less and less about what people think about me and my responses to things. I’ve also done a lot of redefining of what strong is.
This year I am home-schooling full time - so far, so good. I thoroughly enjoy being home with the kids. Austin is a freshman. That I get him for just a few more years is a richer blessing than I deserve. And, my sweet girls are pure joy to every day. On our afternoon break the other day, I jumped…well, I clung for a time to a post on our trampoline while they jumped. I know this for sure, I did not miss the opportunity to thank God for the moment.
I’m just thankful that God shook us back to what mattered, to our sweet, little family. It has taken a lot to get us here, as we fought to simply get through the most difficult time of our lives: lawsuits, hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, loss of our business, the death of our faithful dog, Mandy, and most painfully, the suicide of my mom, and all the blame that has come with it – self-imposed and otherwise.
It’s a hard thing, but suicide brings up a flashback of every conversation, every interaction, and you blame yourself for things, things that are your fault and things that aren’t: It’s an automatic response. Then, the fog begins to clear and you realize that unfortunately, the person you lost, the person you love, the person for whom your heart aches and longs, the person who killed themselves is the only person responsible for killing themselves no matter who you vilify, what story you make up, what lie you tell, or boogey man you create. Suicide ultimately involves just one person, even though it struggles to take down several.
I could blame as many people who blame me, because lies are never as poignant as the truth, but basically it means nothing. Blame has never been the foundation for anything good, though I think it pacifies a guilty conscience and publicly defers responsibility. It feeds some people exactly what they want to hear, allows them to hate whom they already have the propensity to hate.
I have struggled along the path, trying to steady myself and get stronger for my husband and kids, stronger for myself. For the last two months I settled on Proverbs, because I knew I was being pummeled with lies, and sometimes the only way to combat lies is with truth.
In the last months, I’ve also learned that strength isn’t so much what the world thinks it is: Sometimes, strength is sad, crying, pitiful, broken hearted, and willing to say where you went wrong. Above all, being strong is being honest and honesty matters: It doesn’t just matter when it’s palatable, it matters all the time and sometimes, it matters most when it isn’t palatable.
The same God who calls some to be passive and non-offensive has me called to be honest and even offensive, if honesty is deemed offensive. I am the friend who will tell you that you have something in your teeth, or toilet paper stuck to your foot. I might even tell you that I’m worried about you, that I love you, or that I hope you to take better care of yourself if you’re failing to. How could something that seems like love to me, be cruel to so many other people?
I could go into all sorts of reasons why people don’t want to hear any difficult truths, but I know why. I don’t like hearing difficult truths either, because I’m challenged. It means I might have to change and I don’t like change, and I don’t want to be wrong, and when someone tells me I’m wrong – guess what? I just might be wrong, but it all boils down to one word, one thing: pride. No one wants to hear truth that violates his or her conduct, because of pride. I have learned that “pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice” (Proverbs 13:10).
I have learned to take advice, even when I don’t want to. I have learned from my friends that not every situation calls for truth, especially when you are going to be mocked. My friends, my real friends, have nudged me away from the edge and toward safety, instead of allowing me to spew unwelcome truth, no matter how legitimate or valid my account or assessment might be. And, I am also thankful that my friends care enough to wound me with their honesty, rather than multiple my mess with insincere kisses.
Proverbs 27:6
“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”
This year I am home-schooling full time - so far, so good. I thoroughly enjoy being home with the kids. Austin is a freshman. That I get him for just a few more years is a richer blessing than I deserve. And, my sweet girls are pure joy to every day. On our afternoon break the other day, I jumped…well, I clung for a time to a post on our trampoline while they jumped. I know this for sure, I did not miss the opportunity to thank God for the moment.
I’m just thankful that God shook us back to what mattered, to our sweet, little family. It has taken a lot to get us here, as we fought to simply get through the most difficult time of our lives: lawsuits, hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, loss of our business, the death of our faithful dog, Mandy, and most painfully, the suicide of my mom, and all the blame that has come with it – self-imposed and otherwise.
It’s a hard thing, but suicide brings up a flashback of every conversation, every interaction, and you blame yourself for things, things that are your fault and things that aren’t: It’s an automatic response. Then, the fog begins to clear and you realize that unfortunately, the person you lost, the person you love, the person for whom your heart aches and longs, the person who killed themselves is the only person responsible for killing themselves no matter who you vilify, what story you make up, what lie you tell, or boogey man you create. Suicide ultimately involves just one person, even though it struggles to take down several.
I could blame as many people who blame me, because lies are never as poignant as the truth, but basically it means nothing. Blame has never been the foundation for anything good, though I think it pacifies a guilty conscience and publicly defers responsibility. It feeds some people exactly what they want to hear, allows them to hate whom they already have the propensity to hate.
I have struggled along the path, trying to steady myself and get stronger for my husband and kids, stronger for myself. For the last two months I settled on Proverbs, because I knew I was being pummeled with lies, and sometimes the only way to combat lies is with truth.
In the last months, I’ve also learned that strength isn’t so much what the world thinks it is: Sometimes, strength is sad, crying, pitiful, broken hearted, and willing to say where you went wrong. Above all, being strong is being honest and honesty matters: It doesn’t just matter when it’s palatable, it matters all the time and sometimes, it matters most when it isn’t palatable.
The same God who calls some to be passive and non-offensive has me called to be honest and even offensive, if honesty is deemed offensive. I am the friend who will tell you that you have something in your teeth, or toilet paper stuck to your foot. I might even tell you that I’m worried about you, that I love you, or that I hope you to take better care of yourself if you’re failing to. How could something that seems like love to me, be cruel to so many other people?
I could go into all sorts of reasons why people don’t want to hear any difficult truths, but I know why. I don’t like hearing difficult truths either, because I’m challenged. It means I might have to change and I don’t like change, and I don’t want to be wrong, and when someone tells me I’m wrong – guess what? I just might be wrong, but it all boils down to one word, one thing: pride. No one wants to hear truth that violates his or her conduct, because of pride. I have learned that “pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice” (Proverbs 13:10).
I have learned to take advice, even when I don’t want to. I have learned from my friends that not every situation calls for truth, especially when you are going to be mocked. My friends, my real friends, have nudged me away from the edge and toward safety, instead of allowing me to spew unwelcome truth, no matter how legitimate or valid my account or assessment might be. And, I am also thankful that my friends care enough to wound me with their honesty, rather than multiple my mess with insincere kisses.
Proverbs 27:6
“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How Long?
Yesterday I went to the mall with Sophie to get a salad spinner to replace one that had crashed to the floor, shattering in plastic shards everywhere. We had gotten sidetracked and lost when finally Sophie, holding my hand said, “We have taken over 100 steps already.” Her sweet little freckled face expressed nothing but pure exasperation. “Yes,” I replied, “Unlike everyone else, I don’t know where I’m going.” I had forgotten that with all of the remodeling that had gone on tens years earlier, that where I needed to be was on the exact opposite end of where we were.
I had tried to careen and cruise around the lolly-gaggers that doddled everywhere, but still, we were hindered with the slow, lingering procession of people actually shopping, actually liking and enjoying the mall. There were people sitting asleep idly in chairs, their heads lying back, breathing heavily and fast asleep. Babies toddled through jovial crowds, big toothless smiles on chubby faces. Couples seemingly on dates smiled coyly at each other, slurping big iced drinks. Strings of girls, arm-in-arm, made impenetrable lines, as Sophie and I attempted to overtake them to make headway to our ultimate destination.
When I saw all the smiles, I thought that maybe I would put my inhibitions aside and try and actually enjoy our outing. At Sophie’s insistence, we visited Build-A-Bear and she coveted every furry thing, but mostly just the pink fluffy things. After much cajoling, I finally caved and bought her a small trinket, but pressed her to call it, “Sherbet” after she refused to call it, “Pretty Mommy Princess” or “Michelle Princess Queen.” The purchase satiated any further accounting of our expended steps and I knew, as every parent does who caves, for $5.00 I had bought priceless time.
Then, hoping to enjoy the moment, I carelessly careened into a shoe store, not even bothering to look at the name. Upon looking around, I realized that most of the shoes were not much to my liking and seemed designed for people primarily concerned with chunky, rubbery comfort, rather than style. Sophie blurted out, “These shoes are ugly!” “Not all of them,” I responded in protest, picking up a shoe from a shelf and examining its ingenious rubbery, faux wood heel. As I turned to Sophie, I noticed another shopper staring drily at us from where she sat trying on half a dozen ugly pairs of shoes. “At least they’re comfortable!” I encouraged.
Getting a cool reception at the shoe store, we left. We then cruised into the eye glass store, since had I was convinced that it would be a short time before I needed eye glasses and the excuse of not really wanting to see things clearly was getting old. Though, with that said, let me just defend my blurry vision with this; Not everything is worth seeing. What you don’t see is sometimes less offensive, and therefore, I think the choice to get glasses or contact lenses is something that should be taken very seriously, very seriously indeed.
Once in the store, Sophie and I tried on numerous glass frames. Sophie was sure that all the glasses she tried on made her see more clearly. She jumped around in her most astute ninja poses and said with confidence, “I can see everything now!” Ninja poses and clear glass in studious frames are obvious confidence boosters. Finally getting bored she said, shoving a pair of pink framed glasses into my hands, “Here, these made me see better. Buy em’, so we can go.” I could see that the Sherbet, Build-A-Bear spell was beginning to wear off. Without further adieu, I quickly picked up and like a nomad searching for the ever-elusive herd of buffalo and we continued onward toward the housewares department at Macys.
Finally, in the housewares department, I quickly canvassed the landscape searching for a salad spinner that was impervious to shattering, since time was fleeting and Sophie had mentioned, yet again, how long our journey had been. It seemed like an assessment of mere factual information, but I knew that in that sweet voice was a complaint. Her expiration date for shopping was drawing near. I had to be quick. Finding a stainless steel salad spinner, one better than I expected to find, I quickly made my purchase and we proceeded to the car.
In reality, we were in the mall for a relatively short amount of time, maybe an hour and a half. To Sophie, it seemed like an entire day was belabored, wasted, and spent chasing nonsense. Who needs a stupid salad spinner anyway? It’s been three years that I’ve been complaining to my Father about the trip, the little errand we’re on. Not always coming right out with it, I’ve postured and hinted, as if it would be less offensive that way.
I’ve never been remiss in pointing out the time that seems to pass ever so slowly. I keep waiting to leave this exhausting little journey of failure and pain behind me, counting the grueling steps, as they linger on, but God is clearly not done with the journey yet. He’s got more in store. How long, I cannot even guess, because He reminds me in scripture, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).
What I know is this, God has a plan for me; “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). My voice does not go unheard. I know that God hears me, intimately knows my circumstances, and has something better in store. Just as it was an exhausting for Sophie to trek through the mall, not knowing when the journey would end, I knew all along that it wouldn’t take as long as she thought, we’d be done before she knew it, and we’d have at least the journey behind us to account for what we needed. How much more does a perfect, omniscient God know of my circumstances? It’s humbling just to imagine.
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3 & 4).
I had tried to careen and cruise around the lolly-gaggers that doddled everywhere, but still, we were hindered with the slow, lingering procession of people actually shopping, actually liking and enjoying the mall. There were people sitting asleep idly in chairs, their heads lying back, breathing heavily and fast asleep. Babies toddled through jovial crowds, big toothless smiles on chubby faces. Couples seemingly on dates smiled coyly at each other, slurping big iced drinks. Strings of girls, arm-in-arm, made impenetrable lines, as Sophie and I attempted to overtake them to make headway to our ultimate destination.
When I saw all the smiles, I thought that maybe I would put my inhibitions aside and try and actually enjoy our outing. At Sophie’s insistence, we visited Build-A-Bear and she coveted every furry thing, but mostly just the pink fluffy things. After much cajoling, I finally caved and bought her a small trinket, but pressed her to call it, “Sherbet” after she refused to call it, “Pretty Mommy Princess” or “Michelle Princess Queen.” The purchase satiated any further accounting of our expended steps and I knew, as every parent does who caves, for $5.00 I had bought priceless time.
Then, hoping to enjoy the moment, I carelessly careened into a shoe store, not even bothering to look at the name. Upon looking around, I realized that most of the shoes were not much to my liking and seemed designed for people primarily concerned with chunky, rubbery comfort, rather than style. Sophie blurted out, “These shoes are ugly!” “Not all of them,” I responded in protest, picking up a shoe from a shelf and examining its ingenious rubbery, faux wood heel. As I turned to Sophie, I noticed another shopper staring drily at us from where she sat trying on half a dozen ugly pairs of shoes. “At least they’re comfortable!” I encouraged.
Getting a cool reception at the shoe store, we left. We then cruised into the eye glass store, since had I was convinced that it would be a short time before I needed eye glasses and the excuse of not really wanting to see things clearly was getting old. Though, with that said, let me just defend my blurry vision with this; Not everything is worth seeing. What you don’t see is sometimes less offensive, and therefore, I think the choice to get glasses or contact lenses is something that should be taken very seriously, very seriously indeed.
Once in the store, Sophie and I tried on numerous glass frames. Sophie was sure that all the glasses she tried on made her see more clearly. She jumped around in her most astute ninja poses and said with confidence, “I can see everything now!” Ninja poses and clear glass in studious frames are obvious confidence boosters. Finally getting bored she said, shoving a pair of pink framed glasses into my hands, “Here, these made me see better. Buy em’, so we can go.” I could see that the Sherbet, Build-A-Bear spell was beginning to wear off. Without further adieu, I quickly picked up and like a nomad searching for the ever-elusive herd of buffalo and we continued onward toward the housewares department at Macys.
Finally, in the housewares department, I quickly canvassed the landscape searching for a salad spinner that was impervious to shattering, since time was fleeting and Sophie had mentioned, yet again, how long our journey had been. It seemed like an assessment of mere factual information, but I knew that in that sweet voice was a complaint. Her expiration date for shopping was drawing near. I had to be quick. Finding a stainless steel salad spinner, one better than I expected to find, I quickly made my purchase and we proceeded to the car.
In reality, we were in the mall for a relatively short amount of time, maybe an hour and a half. To Sophie, it seemed like an entire day was belabored, wasted, and spent chasing nonsense. Who needs a stupid salad spinner anyway? It’s been three years that I’ve been complaining to my Father about the trip, the little errand we’re on. Not always coming right out with it, I’ve postured and hinted, as if it would be less offensive that way.
I’ve never been remiss in pointing out the time that seems to pass ever so slowly. I keep waiting to leave this exhausting little journey of failure and pain behind me, counting the grueling steps, as they linger on, but God is clearly not done with the journey yet. He’s got more in store. How long, I cannot even guess, because He reminds me in scripture, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).
What I know is this, God has a plan for me; “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). My voice does not go unheard. I know that God hears me, intimately knows my circumstances, and has something better in store. Just as it was an exhausting for Sophie to trek through the mall, not knowing when the journey would end, I knew all along that it wouldn’t take as long as she thought, we’d be done before she knew it, and we’d have at least the journey behind us to account for what we needed. How much more does a perfect, omniscient God know of my circumstances? It’s humbling just to imagine.
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3 & 4).
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Poking Mountain Lions in the Eyes and Other Survival Tips
OK, I’ve been meaning to tell about an amazing God story in our lives, an amazing Old Testament God story. Can I just say this? This is a story you have to share once you hear it. I encourage you to share it with everyone, because it is God working in such an amazing way, you just can’t believe it.
Let me preface the whole story with the fact that, considering our ongoing dealings with an unsavory business associate, I have longed for praise and worship songs that are more Old Testament than New Testament. You know, like the Psalms of David where he mentions jackals, vultures, and lions? What ever happened to getting right to the point and asking God to deal harshly with someone who’s wicked? And, I see no reason to keep the whole mess out of a catchy rhythmic song, something you can dance to maybe? Look, it’s just a suggestion. Peace, forgiveness, compassion all play nice on the radio, but sometimes you need something you can sink your gritted teeth into.
Well, Rick and I have been dealing with this guy for three long years now. Our dealings with him have been excruciatingly painful. Once we signed our names on the dotted line of a legally binding contract to the devil (I will call him Jay for the sake of this story), our lives were cursed. The devil, Jay, sprouted horns, a tail, and scaly red skin. He started breathing fire and…OK, none of that really happened, but my creative license just got going there for a minute.
So, anyhoo, Jay deceived us into buying his business. The big problem was that his major supplier had just canceled him a mere twelve days prior to us signing the contract, the very contract that outlined our purchase of that very supplier relationship. See the problem? We purchased something he didn’t possess, something we would need in order to repay the exorbitant purchase price.
Within the devil’s contract with us, we were committed to employing Jay for an entire year. This contractual employment within the organization gave Jay undue access to employees, files, and relationships that hindered us finding out the truth of what he had done for nearly six months. By the time we finally found out what had happened, Jay had bobbed and weaved, hidden and scammed, deceived and lied so well that we weren’t really sure what had happened.
Given all that I learned in college business classes, I wanted to challenge Jay to an Indian leg wrestling match, seeing no other way to remedy the issue. I’d seen my mother do this with my brother on our family room floor and was pretty convinced I could do it too, but Rick is nicer and more restrained. Rick simply committed to keep plugging along, trying to make the business work in spite of Jay’s persistent sabotage efforts.
It’s when Jay made lewd comments to an employee, a former home-schooler, that made the entire situation go from bad to worse. Suddenly, we had to approach Jay on sexual harassment issues, and while he conceded that he had made some “inappropriate comments,” he was never going to be held accountable for continuously sabotaging the company. However, the fact was that after we approached him about the sexual harassment, he came at us with even more of an enraged fervor. He told us that he would have us “bleeding in a year,” that we had better have prepared well for our children, and he began driving by our home and our office, saying he would own both, throwing us out on the street.
My head swam in a whirlwind of scenarios. He was wealthy and could actually back-up his plans against us. We were weak with three children to raise. Let’s face it, sometimes nice guys just do finish last – sometimes, it’s just the deal. Countless nights I lay awake. Other nights I would sniffle and cry off to sleep, wondering what would become of us.
To top it all off, long after he left his employment with us, he was calling and soliciting customers, though he had signed a non-compete agreement. Jay had done everything conceivable to ruin us, but it was his final commitment to “have us bleeding in a year,” that began to come to fruition with his lawsuit against us.
After seeking to have us served on Thanksgiving for stopping our monthly payments to him, because we could not afford them, he came at us with a vengeance. He had his attorney elaborately draw out legal documentation to triple the costs for our needed responses. He lied about everything and called employees to tell them how he’d already won his case against us, though we still haven’t had our official court date.
In July of 2009, we had one of two court mediations. If stress had been water, I would have drowned. Upon entering into court the first day, I saw a clerk with turrets and wondered why I hadn’t thought of that! What a gimmick! Shouting out the most bizarre things loudly and with utter abandon – how simply fabulous! I could not help but be entranced.
After being called by our attorney the night before, and kept up late by her drunken rant that her strategy was to go to mediation ill prepared, I was groggy. In that bizarre conversation, mostly one-sided from her to us, our attorney told us how her Persian hairdresser was, in reality, a brilliant accountant, her mother was a Montana beauty queen, and her daughter hated her, which was accentuated by her daughter shouting in the background, “I hate you!” Actually, I was also groggy, because our attorney got the time wrong for our mediation, which had us meeting first thing in the morning just hours after her nighttime drunken rant.
While Jay, his wife, and their attorney were getting all their ducks in an orderly row, I was wondering if I could just do prison time without the long, drawn-out charade. From the beginning, I knew court was not for me. First of all, I did not have turrets, and unless you do, they do not let you speak until spoken to, by a very condescending mediating judge. To top it all off, we found out just milli-seconds prior to the mediation proceedings that our judge just happened to be best friends with Jay’s attorney. I think I lost consciousness just after she mentioned something about golf trips and deep-sea adventures they’d spent together. Ugh! I wanted to puke.
This epiphany came right after our own attorney had bragged about knowing the mediating judge personally. In fact, our attorney had implied that they had hung out, known each other in several circles, and were quite close. All of that nonsense came wafting downward, like damp streamers falling onto a gymnasium floor, as the judge told our argumentative attorney that they’d never met: She did not know her at all. Without an ounce of good sense, our attorney retorted with disgust, “You know me!”
In all my nervousness, I began to laugh, smile, twitch, and get clammy cold. With a nervous, stupid smile erupting ever so erratically across my twitchy face, our attorney shot me a look of complete disapproval. ‘What the heck? Doesn’t she know she’s on our side?’ She jumped up from our chair and shot over to me, “Stop smiling. You look stupid with that smile on your face.” I began to cry. I began to kind of freak out, crying and shaking all at once, squeezing Rick’s hand and wanting my mommy.
Jay, his wife, and their attorney snickered and laughed at me. It was humiliating. Being in their seventies, they stumbled and fumbled, as though they could hardly walk when the judge entered the room. They said how they needed the money we owed them for their retirement and implied a dismal existence without it. Not once did they mention their two and a half acre estate in Los Altos Hills, their brand new shiny Cadillac parked outside, the way they were able to suddenly run to it like a couple of sprinters when mediation concluded, or all their various real estate investments.
I remembered the Brady Bunch episode where Mike Brady dropped his briefcase loudly on the courtroom floor to catch his courtroom opponent in a lie, and I prayed that our attorney would conjure up some clever scheme, but instead, she lost her phone and kept giving me dirty looks.
I knew I should have watched more Judge Judy, or one of those cool courtroom dramas, because nothing I was doing in that intimidating courtroom looked even remotely cool. When all was said and done, we mediated nothing. Upon leaving the courthouse, I literally hung over a parking meter and screamed, “Nooooooooooo!” only mildly disturbing a passed out homeless man on the ground. At least it made Rick laugh. Costing us over $100,000 in attorney fees to look stupid and ill prepared had succeeded: Job well done!
That was last summer, but the court system is a slow beast. When it engulfs you, it takes its time, and it really savors the broke, stupid, and ill prepared. So, we waited. It would take time to get a court date. Then, in November my mom killed herself, rocking my world to the core.
This is where it gets way Old Testament Godly! So, Jay had been a professed Christian. Yes, Jay was a professed Christian. With that knowledge we had tried, on our part, to employ the biblical principles of the Bible by mediating our disagreement through church elders, but Jay wasn’t having it, and in a weird God twist, our old pastor was now at Jay’s church as an interim pastor.
With all of that, we contacted our old pastor, our new sober attorney, and the church, and asked them for help, considering all the emotional turmoil we were now in with my mother’s death. The week after my mother died, our former pastor approached Jay and asked him to have mercy on us. Of course, Jay was unmoved and probably a little exhilarated knowing we were in such emotional distress: He said no.
Then, our attorney approached his and asked for a continuance and mercy: You can probably guess by now, Jay said no. On that following Sunday after Jay had been approached at least three times, our former pastor gave a sermon during Jay’s service, simply saying that there was, in the congregation, a person persecuting a young, godly family. From the pulpit, he called on that person to repent.
Now, for sure, you can never know what goes on in someone’s heart, but I do know what happened to Jay’s heart less than 24 hours later – it stopped beating. Jay died of a massive heart attack; face down in the dirt the Monday after that sermon!
Look, I’d like to have some grandiose bit of wisdom here, but simply put, I am glad for the moment that the pitbull has let go of my leg. When we were in court before the mediation judge, she kept saying for us to let go of the lawsuit, as if we were in control. In as stupid a moment as I’ve ever had, I explained to her that we weren’t really fighting Jay, we were in a defensive stance, like hikers fighting off a mountain lion by poking it in the eyes with a twig. I even acted it out a little. Yes, I seriously said and did that – poor Rick.
All I know is that God was in the house when I felt for sure He wasn’t even listening. The lawsuit is not over. Jay’s widow is now coming at us. Our court date is set for either June or July – it doesn’t much matter. We are more ill prepared than before, because we can’t even afford a legal defense. I’m practicing my erratic bouts of turrets and have opted for barking over profanity, since we have kids. I’m aiming for an insanity ruling and I’m grabbing another twig, because I’m pretty sure I’ll have to poke someone in the eye by the time this is all over.
“Arise, Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice…” Psalm 7:6
Let me preface the whole story with the fact that, considering our ongoing dealings with an unsavory business associate, I have longed for praise and worship songs that are more Old Testament than New Testament. You know, like the Psalms of David where he mentions jackals, vultures, and lions? What ever happened to getting right to the point and asking God to deal harshly with someone who’s wicked? And, I see no reason to keep the whole mess out of a catchy rhythmic song, something you can dance to maybe? Look, it’s just a suggestion. Peace, forgiveness, compassion all play nice on the radio, but sometimes you need something you can sink your gritted teeth into.
Well, Rick and I have been dealing with this guy for three long years now. Our dealings with him have been excruciatingly painful. Once we signed our names on the dotted line of a legally binding contract to the devil (I will call him Jay for the sake of this story), our lives were cursed. The devil, Jay, sprouted horns, a tail, and scaly red skin. He started breathing fire and…OK, none of that really happened, but my creative license just got going there for a minute.
So, anyhoo, Jay deceived us into buying his business. The big problem was that his major supplier had just canceled him a mere twelve days prior to us signing the contract, the very contract that outlined our purchase of that very supplier relationship. See the problem? We purchased something he didn’t possess, something we would need in order to repay the exorbitant purchase price.
Within the devil’s contract with us, we were committed to employing Jay for an entire year. This contractual employment within the organization gave Jay undue access to employees, files, and relationships that hindered us finding out the truth of what he had done for nearly six months. By the time we finally found out what had happened, Jay had bobbed and weaved, hidden and scammed, deceived and lied so well that we weren’t really sure what had happened.
Given all that I learned in college business classes, I wanted to challenge Jay to an Indian leg wrestling match, seeing no other way to remedy the issue. I’d seen my mother do this with my brother on our family room floor and was pretty convinced I could do it too, but Rick is nicer and more restrained. Rick simply committed to keep plugging along, trying to make the business work in spite of Jay’s persistent sabotage efforts.
It’s when Jay made lewd comments to an employee, a former home-schooler, that made the entire situation go from bad to worse. Suddenly, we had to approach Jay on sexual harassment issues, and while he conceded that he had made some “inappropriate comments,” he was never going to be held accountable for continuously sabotaging the company. However, the fact was that after we approached him about the sexual harassment, he came at us with even more of an enraged fervor. He told us that he would have us “bleeding in a year,” that we had better have prepared well for our children, and he began driving by our home and our office, saying he would own both, throwing us out on the street.
My head swam in a whirlwind of scenarios. He was wealthy and could actually back-up his plans against us. We were weak with three children to raise. Let’s face it, sometimes nice guys just do finish last – sometimes, it’s just the deal. Countless nights I lay awake. Other nights I would sniffle and cry off to sleep, wondering what would become of us.
To top it all off, long after he left his employment with us, he was calling and soliciting customers, though he had signed a non-compete agreement. Jay had done everything conceivable to ruin us, but it was his final commitment to “have us bleeding in a year,” that began to come to fruition with his lawsuit against us.
After seeking to have us served on Thanksgiving for stopping our monthly payments to him, because we could not afford them, he came at us with a vengeance. He had his attorney elaborately draw out legal documentation to triple the costs for our needed responses. He lied about everything and called employees to tell them how he’d already won his case against us, though we still haven’t had our official court date.
In July of 2009, we had one of two court mediations. If stress had been water, I would have drowned. Upon entering into court the first day, I saw a clerk with turrets and wondered why I hadn’t thought of that! What a gimmick! Shouting out the most bizarre things loudly and with utter abandon – how simply fabulous! I could not help but be entranced.
After being called by our attorney the night before, and kept up late by her drunken rant that her strategy was to go to mediation ill prepared, I was groggy. In that bizarre conversation, mostly one-sided from her to us, our attorney told us how her Persian hairdresser was, in reality, a brilliant accountant, her mother was a Montana beauty queen, and her daughter hated her, which was accentuated by her daughter shouting in the background, “I hate you!” Actually, I was also groggy, because our attorney got the time wrong for our mediation, which had us meeting first thing in the morning just hours after her nighttime drunken rant.
While Jay, his wife, and their attorney were getting all their ducks in an orderly row, I was wondering if I could just do prison time without the long, drawn-out charade. From the beginning, I knew court was not for me. First of all, I did not have turrets, and unless you do, they do not let you speak until spoken to, by a very condescending mediating judge. To top it all off, we found out just milli-seconds prior to the mediation proceedings that our judge just happened to be best friends with Jay’s attorney. I think I lost consciousness just after she mentioned something about golf trips and deep-sea adventures they’d spent together. Ugh! I wanted to puke.
This epiphany came right after our own attorney had bragged about knowing the mediating judge personally. In fact, our attorney had implied that they had hung out, known each other in several circles, and were quite close. All of that nonsense came wafting downward, like damp streamers falling onto a gymnasium floor, as the judge told our argumentative attorney that they’d never met: She did not know her at all. Without an ounce of good sense, our attorney retorted with disgust, “You know me!”
In all my nervousness, I began to laugh, smile, twitch, and get clammy cold. With a nervous, stupid smile erupting ever so erratically across my twitchy face, our attorney shot me a look of complete disapproval. ‘What the heck? Doesn’t she know she’s on our side?’ She jumped up from our chair and shot over to me, “Stop smiling. You look stupid with that smile on your face.” I began to cry. I began to kind of freak out, crying and shaking all at once, squeezing Rick’s hand and wanting my mommy.
Jay, his wife, and their attorney snickered and laughed at me. It was humiliating. Being in their seventies, they stumbled and fumbled, as though they could hardly walk when the judge entered the room. They said how they needed the money we owed them for their retirement and implied a dismal existence without it. Not once did they mention their two and a half acre estate in Los Altos Hills, their brand new shiny Cadillac parked outside, the way they were able to suddenly run to it like a couple of sprinters when mediation concluded, or all their various real estate investments.
I remembered the Brady Bunch episode where Mike Brady dropped his briefcase loudly on the courtroom floor to catch his courtroom opponent in a lie, and I prayed that our attorney would conjure up some clever scheme, but instead, she lost her phone and kept giving me dirty looks.
I knew I should have watched more Judge Judy, or one of those cool courtroom dramas, because nothing I was doing in that intimidating courtroom looked even remotely cool. When all was said and done, we mediated nothing. Upon leaving the courthouse, I literally hung over a parking meter and screamed, “Nooooooooooo!” only mildly disturbing a passed out homeless man on the ground. At least it made Rick laugh. Costing us over $100,000 in attorney fees to look stupid and ill prepared had succeeded: Job well done!
That was last summer, but the court system is a slow beast. When it engulfs you, it takes its time, and it really savors the broke, stupid, and ill prepared. So, we waited. It would take time to get a court date. Then, in November my mom killed herself, rocking my world to the core.
This is where it gets way Old Testament Godly! So, Jay had been a professed Christian. Yes, Jay was a professed Christian. With that knowledge we had tried, on our part, to employ the biblical principles of the Bible by mediating our disagreement through church elders, but Jay wasn’t having it, and in a weird God twist, our old pastor was now at Jay’s church as an interim pastor.
With all of that, we contacted our old pastor, our new sober attorney, and the church, and asked them for help, considering all the emotional turmoil we were now in with my mother’s death. The week after my mother died, our former pastor approached Jay and asked him to have mercy on us. Of course, Jay was unmoved and probably a little exhilarated knowing we were in such emotional distress: He said no.
Then, our attorney approached his and asked for a continuance and mercy: You can probably guess by now, Jay said no. On that following Sunday after Jay had been approached at least three times, our former pastor gave a sermon during Jay’s service, simply saying that there was, in the congregation, a person persecuting a young, godly family. From the pulpit, he called on that person to repent.
Now, for sure, you can never know what goes on in someone’s heart, but I do know what happened to Jay’s heart less than 24 hours later – it stopped beating. Jay died of a massive heart attack; face down in the dirt the Monday after that sermon!
Look, I’d like to have some grandiose bit of wisdom here, but simply put, I am glad for the moment that the pitbull has let go of my leg. When we were in court before the mediation judge, she kept saying for us to let go of the lawsuit, as if we were in control. In as stupid a moment as I’ve ever had, I explained to her that we weren’t really fighting Jay, we were in a defensive stance, like hikers fighting off a mountain lion by poking it in the eyes with a twig. I even acted it out a little. Yes, I seriously said and did that – poor Rick.
All I know is that God was in the house when I felt for sure He wasn’t even listening. The lawsuit is not over. Jay’s widow is now coming at us. Our court date is set for either June or July – it doesn’t much matter. We are more ill prepared than before, because we can’t even afford a legal defense. I’m practicing my erratic bouts of turrets and have opted for barking over profanity, since we have kids. I’m aiming for an insanity ruling and I’m grabbing another twig, because I’m pretty sure I’ll have to poke someone in the eye by the time this is all over.
“Arise, Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice…” Psalm 7:6
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The Weight of Hatred
I have been hiding lately. I have been slinking around, hoping to avoid anyone who hates me. Seems easy until you realize that there are a great number of people who hate me. Reminds me sadly, of our neighborhood squirrel dilemma. We have a neighbor who is trapping squirrels. He hates the squirrels. How do you hate squirrels? I mean have you ever looked deeply into the brown doe-like eyes of a squirrel? I mean, they get eye contact, their bushy tails flick and flit manically, they take one random chomp on a blackened, dirt-encrusted nut, and leap off into infinity. Who hates that?
Well, I’ll tell you who hates squirrel repartee, our neighbor. With a protruding belly that, if were on a woman, would indicate his 54th week of pregnancy, a pair of precariously torn gray sweatpants with holes in all the wrong and questionable places, and a set of long jagged, dirt-filled fingernails, he drags out these wire cages wherein he plops a few walnuts, a squirrel delicacy. Within a few hours there is, within a trampoline bounce, the vision of a poor gray squirrel feverishly trying to escape. In fact, it’s as though those desperate squirrels have telepathic abilities right to our three children, because everyone that is caught seems to send out an S.O.S. signal right over the lattice topped fence to our children, which comes indoors translated in complete and utter hysterics. Rick has intervened on more than one Squirrel Peace Treaty to have them released: So far, his negotiation skills have proven quite successful – so far.
I guess the thing that takes it to a whole new level is that we have reason to suspect that our neighbor is….is….eating the captured squirrels. Now, don’t get me wrong in some places of the globe, even the United States, I understand that. In fact, squirrel is a fine lean meat I suppose, but when you live in the tenth largest city in the United States where food is plentiful and you live a mere ten feet away from your suburban neighbors, isn’t hunting squirrels just a tad inappropriate?
And, if only he hunted them, but he doesn’t. He drowns them. I have awakened to more than one nightmare envisioning Darryl with his dirty hands around the scrawny, furry neck of a squirrel, while it fights for its last breath underwater. Think Glenn Close in that bathtub scene of “Fatal Attraction,” and you are right there with me. Remember how that big meat cleaver was still beside her and that weird trickle of blood oozed to the surface out of her mouth through the water? Well, these squirrels aren’t even armed with meat cleavers!
And, it’s not like this neighbor fellow needs the food. He must assuredly have plenty of food to maintain the status quo of his present physique. I guess it bothers me, because I enjoy watching squirrel antics. It’s like “The Three Stooges” in the animal world. In fact, Sophie got her nickname, “Squirrel,” because when she was fussy, usually around dusk, I would put nuts on the fence line to calm her. Holding her on my hips, her bothered cries would turn to giggles and then, full out belly-laughs as we watched the squirrels chase each other for the nuts. For us squirrels are free entertainment, and for our neighbor, squirrels are a free meal: It’s all perspective I guess.
Well, the squirrel population is dramatically down in our neighborhood for reasons I suppose are profoundly clear. They are either dead at the filthy hands of our hungry neighbor, or have been scared off by the death trap next door. Either way, they don’t come around much anymore.
Just like any of the living squirrels avoiding Darryl’s Death Trap, I am avoiding my own death trap. It’s not a true death trap, though I’ve felt – for sure – there are people who would prefer me dead rather than alive. I don’t think they are going to drown me, or for that matter, do anything harmful to me, except that is, to hate me.
Hate itself is pretty harmful, I guess. Knowing when you’re hated is maybe instinctual; a mechanism God has given us for self-preservation. I know when I’m hated and I know there are quite a few people who have opted to hate me for reasons I cannot alter or change in any way.
Just last week I talked to a friend I haven’t talked to in nearly five years. The magic of Facebook allowed us to reconnect. There was good and bad that came from our reconnection. I got to catch up on her life and hear about her family and children. Sadly, I told her about my mother and my mom’s decision to kill herself just four months ago. As I was crying, trying to hold it back, I said, “I don’t know what my mother told people about me, but it must have been something bad, because everyone hates me.” My friend responded, “I know what she told people, because she called my mom just twelve months ago.”
I was shocked. This friend was not as much a family friend, as she was my friend alone. Our parents never socialized, ever. How my mother even got the telephone number of my former junior high classmate’s mother, I don’t know. As my friend told me all the things my mother told someone she barely knew, I was shocked. All the emotions I have struggled with over the last four months were even more jumbled. You see, it was just one of many stories I’ve heard over the last four months.
For inexplicable reasons, as though people are cleansing their souls to me, like a priest on the other side of a confessional, I am hearing many stories of how my mother seemed to hate me, wanting to spread a vast net of hatred over anything good I ever was or did. I am getting all the dirty laundry dropped off with stains and tears. A woman my mother worked with ten years ago whose name I don’t even know contacted me on Facebook to unfurl the banner of my mother’s meanness toward me.
Here it is that I miss my mother and have to struggle with also knowing that she hated me. I long to hear her voice, be comforted in her arms and smell her sweet perfume wafting into a room. I am continually saddened to tears that she put a gun to her temple and ended it all. It horrifies me beyond what I can adequately express. I miss her. To the heart of it all, I just miss her. I want her back, even though she hated me.
I want her the way she was when I was in high school, my best friend, laughing and silly. The alcohol had not yet won. She loved me then. She cared about me, or at least pretended very well that she did. I can’t be sure she ever loved me and have accepted that it shouldn’t much matter, at this point. Back then, she appeared to want to know about my life and was usually more sober than drunk. I still knew I wasn’t her favorite. I still heard her incessant stories of how I wasn’t smart, but they weren’t as mean as the things to come. She had not told me really mean things yet, like she didn’t care if I died. She was vibrant and fun, and even if she didn’t, even if she never did, I thought fully enough to be OK, that she loved me then.
Our relationship worked then, I suppose, because I had never even thought of disagreeing with her, even if it meant sitting amidst a number of acceptable people to hear how stupid I was for the hundredth time, or hearing what an unpleasant temperament I had compared to all the more favorable people in our family, and though they all surely had their faults, we just chose to overlook them in lieu of micro-examining mine over and over. Yeah, things were fine, because I was OK being subtly disparaged. I mean, I had always figured every family needs a target, right? The one they don’t understand the most is an obvious choice.
After hearing my friend’s account of what my mother told her mom, it’s no wonder all my family detests me. No wonder they can’t see the truth that my mother’s alcoholism separated us long before I made clear, firm, and healthy boundaries to separate from her verbal and emotional abuse. The weight of their hatred toward me is a boulder. It is immense. If I could escape it, I would. If I could flit away on the top of a fence to some other place like a squirrel running from Darryl, I would.
No one knows of all the things she whispered to me: It had always seemed inappropriate to share with anyone else. Frankly, it was too hurtful to share with anyone else, somehow embarrassing. There was a shame I felt about it. I did not know how to share such hurt that was mine alone. I still fumble with it. I didn’t always respond the way I should have. I didn’t know how to respond. All I know is that the weight of hatred is heavy.
In one of the strangest accounts of Paul in the Bible, it briefly states within just one sentence that Paul was once stoned by an angry mob. In fact, after they stoned him, they “dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (Acts 14: 19). It states that well after the mob left, he stirred, rose, and walked back into the city to preach more. Can you even imagine? He walked back into the city from where he had just been thrown out to preach more! He did not give up. There was no doubt that he knew the people hated him. They wanted him dead and it wasn’t just intuition that told him that.
This morning, as I stirred, not wanting to face another day just knowing that my enemies were out there, God said, “Have faith.” I grumbled and again, the message was, “Have faith.” Then, I waited for God’s prompting to see what He had for me in regards to this. I opened my Bible to find Psalm 25. It says, “O Lord, I give my life to you. I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat. No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.” In verse 25:7, “Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.”
Well, I’ll tell you who hates squirrel repartee, our neighbor. With a protruding belly that, if were on a woman, would indicate his 54th week of pregnancy, a pair of precariously torn gray sweatpants with holes in all the wrong and questionable places, and a set of long jagged, dirt-filled fingernails, he drags out these wire cages wherein he plops a few walnuts, a squirrel delicacy. Within a few hours there is, within a trampoline bounce, the vision of a poor gray squirrel feverishly trying to escape. In fact, it’s as though those desperate squirrels have telepathic abilities right to our three children, because everyone that is caught seems to send out an S.O.S. signal right over the lattice topped fence to our children, which comes indoors translated in complete and utter hysterics. Rick has intervened on more than one Squirrel Peace Treaty to have them released: So far, his negotiation skills have proven quite successful – so far.
I guess the thing that takes it to a whole new level is that we have reason to suspect that our neighbor is….is….eating the captured squirrels. Now, don’t get me wrong in some places of the globe, even the United States, I understand that. In fact, squirrel is a fine lean meat I suppose, but when you live in the tenth largest city in the United States where food is plentiful and you live a mere ten feet away from your suburban neighbors, isn’t hunting squirrels just a tad inappropriate?
And, if only he hunted them, but he doesn’t. He drowns them. I have awakened to more than one nightmare envisioning Darryl with his dirty hands around the scrawny, furry neck of a squirrel, while it fights for its last breath underwater. Think Glenn Close in that bathtub scene of “Fatal Attraction,” and you are right there with me. Remember how that big meat cleaver was still beside her and that weird trickle of blood oozed to the surface out of her mouth through the water? Well, these squirrels aren’t even armed with meat cleavers!
And, it’s not like this neighbor fellow needs the food. He must assuredly have plenty of food to maintain the status quo of his present physique. I guess it bothers me, because I enjoy watching squirrel antics. It’s like “The Three Stooges” in the animal world. In fact, Sophie got her nickname, “Squirrel,” because when she was fussy, usually around dusk, I would put nuts on the fence line to calm her. Holding her on my hips, her bothered cries would turn to giggles and then, full out belly-laughs as we watched the squirrels chase each other for the nuts. For us squirrels are free entertainment, and for our neighbor, squirrels are a free meal: It’s all perspective I guess.
Well, the squirrel population is dramatically down in our neighborhood for reasons I suppose are profoundly clear. They are either dead at the filthy hands of our hungry neighbor, or have been scared off by the death trap next door. Either way, they don’t come around much anymore.
Just like any of the living squirrels avoiding Darryl’s Death Trap, I am avoiding my own death trap. It’s not a true death trap, though I’ve felt – for sure – there are people who would prefer me dead rather than alive. I don’t think they are going to drown me, or for that matter, do anything harmful to me, except that is, to hate me.
Hate itself is pretty harmful, I guess. Knowing when you’re hated is maybe instinctual; a mechanism God has given us for self-preservation. I know when I’m hated and I know there are quite a few people who have opted to hate me for reasons I cannot alter or change in any way.
Just last week I talked to a friend I haven’t talked to in nearly five years. The magic of Facebook allowed us to reconnect. There was good and bad that came from our reconnection. I got to catch up on her life and hear about her family and children. Sadly, I told her about my mother and my mom’s decision to kill herself just four months ago. As I was crying, trying to hold it back, I said, “I don’t know what my mother told people about me, but it must have been something bad, because everyone hates me.” My friend responded, “I know what she told people, because she called my mom just twelve months ago.”
I was shocked. This friend was not as much a family friend, as she was my friend alone. Our parents never socialized, ever. How my mother even got the telephone number of my former junior high classmate’s mother, I don’t know. As my friend told me all the things my mother told someone she barely knew, I was shocked. All the emotions I have struggled with over the last four months were even more jumbled. You see, it was just one of many stories I’ve heard over the last four months.
For inexplicable reasons, as though people are cleansing their souls to me, like a priest on the other side of a confessional, I am hearing many stories of how my mother seemed to hate me, wanting to spread a vast net of hatred over anything good I ever was or did. I am getting all the dirty laundry dropped off with stains and tears. A woman my mother worked with ten years ago whose name I don’t even know contacted me on Facebook to unfurl the banner of my mother’s meanness toward me.
Here it is that I miss my mother and have to struggle with also knowing that she hated me. I long to hear her voice, be comforted in her arms and smell her sweet perfume wafting into a room. I am continually saddened to tears that she put a gun to her temple and ended it all. It horrifies me beyond what I can adequately express. I miss her. To the heart of it all, I just miss her. I want her back, even though she hated me.
I want her the way she was when I was in high school, my best friend, laughing and silly. The alcohol had not yet won. She loved me then. She cared about me, or at least pretended very well that she did. I can’t be sure she ever loved me and have accepted that it shouldn’t much matter, at this point. Back then, she appeared to want to know about my life and was usually more sober than drunk. I still knew I wasn’t her favorite. I still heard her incessant stories of how I wasn’t smart, but they weren’t as mean as the things to come. She had not told me really mean things yet, like she didn’t care if I died. She was vibrant and fun, and even if she didn’t, even if she never did, I thought fully enough to be OK, that she loved me then.
Our relationship worked then, I suppose, because I had never even thought of disagreeing with her, even if it meant sitting amidst a number of acceptable people to hear how stupid I was for the hundredth time, or hearing what an unpleasant temperament I had compared to all the more favorable people in our family, and though they all surely had their faults, we just chose to overlook them in lieu of micro-examining mine over and over. Yeah, things were fine, because I was OK being subtly disparaged. I mean, I had always figured every family needs a target, right? The one they don’t understand the most is an obvious choice.
After hearing my friend’s account of what my mother told her mom, it’s no wonder all my family detests me. No wonder they can’t see the truth that my mother’s alcoholism separated us long before I made clear, firm, and healthy boundaries to separate from her verbal and emotional abuse. The weight of their hatred toward me is a boulder. It is immense. If I could escape it, I would. If I could flit away on the top of a fence to some other place like a squirrel running from Darryl, I would.
No one knows of all the things she whispered to me: It had always seemed inappropriate to share with anyone else. Frankly, it was too hurtful to share with anyone else, somehow embarrassing. There was a shame I felt about it. I did not know how to share such hurt that was mine alone. I still fumble with it. I didn’t always respond the way I should have. I didn’t know how to respond. All I know is that the weight of hatred is heavy.
In one of the strangest accounts of Paul in the Bible, it briefly states within just one sentence that Paul was once stoned by an angry mob. In fact, after they stoned him, they “dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (Acts 14: 19). It states that well after the mob left, he stirred, rose, and walked back into the city to preach more. Can you even imagine? He walked back into the city from where he had just been thrown out to preach more! He did not give up. There was no doubt that he knew the people hated him. They wanted him dead and it wasn’t just intuition that told him that.
This morning, as I stirred, not wanting to face another day just knowing that my enemies were out there, God said, “Have faith.” I grumbled and again, the message was, “Have faith.” Then, I waited for God’s prompting to see what He had for me in regards to this. I opened my Bible to find Psalm 25. It says, “O Lord, I give my life to you. I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat. No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.” In verse 25:7, “Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.”
Monday, January 11, 2010
In My Defense
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. Given my previous blog, need I say how difficult life has been lately? It has been difficult, but enlightening. Amongst the thorns of difficult circumstances, have been God moments that can be explained no other way. With the loss of my mother, has been the great gain of insight, God’s amazing provision, and the Holy Spirit’s constant care of me.
Seeing me through the events of my mother’s suicide, and the accusations flung carelessly around by others haphazardly in my direction, I saw my Lord - my Awesome God, feed me truth in the midst of their hurtful venomous lies. As they proceed to even lie about their lies, my husband and I know what was said by each accuser, and more importantly still, God Almighty knows what was said: “Go and lie to Him and see how that goes!” I say.
Some things I can’t defend, like my unchecked response to the second round of accusations. Can I say this? Last year in February I was working out at the gym. One of the trainers dropped a ten pound dumbbell on my Iphone. In looking at an unblemished phone you can't even begin to know the maze of wires beneath the sleek shiny surface, but when the trainer dropped the dumbbell on it, the smooth glassy surface shattered and a single wire poked out. It was suddenly like the wiry course hair on a doll’s head that has seen too much play.
Well, when I was accused the second time for being the person who made my mother kill herself, because of a letter I wrote to her concerning her seemingly unhealthy lifestyle fourteen months ago (that's 14 months), and because I didn’t plan on going to Thanksgiving due to our own ongoing difficult circumstances, I felt the weight of a heavy dumbbell hit me in the head. It seemed a poky wire jutted out and I went a wee bit postal: I went crazy! I yelled. I cussed. I screamed and cried, “Get out! Get out of my house!” I feel bad about it now. I felt bad about it them, almost immediately. I apologized and repented to God and felt His unexplainable peace wash over me, as I knew with certainty that those coming at me were dangerous, to say the least.
I cannot even explain how doubly devastating this has been. I lost my mother – the only mother I had and I lost her in the most violent way. She shot herself. In that one gesture, she said none of us were worth staying alive. The rejection I had felt for her choice of alcohol versus a healthy relationship with me, is nothing in comparison to her taking her own life.
I lost her by her own choice. And, she was not LIKE a mother to me. She was not LIKE a sister to me. She was not LIKE anything – she WAS my mother. The scrutiny I have gone through merely having a relationship with my own mother has been painful – every personal dealing between just she and I skewed and up for group criticism, like someone holding a garment up to the crackle of a fluorescent light to make sure it's worthy. Frankly, I don’t know of any one single person whose personal relationship with a parent has ever come under such examination - such hateful, spiteful critique.
Though I’ve heard of personal stories wherein my mother’s alcoholism made her difficult, at times, to get along with for others, no one has allowed that knowledge to extend to me. Somehow, these people – beyond reason – believe that her alcoholism never had an ill effect on OUR relationship. Somehow, they believe that the blame must surely lay with the person they disliked the most – me.
Make no mistakes, I loved my mother. I loved her in spite of everything. I knew her and I accepted her, and I loved her. I could not live with the intimacy I desired from her, but I loved her anyway. I also could not live idly on the sidelines while her alcoholism stole her away and be silent. In as grand a statement as I could make, given the climate of criticism of all those who didn’t want to say anything against her alcoholism, I stepped away from her asking her to make a healthier choice, asking her to make a choice that would also be healthier for my three children who adored her and watched her intently. I wanted her to be a healthy role model, not a role model that would allow them to form insensitive opinions of alcohol and its potentially harmful long-term effects.
For anyone who has had more than one person in their family die from alcohol, I would hope that they would make such decisions for the future of their children. For my family, I have had a great uncle die, a second cousin, and an aunt, not to mention the extensive damage alcohol has done to many of those I love and care for.
This blog is my defense, because I know that those who have judged me slink around to come at me with all sorts of meanness, and they lurk still to find more reasons I’m wrong and evil. See if they can find it here in my own words, because unlike their lies, I am truthful. I call them out. I am angry and I’m not going to take it anymore.
A letter I wrote to my mother on September 16, 2008, (fourteen months before she killed herself - that's 14 months!), did not kill my mother, though that was what I was told. Her e-mailing me eight days before she killed herself telling me, “I love your e-mails. They perk me up,” doesn’t sound as though she and I were doing poorly, though everyone has their own account and assessment.
I will say it again for all those who are dying to believe differently, I loved my mother. You don’t know what my relationship was with my mother and I did not tell you how to behave in your relationship with your mother. When your mother died I didn’t try and make one decision of what would be said, or what would be done. I did not elbow into power to get my way to make you feel worse, or increase your sadness. What kind of person are you that you are trying to make me feel badly? Is your personal guilt that engulfing? Well, it has nothing to do with me, so please get help.
Oh, and just because I’ve chosen to be lain bare, here is the opening and closing of my letter to my mother fourteen months ago. Just so you know, the middle parts were verses – Jesus’ words. If you have problems with Jesus, take it up with Him. He is capable of handling your anger and lies much better than me.
Hi Mom,
I have wanted to write you a letter for some time. I have wanted to discuss more in-depth things than we typically chat back and forth about in our casual e-mails. I feel God pressing me to do this. It’s not something I want to do, because I’m not really sure of how you’ll receive it. Anyway, I’ve wanted to do this and I almost didn’t, but God wouldn’t let me go. So, here I am writing a letter that I feel compelled to write, because I love you, care about you, and want to be sure you have the salvation that will find you in heaven.
First of all, I love the verse that says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses,” because I passionately feel unable to keep my faith and worries about your salvation from you, even if it hurts just a little. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I want far less for you to be lost, because I said nothing.
And, the closing was:
Mom, I’m not just trying to laden you with verses that push my will. I want you to see God’s will for you, so that you will be among the kingdom of heaven. You and I don’t have forever: Either of us could be gone at any moment. I have given up on my earthly desires for our relationship. My desires for you are eternal, which are far greater than anything that could happen on this earth. I pray that you will take this letter in the intent in which I have written it, because I have written it with a full heart of love and care for you, eternally.
Also, I know that for many in our family you are the matriarch that influences much. I really think that you could be the most powerful force to drive some of those people in the direction of heaven. I know you love our family. I hope that you can encourage others to love heaven by seeking and doing God’s will too.
I love you,
Michelle
When I found this letter on a computer I don’t use anymore, in search of the letter I was told had made my mother kill herself, I cried when I re-read it. I know my heart. I knew my heart toward my mother. My mother was my first best friend. She was who I had wanted to be as a child. She was the most beautiful woman I knew. She was also a best friend to everyone. She was hysterical. She made me laugh until I cried.
When she became human to me, it was the hardest thing, and I began to be sad for her. I realized that my mother was not this thing of perfection, but a human being who was hurting herself. I wanted her to be better. I saw her on fire and nobody would help me put out the insidious fire that consumed her. I was furious at her. I was furious at everyone. I put it on myself to save her and felt horrible about myself and her when she wouldn’t listen to me.
I get it now, though. I can’t be mad at anyone. I can’t blame one person, just like it is entirely unjust to blame me, though most people in my family don’t extend an ounce of grace in my direction. My mother, though I loved her deeply, did not want to change. Nothing anyone could say would make her change. She made her own choices. We all make our own choices – to love or hate – to accept or blame. I loved my mother.
I responded to her the way I was wired to respond to her. Others responded to her the way God made them to respond. If I saw a friend leaving my house in the wrong direction, I would stop them and try and re-direct their path. If I saw someone taking a dangerous hiking path toward the edge of a treacherous cliff where I had just seen two others die, I would try and re-direct them, but ultimately, whether or not they listen is going to be up to them. No one can make you choose life over death.
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19
Seeing me through the events of my mother’s suicide, and the accusations flung carelessly around by others haphazardly in my direction, I saw my Lord - my Awesome God, feed me truth in the midst of their hurtful venomous lies. As they proceed to even lie about their lies, my husband and I know what was said by each accuser, and more importantly still, God Almighty knows what was said: “Go and lie to Him and see how that goes!” I say.
Some things I can’t defend, like my unchecked response to the second round of accusations. Can I say this? Last year in February I was working out at the gym. One of the trainers dropped a ten pound dumbbell on my Iphone. In looking at an unblemished phone you can't even begin to know the maze of wires beneath the sleek shiny surface, but when the trainer dropped the dumbbell on it, the smooth glassy surface shattered and a single wire poked out. It was suddenly like the wiry course hair on a doll’s head that has seen too much play.
Well, when I was accused the second time for being the person who made my mother kill herself, because of a letter I wrote to her concerning her seemingly unhealthy lifestyle fourteen months ago (that's 14 months), and because I didn’t plan on going to Thanksgiving due to our own ongoing difficult circumstances, I felt the weight of a heavy dumbbell hit me in the head. It seemed a poky wire jutted out and I went a wee bit postal: I went crazy! I yelled. I cussed. I screamed and cried, “Get out! Get out of my house!” I feel bad about it now. I felt bad about it them, almost immediately. I apologized and repented to God and felt His unexplainable peace wash over me, as I knew with certainty that those coming at me were dangerous, to say the least.
I cannot even explain how doubly devastating this has been. I lost my mother – the only mother I had and I lost her in the most violent way. She shot herself. In that one gesture, she said none of us were worth staying alive. The rejection I had felt for her choice of alcohol versus a healthy relationship with me, is nothing in comparison to her taking her own life.
I lost her by her own choice. And, she was not LIKE a mother to me. She was not LIKE a sister to me. She was not LIKE anything – she WAS my mother. The scrutiny I have gone through merely having a relationship with my own mother has been painful – every personal dealing between just she and I skewed and up for group criticism, like someone holding a garment up to the crackle of a fluorescent light to make sure it's worthy. Frankly, I don’t know of any one single person whose personal relationship with a parent has ever come under such examination - such hateful, spiteful critique.
Though I’ve heard of personal stories wherein my mother’s alcoholism made her difficult, at times, to get along with for others, no one has allowed that knowledge to extend to me. Somehow, these people – beyond reason – believe that her alcoholism never had an ill effect on OUR relationship. Somehow, they believe that the blame must surely lay with the person they disliked the most – me.
Make no mistakes, I loved my mother. I loved her in spite of everything. I knew her and I accepted her, and I loved her. I could not live with the intimacy I desired from her, but I loved her anyway. I also could not live idly on the sidelines while her alcoholism stole her away and be silent. In as grand a statement as I could make, given the climate of criticism of all those who didn’t want to say anything against her alcoholism, I stepped away from her asking her to make a healthier choice, asking her to make a choice that would also be healthier for my three children who adored her and watched her intently. I wanted her to be a healthy role model, not a role model that would allow them to form insensitive opinions of alcohol and its potentially harmful long-term effects.
For anyone who has had more than one person in their family die from alcohol, I would hope that they would make such decisions for the future of their children. For my family, I have had a great uncle die, a second cousin, and an aunt, not to mention the extensive damage alcohol has done to many of those I love and care for.
This blog is my defense, because I know that those who have judged me slink around to come at me with all sorts of meanness, and they lurk still to find more reasons I’m wrong and evil. See if they can find it here in my own words, because unlike their lies, I am truthful. I call them out. I am angry and I’m not going to take it anymore.
A letter I wrote to my mother on September 16, 2008, (fourteen months before she killed herself - that's 14 months!), did not kill my mother, though that was what I was told. Her e-mailing me eight days before she killed herself telling me, “I love your e-mails. They perk me up,” doesn’t sound as though she and I were doing poorly, though everyone has their own account and assessment.
I will say it again for all those who are dying to believe differently, I loved my mother. You don’t know what my relationship was with my mother and I did not tell you how to behave in your relationship with your mother. When your mother died I didn’t try and make one decision of what would be said, or what would be done. I did not elbow into power to get my way to make you feel worse, or increase your sadness. What kind of person are you that you are trying to make me feel badly? Is your personal guilt that engulfing? Well, it has nothing to do with me, so please get help.
Oh, and just because I’ve chosen to be lain bare, here is the opening and closing of my letter to my mother fourteen months ago. Just so you know, the middle parts were verses – Jesus’ words. If you have problems with Jesus, take it up with Him. He is capable of handling your anger and lies much better than me.
Hi Mom,
I have wanted to write you a letter for some time. I have wanted to discuss more in-depth things than we typically chat back and forth about in our casual e-mails. I feel God pressing me to do this. It’s not something I want to do, because I’m not really sure of how you’ll receive it. Anyway, I’ve wanted to do this and I almost didn’t, but God wouldn’t let me go. So, here I am writing a letter that I feel compelled to write, because I love you, care about you, and want to be sure you have the salvation that will find you in heaven.
First of all, I love the verse that says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses,” because I passionately feel unable to keep my faith and worries about your salvation from you, even if it hurts just a little. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I want far less for you to be lost, because I said nothing.
And, the closing was:
Mom, I’m not just trying to laden you with verses that push my will. I want you to see God’s will for you, so that you will be among the kingdom of heaven. You and I don’t have forever: Either of us could be gone at any moment. I have given up on my earthly desires for our relationship. My desires for you are eternal, which are far greater than anything that could happen on this earth. I pray that you will take this letter in the intent in which I have written it, because I have written it with a full heart of love and care for you, eternally.
Also, I know that for many in our family you are the matriarch that influences much. I really think that you could be the most powerful force to drive some of those people in the direction of heaven. I know you love our family. I hope that you can encourage others to love heaven by seeking and doing God’s will too.
I love you,
Michelle
When I found this letter on a computer I don’t use anymore, in search of the letter I was told had made my mother kill herself, I cried when I re-read it. I know my heart. I knew my heart toward my mother. My mother was my first best friend. She was who I had wanted to be as a child. She was the most beautiful woman I knew. She was also a best friend to everyone. She was hysterical. She made me laugh until I cried.
When she became human to me, it was the hardest thing, and I began to be sad for her. I realized that my mother was not this thing of perfection, but a human being who was hurting herself. I wanted her to be better. I saw her on fire and nobody would help me put out the insidious fire that consumed her. I was furious at her. I was furious at everyone. I put it on myself to save her and felt horrible about myself and her when she wouldn’t listen to me.
I get it now, though. I can’t be mad at anyone. I can’t blame one person, just like it is entirely unjust to blame me, though most people in my family don’t extend an ounce of grace in my direction. My mother, though I loved her deeply, did not want to change. Nothing anyone could say would make her change. She made her own choices. We all make our own choices – to love or hate – to accept or blame. I loved my mother.
I responded to her the way I was wired to respond to her. Others responded to her the way God made them to respond. If I saw a friend leaving my house in the wrong direction, I would stop them and try and re-direct their path. If I saw someone taking a dangerous hiking path toward the edge of a treacherous cliff where I had just seen two others die, I would try and re-direct them, but ultimately, whether or not they listen is going to be up to them. No one can make you choose life over death.
“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
