Marriage and sometimes even a love story

          I won’t make it to 50 years with anyone I thought.  I did the math in my head.  Yeah there is no way I will make it to 50 years with anyone.  I don’t have enough years left.   Does it really matter?  I won’t be missing out on a gold medal or anything.  I don’t even think I will be missing out on having a close connection with another person.  I will miss out on having a shared history but that requires too much living in the past and I have sworn off doing that.  

I still remember the 50^th wedding anniversary party held for my Grandparents.  It was quite an event – like planning and executing a wedding.   My Grandmother wore a beautiful lace dress.  There was a huge cake. It was held at a beautiful hotel.  Guests brought gifts. I remember my Grandparents standing side by side in front of the gift table for a photo.  They weren’t standing close enough to touch each other.  What I remember most, because it struck me as so odd at the time, was the triumphant look on my Grandmother’s face.  I didn’t understand that look back then.  I was in high school at the time.  She had triumphed.  To her I think it was equivalent to winning an Olympic gold medal. She had made it. She crossed the finish line into the marriage longevity hall of fame.  I realize, now that I am older, what an accomplishment that was and why she looked so triumphant.   I, on the other hand, have failed.  I respect my Grandparents for working to achieve something that was very important to them and their generation.  I just don’t know if I place as much value on it. Maybe that is just a defensive attitude because I couldn’t do it but I don’t think so.  My Grandfather died a few years after that celebration.  I never saw my Grandmother cry over his death.  I was jolted back to the present.

            “Take the stand please m’am,” I heard someone say in my direction.  I walked slowly up to the witness box.   “Please raise your right hand and be sworn,” the bailiff said.  I did.  I was.  I sat down.  I looked around the courtroom.  It was almost empty.  He didn’t even bother to show up.   I didn’t really expect him to.   I was relieved he hadn’t fought the matter in the courts.  The judge asked me a few questions.    “You may step down now.  If you wait the clerk will give you a copy of the divorce decree,” the judge said.   That was it.  Legally it was over.   If only the emotional connection could be severed as quickly and simply as the legal one I thought.  I didn’t “feel” anything.  That drama – the emotional end -was playing out on a different stage.  I moved on to the next task at hand.  I had to get back to the office.

Have you ever noticed that unhappiness just kind of creeps up on you like vines growing on a trellis?  A vine starts with gentle tendrils.  The tendrils grow large and strong and become vines.  If left alone, without any pruning or tending, these vines will warp and eventually break the trellis.    So it is that little tendrils of unhappiness ever so surreptitiously start clinging to our soul.  Some unhappiness is good as it helps us to grow and mature.  However those tendrils of unhappiness can grow and grow until, if left unattended, they choke your soul.   This is not sorrow. Sorrow is palpable and real.   It makes itself known.  This is not real depression.  Depression has you totally in its grip.

  Unhappiness is insidious. It is so easily disguised or explained as a momentary response to a temporary, unfortunate situation.  It can be so easily ignored.   It is so very dangerous because we can become accustomed to that emotional state and we stop being able to recognize when momentary unhappiness grows and becomes something more.    We must always keep our finger on the pulse of our happiness or the tendrils of unhappiness will become vines and choke us.  We must prune and tend.   I let my unhappiness go for far too long.  By the time I realized how unhappy I was it had much too strong a hold on me.    Pruning and tending were ineffective.  I had to tear the vine out by its roots and in the process my soul was irrevocably damaged.

“Mom, mom,” Jessica greeted me at the door when I arrived home from the office.   It was about 7 pm.  I had left for the office around 7 a.m.  It was the day after Christmas.  Usually the children came to greet me at the door when I arrived home.  Today they didn’t.  There was an eerie silence in the house.  “Where are Ellen and Samuel?”  Where is your Dad? “  I asked Jessica.  She was clinging to me silently with her head buried in my stomach. “David, Ellen, Samuel,” I called out.  No one answered.     “Jessica you have to let go of me,” I said.    Jessica finally looked up at me and said, “Mom, Dad broke all of Samuel’s toys with a baseball bat. He smashed them to pieces!”    I started up the stairs to Samuel’s bedroom.  I could see that the door to his room was closed.   Jessica was still clinging to my waist.  I felt like I was going to throw up.   I pushed open the door to Samuel’s bedroom.   Broken pieces of toys covered the floor.   The ramp to the hot wheels garage he had just excitedly opened yesterday was in pieces on the floor in the middle of the room.  I recognized other pieces of toys he had received for Christmas just yesterday.   I was now calling frantically for Ellen and Samuel.  David was nowhere to be found or so it seemed.   I walked next door into Ellen’s room. She and Samuel were seated together on the floor playing with some of her toys.  None of her toys were broken.   I hugged and kissed them and then I went looking for David.  He was in our bedroom. “How could you do that?  You need to get out of the house right now!” I shouted at him.  He said nothing. I think I shouted at him a while longer.  He still said and did nothing.  

Emulating my upbringing I went downstairs and fixed dinner. David remained in the bedroom.  At dinner I talked a little bit but, for the most part, the children and I ate in silence.  We didn’t discuss what happened.  I had Jessica do her homework. I bathed the younger two and put them to bed.  Samuel slept in Ellen’s room that night as I was too exhausted to clean his room.  I would do it tomorrow night I said to myself.  I closed the door to his room and told the children to stay out of there. I fell into bed exhausted.    I convinced myself that it was better to maintain some order and predictably after such an ordeal. It was as if David had smashed our marriage to pieces that night along with the toys.  I closed the door on the relationship that night as I closed the door to Samuel’s room with the broken toys in it.   I knew then that I would file for divorce.  The marriage had been broken for a long time.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Are We Lost?

 I hate it. Every day over and over again it invades my consciousness. I do not want to believe it.  I certainly do not want to be reminded of it everyday.  I can’t escape it.  It is in the news.  It is in the newspaper. I hear it in the public conversations of everyday people.   I observe it in the actions of all of us.  We live in a compassionless world.

We were sitting in the lounge discussing the lesson for the day.  We had been together as a group for about 3 months by then.  It was a nine month course.   I think there were about 16 people in the group.  I really can’t remember what we were discussing that precipitated the remark.  Irene was always a serious person but her face hardened as she spoke.    “I resent when the administration tells me to take extra time or pay special attention to a particular kindergartner because his parents are going through a divorce,” she said through clenched teeth.   “Why should I have to go out of my way to help people who are going through a divorce?  It is their fault they are getting divorced, not mine,” she spat the words out angrily.    As she spoke she puffed her chest out as a sign of her moral superiority.  

The silence in the room was deafening. When no one murmured or made a sound, Irene looked around at the faces in the room.   They were all frozen staring at her with the same incredulous expression.  She was struck by the realization of what she had said.   You could see it in her face.  She didn’t say anything else.  She quietly sat down.   As I looked at her face I didn’t sense any regret for the feeling she expressed.  I saw only embarrassment that she had made the confession here in front of all of us.  After all we were in Church at a Bible study group.

Our leader at the Bible Study group was a person who exuded spirituality.  It seemed to kind of seep out of her pores.  She was the angel that had visited Brian and I that fateful day.   After we finished staring at Irene we turned to stare at her.   What could she possibly say that could reach Irene and placate the rest of us, I thought.    We all waited breathlessly for some words of wisdom or for Irene, at least, to receive a tongue lashing from her.  After all wasn’t this a great opportunity to teach Irene a lesson?   “Let’s look at section two of our study guide,” was all Deborah said.    

I asked Deborah later about this or maybe I should say confronted her about it.   Deborah explained, “I have come to know that people attend church for all sorts of reasons most of which do not include a desire to really understand and follow the teachings of Jesus.  The silence of the group spoke volumes to Irene.   I suspect that the school district’s direct request backfired and that Irene actually treated that child worse than the other children.   After today, when the administration makes that request, she will probably be more responsive.”  

I have to admit that, at the time, I was disappointed. Since then I think I have come to understand what Deborah already knew.   If Deborah had confronted her, Irene would have been backed into a corner and would have dug her heels in more regarding her self- righteous resentment.  The reaction of the group and the silence of Deborah made an impression on her.   Hopefully Irene saw her lack of compassion reflected back to her through our eyes like a reflection in the mirror.
In retrospect I wish Irene's behavior had reflected back to me my own routine failure to show compassion.  I was a bit too self- righteous to recognize my own failings at the time. Other people's bad behavior and "character" flaws are always so clearly visible to us. Oh if only the same were true for our own!

“There but for the grace of God go I” is an expression that I used to hear a lot when I was a child. We would automatically repeat that phrase when we were confronted with or became aware of someone else’s misfortune.   I never hear that anymore.  In fact I can’t remember the last time I did hear it.   Now I hear things like “They deserve it” or “I earned it and they didn’t”.   If it isn’t directly spoken, it is implied.  How did an attitude of gratitude get replaced by an attitude of entitlement?  Is it all a result of our cultural marketing gurus touting self indulgent and self aggrandizement quips as a way to market their clients’ products?    We seem to be bombarded with the slogan “You worked hard.  You deserve …... You earned it.”    Maybe after a while we started to believe that everything we have and everything we are was earned solely by our own efforts.  After a while we even seem to have left out the “you worked hard” part of the equation.

I also, as a child, used to often hear, “Those to whom much is given, much is required” and “Waste not, want not”.   All these expressions embodied acts of selflessness – looking beyond our own individual needs and wants to something bigger – something that would benefit others and the community. Sadly those expressions and the actions generated by such sentiments seem to have disappeared from our personal and national psyche.  

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.  It was silly but here I was sitting in my car with tears streaming down my checks.  I had just completed my route for “Meals on Wheels”.   It is difficult, if not impossible, to have an attitude of callousness toward the less fortunate when we volunteer to serve them and witness their suffering, trials and tribulations first hand.  I think our parents and grandparents understood that.   Have we forgotten the simple lesson of humbly giving and serving the less fortunate?   How can we want bigger cars, bigger houses and grandiose vacations when we see others who don’t have the basic necessities of life satisfied?  Are they really to blame and if they are does that really matter?   As I cried I reminded myself to be ever grateful for what I do have and how fortunate I am.   “There but for the grace of God go I” I thought as I closed the door on the last client who was mentally handicapped.  How could I have forgotten to be grateful? How could I have forgotten to make service to others an integral part of my life?  It is, among other things, the quickest way to get me back to living with an attitude of gratitude?  

What about God?

         “I believe in God,” I recently said to an acquaintance who was bashing religion.  “I attend church regularly,” I added.   Oh I can’t pat myself on the back for saying that because there were many, many times I was silent when the conversation turned to religion bashing.  My current conversation abruptly and immediately stopped.   It was a much more powerful response than words could ever be.   The look on my acquaintance’s face said it all.   Intelligent people don’t believe in God! 

Why are we so called  "intelligent"  people embarrassed to say we believe in God and/or attend church regularly? Why do others look askance at those who make that confession?  Why do I respond by failing to or being embarrassed to admit my faith?   Am I really less intelligent because I believe in God?

“Girls are you dressed yet?”  my Mother shouted up the stairs.   My Sister and I had already managed to put on our frilly new dresses, lace ankle socks and patent leather shoes.  We had helped each other with buttons and buckles.  We were squealing with delight.  “We’re coming,” we shouted down.  We were still putting trying to put on our hats with the ribbons streaming down.  It was such an exciting time!     We weren’t going to Sunday school this day.   We were too young to take communion but we were going to stay in the church with our parents for the entire service!  We raced down the stairs.   My Mother carefully inspected us.   My Father and Brother were dressed in suits and ties.  My Mother had on a new dress with a matching hat.  My Mother, Sister and I wore white gloves.  

 When we arrived at the church, my parents greeted everyone in the narthex.  As soon as we entered the sanctuary we were admonished to be very quiet and not to talk. There was a beautiful stained glass window in the front of the church.  In the middle of that window was a huge cross.   The sun was streaming through that window filling the sanctuary with light and warmth.   Beautiful hymns were being played on the organ.  The choir members were dressed in their robes and waiting in the narthex for their procession into the sanctuary.  The minister was dressed in his black vestments with a purple sash. As we walked closer to the front of the church I saw many of my schoolmates sitting with their parents and siblings and sometimes grandparents.  They too were dressed in frilly, lacy dresses and bonnets.  The boys were in suits and ties.    The ushers were setting up extra chairs around the sanctuary.   The church would be overflowing.  After we sat down, the minister and choir proceeded up the aisle singing “Jesus Christ is risen today… Alleluia”.  As they entered the sanctuary we all rose and joined them in singing that hymn.  

My Sister and I felt a bit wilted by the end of the service. After the service our parents visited with our friends, neighbors, parents of our schoolmates. We got to play with our friends.  “Be careful with your new dress and shoes,” my Mother scolded us.  We didn’t stay too long at church.  We had to drive to our Grandparents’ house which was about an hour away.   You see my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins had come from far away to spend the holiday with my Grandparents and us.   They did that almost every year.   We would all sit down together to eat a wonderful Sunday dinner of roast lamb my Grandmother had prepared.  Then we could change clothes and play with our cousins while our Mother, Aunt and Grandmother cleaned up the kitchen.

Religion or at least church was an integral part of my childhood.  It was one of the foundations of our community.  Our time at church was both religious and social.  My Sunday school class was made up primarily of my classmates from school and my teacher was almost always the mother of one of my friends.   It was an outing- a break from the monotony of being at home. We didn’t have all the options for recreation the children do now.   I have wonderful memories of the church of my childhood although that is not where my faith in God was born.   But, perhaps the seeds were planted there. 

 “This is for you,” my Father said handing a package to me.  “I couldn’t bear to throw it away when we sold the house.”  My Parents had recently moved out of the house in which I had grown up.   I unwrapped the package.   I recognized it right away.  I couldn’t believe he kept it all these years. Well maybe I can.   My Father has always been very sentimental.   The package contained something I had made one summer at Bible School.  As I held it the memories of Bible School came flooding back.   I was about 10 years old at the time.   I was so proud of that glazed tile.  I had drawn a picture of my dog on it.

 In the summer we all went to Bible School.  It is hard to imagine in these current times but we looked forward to those two weeks.  Bible School was our break from the monotony of playing with the neighborhood kids.  Neighborhood activities were fun but we wanted some variety.  Many of my schoolmates attended Bible School along with me.  My Mother and the mothers of my classmates were the teachers.  We had arts and crafts.  We learned stories from the Bible like we did in Sunday school.   We had some recreation time together.  The world felt safe and comfortable.   

“Are we going to get to go the first day – Friday night?” I asked my Mother.  “Can we go on Saturday as well?  Can we play all the games?  Can we buy something?” I continued to pester her.   I was asking about the Fall Festival at the Church which was going to take place in a couple of weeks.  My Sister and I were very excited.  It was an annual event. My Mother was usually one of the organizers of that event.   It took months to arrange and coordinate everything.  Volunteers had to be procured and scheduled to man the many the booths and cook the dinner.  The booths had to be set up by the fathers on the weekends or evenings.  White elephant items had to be procured, tagged and displayed for sale.  We played games and won prizes.  My favorite game was throwing a bean bag into a backboard one of the fathers had made and painted.   There was great food.  We always had a dinner but there were snacks as well.  I can still smell the sautéed mushrooms that were being prepared in electric skillets at one of the booths.    I still love the smell and taste of sautéed mushrooms.  It reminds me of the Fall Festival.    As I think back to the time I spent at those festival and other church events I am overcome with a feeling of warmth and comfort.    

As I matured I remained involved in the church.  I taught Sunday school.    I participated in the high school youth group. I attended church summer camp for two weeks although I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do that.  It was an expensive camp and I overheard my parents discussing whether they could afford it.  In the end, they made some financial sacrifices because they thought it was important for me to attend.  What a thrill!        

The camp was located in the next state. It was a long bus ride but it was so worth it I thought.  It had been a wonderful two weeks.  We studied the Bible but we also did a lot of other things.  We went sailing and water skiing on the lake. We had campfires, cooked smores, sang and talked. 

“Camp is coming to a close.   We want to encourage everyone to find a quiet spot and contemplate Jesus,” Sally, our Church Youth Minister said to all of us. She had accompanied us on this trip.   During those two weeks Sally kept asking me if I had “experienced God”.   I had no idea what that meant and I was feeling like a failure because “it” hadn’t happened for me.   This would be my last opportunity to do that.  I distinctly remember finding a tree, leaning against it and closing my eyes.  I thought hard about God and Jesus for a short while.  Then I just relaxed and tried to tune everything out.  A short while later, I jumped up and ran to find Sally.   “Jesus appeared to me,” I exclaimed to her.  Sally was ecstatic.   My experience and that of several others were announced to the whole group later that day.  

“Jesus Christ appeared to me,” I wrote to my parents on a postcard from camp. I think that the camp counselor must have encouraged me to write because my family never discussed these types of things.   Emotional or spiritual experiences were never a topic of conversation in our family.   Our conversations focused on the physical events of school, work and church. 

 I was on an emotional high that lasted for several weeks after I returned from summer camp.  But as more and more time passed I started to doubt my experience.  We had so much pressure put on us to “experience Jesus” that I started to doubt my experience was genuine.   I felt the youth minister put too much emphasis on those types of experiences.  It turned me off to religion.  I started drifting away from church and the youth group after that.  The youth minister lost interest in me.   I guess I wasn’t experiencing religion as she thought I should.

“We can’t afford it.  I won’t fill out the financial aid application.  Those colleges think parents should contribute huge amounts of money.  It is ridiculous.  We can’t contribute anywhere near the amount they will want from us,” my Father said.  I had worked incredibly hard to have the credentials to be admitted to an Ivy League or similar University.  Now my Father refused to allow me to apply.  This was one of my first huge disappointments in life. I had the sophomoric notion that God could make this happen if He wanted to.  In those days my faith in God was rather immature and I was angry at God.    Other kids from my high school were accepted and attended the schools I wanted to go to.  Their credentials were not as good as mine. 

“Brad is attending a very expensive university away from home.  Why can’t I do the same? ” I complained to my Father.    “He will have to support a family,” my Father said to explain why my brother got to attend the university of his choice and I didn’t.   I never got the message, which I understand some of my peers did, that a woman could be anything she wanted to be.  I felt alienated from the world in which I had grown up and by implication that included God. I was depressed.  I lived at home and attended college.  That is what my parents could afford.  I wouldn’t give God much thought again, if any, for at least 18 years.

The events of my life would compel to contemplate God again later especially as I cared for and watched my beloved husband die from Lou Gehrig's disease.  However that is a topic for another day.

Embarking on our journey as a parent

The phone rang.   I instinctively looked at the clock before answering it.  It was 4:30 am.  Any time the phone rings before 7 am I am overcome with anxiety and a foreboding feeling that something bad has happened.

The divorce and its fallout have been the source of my most recent anxiety.  But I have always lived with a lot of anxiety.    Anxiety overshadowed or maybe even defined my early years as a parent. 

I didn’t want to answer the telephone that morning.  Calls at such hours rarely bring good news.   But I was able to see the name of the caller displayed on caller ID.   I still panicked.   I picked up the phone.   “I have to go to the hospital,”   her voice said over the phone.  “Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.  “No, not now.  D is going with me,” she said.  “I will call when I need you”.   “I love you," I said.  I hung up the phone.  I lay awake in bed for several hours until it was time to get up and take my youngest child to school.  During that time I didn’t really have any cohesive thoughts just a lot of anxiety.     

“I need you to come now,” she called to say sometime later that morning.   I headed for the garage.   Along the way, I stopped to clean the kitchen.  I unloaded the dishwasher. I put a load of clothes in the washing machine.  It was until about 45 minutes later that I remembered I was supposed to be somewhere else.  No, I am not senile although my children often joke that I am.  

 “What you doing?” I asked myself in an exasperated voice.   I talk to myself often, sometimes even out loud.  I became aware that I was avoiding the trip.  I was terrified to see my daughter suffer physically or emotionally.    I am such a wimp when it comes to my children.  I have had to learn, painfully, to step back so as not to rob them of their growing pains and experiences.  They need to learn for themselves.  This experience will mature my daughter, Jessica, greatly I say to myself somewhat convincingly.   Still I wish I could endure the suffering for her. As I drove to the hospital my thoughts were mired in the past.

“Are you here all alone?”  the nurse asked me.   “Yes,” I replied.  I had been alone in that room for what seemed like an eternity.  I think I was actually in there all by myself for about 12 hours before I was wheeled to the surgical room and moved onto a cold hard metal table.  At least in the delivery room I had the company of the doctor and the nurse.  

 “Where are you taking her?”  I asked the nurse as she was removing my newborn daughter from my arms.   “She has to go to the nursery and get checked out,” the nurse replied.   “You can see her tomorrow,” she said.  I was wheeled into the recovery room where I again spent a long time period of time alone.  I didn’t see my baby, Jessica, again until sometime the next morning.  My heart sank when they brought Jessica into my room. “Why is she in an incubator?  What is wrong with her?”  I shot off in panic.  “It is just a precaution because of the condition you had while you were pregnant,” the nurse replied.   I emitted a huge, audible sigh of relief.  I took Jessica into my arms.  There really are no words to describe the rush of feelings you experience when you hold your newborn child.

 The “script” set out for my generation provided that women got married and had children at a young age by today’s standards.   I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I was getting into when I became a parent.   It makes sense that new parents typically look to their parents to learn how to parent.  But I knew even before I had Jessica that such a plan wouldn’t work for me.   When Jessica arrived essentially all I knew about parenting was that I didn’t not want to be a mother like my Mother.  That was the extent of my knowledge along with a little bit of experience I gained from babysitting some of the neighborhood children when I was a teenager.

 For me, becoming a parent was the most significant maturing experience of my life.   I was totally responsible for another person.  I would have to put her needs first and always think about what was best for her in everything I did.  My primary focus was no longer and could no longer be myself.   I don’t know that I was afraid or overwhelmed by any of that.  It all just seemed to be part of the natural progression of life.  

Many women of my generation didn’t follow the “script”.  They elected not to have children.  I really didn’t think of that as an option when I was young.   I am thankful that I was blissfully ignorant of the other choice.   While I enjoy the company of these women tremendously there is a chasm that divides us.  They never learned to put another first.  They never experienced the kind of love where you would sacrifice everything for another –your child.   What a loss!  From the moment Jessica was born my life would never be the same.  Being a parent has brought me the most joy and the most pain in my life.   It has enriched my life beyond measure.

 Now my daughter was about to embark on this sobering and enriching experience herself.  Life has come full circle as they say - whoever “they” are.   My daughter, Jessica, is now giving birth to her first child.  In fact as I write this I am sitting in her “birthing” room with her.  Writing this would distract from my worries or so I hoped.

The nurse bustled into the room and checked some machines - those annoying things that kept beeping.   She was very brusque with a no nonsense attitude.  She never said much.   “How is everything going?” I asked.  “You’ll make it. When I had my babies my husband was in the Navy.   They knocked you out and you woke up with a baby.   Those nurses gave you no sympathy,” she said.   Things haven’t changed much I said to myself.  She was my only human contact during many long hours of labor.

 “Is that you making all of that noise?” I heard someone ask.   I turned to see my doctor standing by my bedside.  It was very dark outside now. When I arrived the sun was just coming up.   She reached out and touched my arm.   My entire body relaxed and I a feeling of warmth and comfort literally spread from where she touched my arm through my entire body.  It was overwhelming.  I was struck, in spite of all my desperation, by the power of the human touch.   I feel it now as I recall that night.  I have tried so hard to remember to touch my children.  It is not something I grew up with so I have to remind myself to do it.    My great grandfather expressed the importance of the human touch much better than I ever could:

              Tis the human touch in this world that counts,

                        The touch of your hand and mine,

            Which means far more to the fainting heart

                        Than shelter and bread and wine

            For shelter is gone when the night is o’er,

                        And bread lasts only a day,

            But the touch of the hand and the sound of the voice

                        Sing in the soul away.

 The birthing process was, thankfully, so different for Jessica. I felt both envious and relieved.  I am relieved that she will not suffer physically or emotionally as I did.  She has her husband by her side and other family members when she wants.   The nurses are so kind.   She can dispense her own pain medication.  They even gave her medication to speed up the process.

  I wanted to forget my first birthing experience other than the moment when I first held that beautiful baby girl in my arms.   The only time I wanted to remember is when we mothers were telling our “war stories”.   We would compete as to who had the worst and most painful childbirth experience. I have some pretty gruesome “war” experiences to relate.   In true puritan WASP fashion I felt I had to forgo any comforts to give birth.   If I had taken any medication or made it in any way easy on myself I would not have been blessed with my beautiful baby or so I unconsciously believed. 

I unconsciously believed that everything in life was earned including good fortune and happiness. They are earned through suffering.   Suffering has the added benefit of keeping anxiety at bay.   Something bad is already happening so I didn’t have to be anxious as to what misfortune lie ahead.   Is this a vestige of the Biblical teaching of Adam and Eve that the price of sin is suffering?  

 I have always had a difficult time with the concept that love and good fortune are gifts to be appreciated and enjoyed.   I had difficulty accepting such gifts, any gifts.  I felt everything had to be earned including love.   I also believed I had to go it totally alone on this journey.  Isn’t it a sign of weakness to need anyone or any help?  I would never want to appear weak.   These attitudes would leave a mark on my early years as a parent.   I would make things as difficult as possible for myself to test myself, to earn love and good fortune and keep anxiety at bay.  I was unconsciously seeking out difficult circumstances to see if I could survive them.  It was a test I could never complete.   Unfortunately my drive to make things as difficult for myself also made things incredibly difficult for my children.  I think I was just unaware that I was operating under this principle at all.  That is just how I functioned.  So I was oblivious to the consequences to my children as well.  You can see now why I assess myself as a terrible parent.  There are other compelling reasons as well. 

“There are no purple hearts given out for suffering and pain,” the Jessica’s doctor said.   I could see, on Jessica’s face that she was struggling with the concept that she will not suffer as much as she should.  (Maybe she has heard too many war stories).  Thankfully she is able to fight off that WASP urge to suffer.   “You can control the medication with this pump,” the nurse told her.  “It will numb the pain and speed up the process.”  Jessica nodded that she understood.    This to me was a triumph.   Jessica was able to accept the help of modern science and the comfort offered by her loved ones.  

 I have anticipated this day with much joy and much fear and trepidation.  I fear that my daughter will have to suffer too much or experience some life threatening complication.   I am joyful that there will be a new person in this world to care for and to love.   I fear that, even with all the tools of modern science, the baby may not be healthy. 

I have fears about getting older.  I am apprehensive about becoming a grandmother. After all grandmothers smell like formaldehyde and are totally out of touch with what goes on in the world.  I don’t want to be one of those grandmas nor do I want to be one of those modern grandmas who strive to look like the mother rather than the grandmother.   With the birth of my first grandchild staring me in the face, I can no longer deny the passage of years simply by refusing to look closely at myself in the mirror.  

Jessica’s husband came into the waiting room.   “We have a beautiful, healthy baby girl!”  he said with such joy and relief.  “Mom she is healthy!” Jessica said to me when I was able to enter the birthing room.  We all had the same concerns I thought to myself.   Why didn’t we share our concerns with each other?  Were we afraid to speak to each other about them for fear we would upset each other by discussing what in reality we all already knew.  How silly to think that everyone would not be aware of the potential dangers.    Worries and fears that are shared are so much less powerful I think.  Oh the WASP ways are so ever powerful!

“Can you come to the hospital with me?” is what I should have asked him.  Instead I was silent and David went to work – a business trip – from which he would have to be called back after Jessica was born.  I did not want to appear like I needed any help.  I would do it on my own.  I don’t think David really wanted to be present for the birth anyway.  David arrived at the hospital after I had been moved from the recovery room to my hospital room. “You should have been here an hour or so ago.  What took you so long to get here?”  I asked.  “Well I had to go home and shower before I came here,” he replied.   “The baby was born about an hour ago,” I said to him.  David stayed just a few minutes and then left.  After all I was totally exhausted.

You are going to cry,” Jessica said making fun of me.  “No I am not,” I replied as I looked into the face of the new baby.  The resemblance to Jessica was absolutely uncanny at least in my mind.  I felt a little numb.  Memories flooded into the present and sometimes I couldn’t distinguish between the past and the present.  I kept repeating to Jessica, “She looks just like you!”  until even Jessica got sick of hearing it.   I felt like I was somewhere outside of my body watching this all happen.  Maybe that is just my defense mechanism when my emotions overpower me and I can’t control them.

 “How did you know it was the right time to have a baby,” a friend of mine asked a few months after Jessica was born.   She was much older than I and had been married for many years.  “We need to save more money and James has to get a better job so I can quit working,” she said.  She continued to tell me all the things that would have to change or occur before she would be ready to have a baby.   I listened.  “There is never a perfect time to have a baby.  You just do it.  If you wait for the perfect time it will never happen,” I replied in all my immature wisdom. That turned out to be all too true for my friend.   She never had a baby even though I know she desperately wanted one.  I guess it was never the perfect time for her.  Is it ever?  Isn’t dealing with the unpredictability of life a catalyst for personal growth?  I am not advocating the absence of planning but, as with everything, shouldn’t there be a balance?   Doesn’t too much planning make life stale?

        

Will we always feel a connection to our partner even after the relationship ends bitterly?

           I looked across the table over the heads of the two lawyers.  Our eyes met and I felt a huge surge of love flowing in both directions and then a wave of despair rolled over me.  Wasn’t it only yesterday – 8 years ago is like yesterday when you are my age – when we looked across at each other in a very different setting with a huge surge of love.  I had just seen our wedding photos.  He had introduced them into evidence at the trial.  I did not want to cry here in front of him, the judge and the lawyers.  It was difficult to hold back the tears as my lawyer began to ask me the questions that are a prerequisite to the granting of a divorce.

            The love was still there and at that moment it felt as strong as it had on our wedding day.  Why hadn’t we – he and I – been able to build on that powerful feeling of love to create a fulfilling and lasting relationship?  I wanted to shout to the judge – stop we still love each other – we could still make a go of it.  It had to be a mistake if that feeling could last through all of the acrimony of the last two years.  What if we just changed a few things – then it would work.  I forgot.  We, or at least I, had already tried all of those things.  Then the reality set in.  It was over.  The feeling of despair swept over me like the force of a powerful wind.  I felt like I swayed from the power of that force.  I had to sit down for a moment.

            He had already moved onto another relationship.  It was eerily similar to what we had shared – at least outwardly.  When I heard this I felt a huge emptiness and I was angry with myself for having that feeling.  As if feelings can be bad!  But I was raised on that.  By this time I understood that we can’t control feelings only our response to them.  But of course that went out of my head in the power of the moment.  He was creep, a cad.  He had used me.  How could I be stupid enough to still have feelings for him?  Love – in whatever way shape or form is such a mystery. 

I wanted to reconnect even if just for a few moments after the judge announced that we were divorced.  We had actually connected briefly a little earlier.  I was sitting in a small conference room with my lawyer waiting for the trial to begin.  The door opened.  “Can I talk to you alone?” he asked but it was his eyes that pleaded with me to let him in.  This was probably just another con or so I thought.  I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in over 6 months.  Any contact was too acrimonious so I stopped communicating.  I finally accepted that this marriage would never end in even a remotely amicable fashion.  So I was very surprised when he poked his head in the door.  I signaled to my lawyer that it was OK.  She left the room reluctantly. 

His voice and demeanor were so soft and loving that I couldn’t help responding.  It was such a complete contrast to the anger and animosity of our communications of the past two years.  He started talking to me about his new life and business.  I wondered to myself why I was listening.  What did I care about his new life and why would he think I would care?  Still I listened.  I found myself listening intently, asking questions, caring if he was happy.  He confided in me.  But I was better now at distinguishing between his lies and his truth.  I needed to engage my brain to remind me that no matter how I felt at this moment – this relationship was over – it was not good for me even though he was right now acting like the person I had fallen in love with.  He was at his best but, as in the past, circumstances would call up the worst in him.  That is not to say that was not true for me as well but only that this is my story to tell, not his.

Stress was his Achilles heel.  Stress brought out the worst in his personality as, I think, it does everyone.  Just like pain some people have a lower tolerance to stress.  For him stress was created by anything that didn’t go his way.  He couldn’t adapt.  That forced me to unconsciously work to create a world for him where everything went his way.  It was exhausting and I lost myself in the process.  It seems the more I compromised and the harder I tried the less he tried.  Could I have forced him to compromise more by being more unyielding myself or would it just have sped up the inevitable demise of the relationship?  The seeds of the end were planted at the very beginning.  Here we were at the legal end.  I so wanted it to be the emotional end as well.

He seemed anxious to return to his new relationship and busy life.  The new life that was so eerily similar to the life we had shared.  I suspect that helped him bury the pain if he felt any.  We sat and talked in that small conference room adjacent to the court room in that intimate way married people can and do.  It amazed me how easily we slipped back into that mode.  He asked about my children.  I asked about his.  We asked about each other’s parents.  We had a history of experiences and connections that was unique to the two of us.  We relived that connection if only for those few moments.  I knew that a part of him was trying to tap into that connection in order to get a good deal in the divorce but it still felt good to connect again.

After a few moments we had nothing else to say to each other.  He said what he really came to say – a dollar amount he wanted from me to settle the matter.  I nodded and said, “Let me talk to my lawyer.”  He tried to get me to agree without her but I resisted.  He silently left the room. As I waited for my lawyer to return I was struck by the irony of it all.  The most intimate relationship in the world was boiling down to a business decision about money.

As I testified he continued to look at me with that same loving look he had in the conference room.  I was frantically searching for some way to get through this time on the witness stand with some dignity.  Tears were welling up in my eyes.  “STOP,” I wanted to shout.  We can make it work.  We still love each other.  Didn’t our meeting in the small conference room prove that?

“Counsel if you present me with the divorce decree tomorrow I will sign it,” the judge pronounced.  “You are excused,” he said to me in the witness box.  The pronouncement felt like an execution – at least of the relationship.  We gathered up our papers and left the courtroom.   The bailiff locked the courtroom door behind us.  The closing of the door and the clicking of the lock resonated with me. It was like the door to our relationship was forever closed and locked but unfortunately not forgotten. 

He ran ahead and hurriedly got into the elevator alone.  He had many important things to get back to or at least that is the impression he wanted to give me.  I walked more slowly discussing and dissecting what had happened that day with my lawyer from a legal standpoint.  This settlement had come as a complete surprise to both of us.  The halls, along with my soul, echoed with emptiness as the bailiffs shooed away the last few occupants of the building.  I was alone when I left the courthouse.  This was it. This was the end to a beautiful beginning which had been so full of promise and love that even after all the intense animosity of the past years my composure was shattered thinking of it.  I kept telling myself how stupid I was to feel this way but that didn’t help me regain my composure or feel less pain.  Change is so much our enemy and so much our friend.

         I called him on his cell phone after I left the courthouse.  He answered.  We talked more about his life.  He talked of including me in his new life with an offer to play some part in one of his new business ventures.  I think we both knew that would never happen but we discussed it anyway.  We talked for 30 minutes or so and I hung up only when I reached my friend’s house where I was to have dinner.  He called me back about an hour later while I was still at my friend’s house.  I didn’t answer the phone.  My friends wouldn’t understand.  He didn’t leave a message. 

        My friends wanted to go out and celebrate the granting of the divorce.  I couldn’t stop crying.  You see he and I had loved each other very much once at least I thought we did. We were happy together for a number of years.  In spite of the ordeal of the last few years I was sad over the loss of that love. 

I am not bitter.  I think you can only be bitter if you blame someone other than yourself for a situation.  I have acquired at least enough maturity and experience to realize that I am responsible for the present situation.  I made the choices that brought me here.  I alone am to blame, not him.  He could only be who he is.  I could not expect him to be otherwise.  Sure he could have changed if he wanted to but he didn’t want to.  His number one priority was getting what he wanted and I was a means to that end.  When I stopped serving that purpose the relationship was over.

“Maybe we can celebrate another day” I said to my friends.  I stayed home that evening and cried.  There seems to be something so wrong about celebrating the end of a beautiful beginning. I couldn’t do that.  I haven’t spoken to for heard from Warren since the day the divorce was granted.  I am thankful for that. 

Have you ever been haunted by the what ifs of your life?

     I have been haunted by a nagging compulsion to make sense of my life for the last several years.  It became even more intense upon the demise of this, my last marriage.  Something is pushing me down this path.  I feel agitated every time I put this “project” on hold.  I will have no peace until I do.  It seems like a silly and useless thing to do.  The past can’t be changed.  I can’t change myself much at my age.  My life shaping decisions were made long ago when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  I have passed more than the halfway mark in my life.  What is the point?  I don’t have too many places to go in the future.  What could the future possibly have in store for me at this time in my life?  Still some irrational force is pushing me to sift through my life.

Venice, Rome, Florence, Piso, Orvieto – great food, great sights, great history, great wine, great company, exhilarating romance.  Is there a better place to fall in love than Italy?  Romance does not always have to lead to commitment except for me.  I hadn’t learned as much as I thought I guess.  I was raised that love and sex could not be separated from commitment.  This new generation seems to be at the other end of the spectrum – sex without love or commitment.  As a therapist said to me, “You don’t have to marry everyone you have sex with.”  If only I could have internalized that.  

Perhaps my Sister put it best when she so crudely said, about the trip to Italy , “I thought you just wanted to get laid.  You didn’t have to turn it into something more”. If only I had listened to my Sisters vulgar words of wisdom.  What if I had taken her advice?  What would my life look like now?  Would I be happier or more content?  Did I get anything positive out of my last marriage or was it all just one big terrible mistake?  What if I read too much into my chance encounter with Warren? What if “Fate” really had other choices in mind for me other than the one I took?