Have you ever been haunted by the what ifs of your life? ( Part Three)

I know I cannot change the past but I want to make better choices in my remaining years.  I want to actually make a choice. I am not sure I did that before.  I felt more buffeted around by forces and emotions that I didn’t understand and by misperceptions about myself and others.  I convinced myself that none of my decisions were impulsive because I took a lot of time to analyze and think about them.  I dissected the consequences, pluses and minuses in my mind of each proposed course of action, sometimes for a year or more.  But I realize now that I was just rationalizing my impulsive decision.  I see now that I often dismissed the voice of reason or prudence.  In my loneliness over the loss of my husband, I overlooked the warning signs that this most recent relationship would never work. 

What if I had decided not to marry early?  What if I had decided not to marry my ex-husband?  What if I had married instead my first serious boyfriend?  What if I had decided to seriously pursue a career?  What if I decided to delay or not have children?  You see what I have been doing to myself these last few years.  I can’t live in the present as I am continually dragged back to the past.  Sometimes I feel paralyzed to act because I recognize that I have made so many “bad” choices in my life.  How do I move forward?  I think I can only do that by coming to terms with my past.

I don’t have any idea if I can answer all or even any of those questions.  The” what ifs” are infinite.  I know that I have to try if I am going to find any peace.  And above all I want to make peace with my life and my choices.  Only then will I make peace with where I am right now and begin to live more in the moment.  I will keep my eye on the future –where I am going but with more of a sense of trust that I am making choices and those “choices” are taking me where I want to go. 

I have tried but I can’t find peace in superficial answers or in busy activities.  So I have to venture down this difficult path that is strewn and overgrown with “what ifs”.  I reluctantly look down the roads not travelled.  I try to imagine my life if I had made another choice.  I imagine I would be happier, more successful or in a better place.  But I don’t really know that.  That is all fantasy and I don’t want to base my journey on fantasy and imaginings.  I only really know the outcome of the roads I have travelled.  And so I decide to embark on a journey to review the roads I have travelled in hopes I may come to terms and make peace with the roads I didn’t travel.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive or chronological recounting of my life.  This is the story of an emotional journey, not a physical one.  Emotions or should I say emotional memories don’t lend themselves to any kind of order.  They perhaps are better told as they are remembered, that is, as a series of unconnected vignettes.  Their formation and experience is a process and not a very orderly one at that.   Emotions surface at inopportune times.  Emotional growth does not progress in any chronological order.  Oftentimes an experience will have an impact on us only many years after it has happened. 

As I look into the mirror I see the face of a middle aged women staring back at me.  The image reminds me so of the passage of all the years.  It frightens me that so much of my life is now behind me.  Why did I do the things I did?  If I understand that will it make any difference in my life as I look toward the future?  In the end will my life have any meaning? 

I started on my life journey with no roadmap.  It might be more accurate to say I had small bits and pieces of a roadmap that were unconnected and huge pieces were missing.  In some of my darkest hours I would sustain myself by saying if my children learned from and were able to avoid even some of the mistakes of my life it would all be worth it.  I hope in my life and with this journal I have provided them with at least a rudimentary roadmap for their journey.  It would give my life some meaning.

What about God? (Part Two)

Where have all the men gone?    That is a question often asked by clergy.  The men of my father’s generation attended church.   A much smaller percentage of the men in my generation attend and are involved with the Church.   This next generation has even less. Sure attendance is down as a whole but that doesn’t explain the conspicuous absence of the men.  I knew Brian had attended church and several Bible studies before we met.   I liked that about him.   After I divorced when my children were very young, I started to have a vague sense that God was important.  After Brian and I were married the vague sense became something more.

Something was pressing in on me kind of like a person  in the airport security line who gets so close that they invade your personal space.  I have had this feeling at various times in my life.    I am usually busy and it is easy to ignore it in the beginning.  I push it into the background hoping it will eventually go away.  But usually it persists.  It is kind of like being followed around by an omnipresent specter.  It keeps its distance as long as I am moving but when I stop it gets close enough to really annoy me.  It presses in on me more and more as time passes and I ignore it.  It starts to engage in a “persistent nagging.”   The specter won’t go away.  It won’t stop “nagging.”   I am in a constant state of annoyance.  This feeling starts to interfere with my ability to enjoy my life.  Eventually I can’t enjoy anything I am doing.   I feel like I am being suffocated.   When that happens I am compelled to deal with it.  There will be no peace in my life until I do.   In my case I don’t really know what I am being nagged to do.    I have to conduct a sometimes exhaustive search.  It is strictly a search by trial and error.  I know when I have hit on the “right thing” because the discomfort stops.   So it was that I was visited by my specter of discomfort when I was 37 years old.  

At the time my “specter” was pressing in on me, my life was incredibly full or more appropriately incredibly busy.  In fact I was so busy I wasn’t enjoying my life.  Back then, the innumerable daily demands prevented me from savoring any moments.  Now my life is devoid of everything that made it so busy back then.   Now I have time to savor the moments but not as many daily moments to savor.   It seems that life is so out of balance. Is there any way to arrange it so that we aren’t robbed of enjoyment by the overwhelming demands of making it all work?  Is there any way to keep the memorable moments from clumping together like small metal fragments stuck to the end of a magnet?  At that time in my life I couldn’t’ imagine where I was going to find the time and energy to add anything else to my life.   But something kept “nagging” me relentlessly. 

“I want to tell you a story about a time I was disappointed,” the young minister said. “I really, really wanted to go to this particular college.  It was the only school that I wanted to attend.  My parents forced me to apply to other schools but I just knew I would be accepted and go to the school of my choice.  Sadly I wasn’t accepted.  I was very angry at God for a long time because I thought He could have made it happen for me if He wanted to,” he said as he continued to tell history.   As I sat in the church pew that morning and listened to this eerily familiar story, I kept wondering to myself why I had come to church that Sunday.     At that time in my life everything was going smoothly at least by my standards.  I was married to Brian. I was pregnant with Gary.    I was employed in my field.   Money was no longer a huge issue.  The children were settled and doing well.   The roller coaster ride of the previous years had become more of a train ride or almost.  The trip still included travel over big mountains and valleys but they were smaller, fewer and farther between.  Why then urgency to go back to church?   I realized that my “specter” had stopped “nagging” me as I sat in church that morning.  That was reason enough for me.

 “Do we really want all that space?”  I asked Brian   He was so excited that I hadn’t wanted to say anything for fear of spoiling this for him.   I am not sure why I did ask.  I knew it wouldn’t change anything.  It was too late in the process anyway.   Brian looked at me quizzically and resumed giving instructions and orders to the construction crew.  We would be moving to a new house on the other side of town in a few months.   Everything would have to change including the church I would attend. 

 Eventually we settled into our new home.  I found a church close by where Brian had attended services in the past.  I remember our first visit was to attend a Thanksgiving service. Gary was about 5 months old at the time.  He sat quietly on my lap during the service.   It was, obviously, about giving thanks.  I remember thinking that was a strange topic for us at the time.    We had already received the preliminary diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s’ disease, months earlier.  I didn’t feel like I had much to give thanks for at the time.  Brian was going to die.  In the early days of the illness, the church service offered me some peace but not because I experienced God there.  I enjoyed the familiar hymns, the message, the chance to mediate, the rituals.   I didn’t connect these things to God.

 My decision to attend church at this time had a rational component to it.  I knew, even though I thankfully had no idea how difficult things would be, that I could not cope with Brian’s by myself.  I knew that I needed help.   That was a big admission for me given my background and temperament which I won’t repeat here.  You see I had resolved that I would no longer just soldier on and suffer through difficult times.   I wanted to arrive at the end feeling like I had “triumphed” not just survived. By triumph I don’t mean patting myself on the back or blowing a horn of rejoicing like we do Easter morning.  I am referring to getting to the end and saying something other than,”I made it” bitterly.   I had no idea how to do that.   The church seemed like a good place to look for that kind of help.  I wasn’t really thinking of it as a place to seek a relationship with God.  I was thinking more in terms of finding people who could offer me some support in the ensuing months or years.   

I saw it announced in the church bulletin one Sunday.  A new group was forming.  I think it was called “Living with Chronic Illness.”   That wasn’t quite my situation but I decided to give it a try.  I was totally new to this church so I did not know a soul – no pun intended.  

I arrived at the appointed time or a few minutes late as is my habit.   The door to the meeting room was closed.   I wanted to secretly peek in to see what was happening but there were no windows.   I put my hand on the door handle but I couldn’t turn it.   I let go of the door handle.   I was afraid- no terrified.   Was I afraid of facing my feelings?  Was I afraid of sharing my life with strangers?  Oh there were so many fears back then it was difficult to know.  If red was the color of fear my entire body would have glowed bright red.   I was shaking.  Something made me open the door a little bit.  People were sitting in a circle wearing name tags.  Ugh I hate name tags!   The leader saw me before I could close the door and escape.  I hope they don’t expect me to say anything I thought as I entered the room.

We talked and prayed at the “Living with Chronic Illness” group meetings. After all this was church.  I went through the motions of prayer.  I didn’t get anything out of it.  Maybe that’s because I didn’t really believe anyone was out there listening or at least anyone who cared.  Prayer to me was just empty words but the community of people, especially the leaders, did nourish me emotionally.  That is what kept me coming back.  I was staring into the dark, cold, black abyss of despair and anger.  At times I was totally immersed in it.   This group was a light in the darkness.  It was the only light.   I couldn’t talk about my life in the “real world.” 

“Don’t talk to your friends about what you are going through,” a woman whose husband had recently died from Lou Gehrig’s disease advised me.   “If you do you won’t have any friends,” she continued.   How sad that she was right!  God not only afflicted us with terrible suffering but left us friendless and alone in the process.  Why should I talk to Him?  He obviously was not going to answer any of my prayers.  There was no way Brian was going to get better no matter how much I prayed.  I knew that.    I didn’t believe in miracles.

To Be Continued...

Have you ever been haunted by the what ifs of your life? ( Part Two)

          I am not writing this to escape any responsibility for the demise or failure of my relationship with Warren.  In fact the opposite is true.  I am not looking to play the blame game that our society so obsesses over.  I want to find my mistakes.  At times my recounting of the events of my life it may seem I am being unreasonably hard on the people in my life.  I don’t intend to portray them in a bad light.  Maybe it is just that I can see them more clearly than I see myself.  It is so very difficult if not impossible to see ourselves as others see us.  It is too scary!  I can see little bits and pieces of myself but not the whole picture.  Perhaps it is in only in seeing the whole picture that we can understand and forgive ourselves.  Maybe this writing exercise is an attempt to see the whole picture.

The failure of my recent relationship looms large over my life.  How could I have made such a mistake again?  A nebulous and infinite array of questions has hung over my life since my divorce from Warren. I can’t shake them. 

I wonder “what if” I had made this choice instead of that.  What if I had decided not to continue a relationship with Warren after the trip?  How would my life be now?  Would I be any happier or more content?  Would I be more successful?  Would I have more and better connections to friends?  Would I feel less lonely?  Would I have made less costly emotional and financial mistakes?  Would I have experienced less stress and heartache?  I am haunted by those roads not travelled.  They keep tugging me backwards to the past and I so want to live in the present.

I can’t seem to shake it no matter how hard I try.  It even overshadows my state of contentment in my new city and with my new life.  I am haunted by this feeling that somehow my life would have turned out better or at least been easier if I had chosen a different path(s) than the one I did choose.  Of course “choice” may be the wrong word.  I tell myself everything turned out as it should be but that doesn’t stop the pull from the past. So I have embarked on this intellectual journey.  Did I make the “right” choices?  Is there a “right” choice?  How did I get to where I am?  What were the forces that lead me to choose the roads I did?  Where would I be if I had chosen differently or taken the roads not travelled?

Death and Love Together

           Why do we have such a fear of the unknown?  Why do we torture ourselves with wild imaginings of what lies ahead?  Have you ever noticed that our anxiety or dread of a future event is almost always worse than the actual event?  In my experience the fear surrounding the end of a relationship is usually much worse than the reality after it ends.  I have discovered that there is one exception to that general rule.

            We met through work.  We didn’t work at the same company.  Our paths just randomly crossed and we were thrown together working toward what eventually became a common goal. Brian is the one who transformed an adversarial situation into a cooperative business venture from which we could both benefit.  He had a real knack for or intuition for bringing people together in a business setting.  It was so sad that the exact opposite was true in his personal life.  From my observations it seems that it is exactly those qualities that make people successful in the business world that make them unsuccessful in their personal life.  Brian was, to put it mildly, a very intense and demanding person.  He was also very charismatic and charming.  I was a little put off by his intensity.  If he wanted something it was no holds barred and for some reason he wanted to have a relationship with me.  It was a little scary but also very flattering.

Brian and I knew each other for four or five years before we married.  We were able to evaluate, somewhat rationally, all the baggage that came along with the other person.  He could readily see that I had three very young children.  He had one young child.  It was not so easy to identify our respective emotional and relationship issues.  Still, during that time we were able to see each other with all our warts.  There was something between us that made us want to connect in spite of our issues.  That desire made us willing to work on connecting with each other.  Why we were both so willing to do such hard work is still a mystery to me.  There was something that brought us and held us together.  Was that something a genuine and enduring love for each other?

It was wonderful to finally have some adult companionship and support.  It was a relief to have someone to share the responsibilities and stresses of life.  Brian genuinely loved my children.  His love seemed to flow naturally – not contrived at all.  Maybe when you really love the other person you love what they love or all that comes with them.  That is not to say we didn’t have issues between us regarding the children just that they didn’t derail our relationship permanently as they had the potential to do. 

I think the fact that we saw and acknowledged each other’s warts made us love each other more.  We didn’t have to be expending all our energy trying to be, pretending to be perfect or protecting our perfect image.  We were slowly tearing away our respective protective shrouds to reveal our true selves to each other.  Romance, infatuation and all the baggage we bring to relationship can be transformed into real love.  It is of course a process.  Brian and I were working on that.

            “I don’t want any more children.  If that is important to you we should stop seeing each other,” I said to Brian one day as we were driving to attend a business event.  I am not sure why I brought the subject up at that moment.  We had been seeing each other for a while by this time but we had not yet discussed marriage.  Brian never said anything directly about that subject but we continued to see each other.  I think he understood how much I had struggled as a single parent of three young children.

Isn’t it odd how life’s most routine events end up, later, having the biggest impact on our lives.  This was one of those situations.  I made my annual visit to the gynecologist.  There was a problem.  The doctor asked me to return.  It was described to me as potentially very serious so I asked Brian to come with me.  We had been married a few years by this time.  That is how we both came to be seated in the doctor’s office on this particular day.

“You have a condition that will require the removal of your uterus – a hysterectomy.  I know that you mentioned to me that you might want to have more children.  If you do want another child you should do it now,” the doctor said to Brian and me.  Brian and I were seated next to each other.  We turned, looked at each other and said “yes” to each other with our eyes.  We seemed to have an ability to communicate without speaking – at least regarding some issues.  We never had an actual verbal conversation ever about having a child together.  We instinctively knew it was the right thing to do.

 I was 37 years old at that time. Brian was older.  Good Lord!  That would make 7 children between us with the new one being 9 ½ years younger than its next closest sibling.  I figured that, by making this decision, I added 10 years to my full time parenting years.  In the ensuing months of my pregnancy when I would become anxious or question the soundness of my decision I would remind myself that I would not be doing it all alone this time.  I know Brian sensed my fears.  He had a knack for reassuring me in a very real way without words.  I can’t explain it any better than that.  Brian was a very involved husband and father.  I knew he would share the burdens, responsibilities and joys with me.  I so wanted to share the experience of parenting a child.  In addition to shouldering the financial and physical burdens alone, life as a single parent it is a very lonely experience emotionally.

“What’s wrong with your arm?”  I asked Brian.  He had been moving his right arm in circles and rubbing it for several minutes.  “It feels a little numb.  I think it might be a pinched nerve,” he replied.  We had just completed our morning swim together.  Brian and I carved out certain times to be alone together as a couple.  That was something of a challenge as we had my three young children full time and regular visits with his daughter.  We both worked at demanding jobs.  In the summer time we would wake up early in the morning and swim laps together.  We had a beautiful backyard and after swimming we would sit together for a brief time and talk over a cup of coffee.  “It will probably go away on its own,” Brian said to me.  “If it doesn’t I will make an appointment with the doctor after the baby is born.  It is probably a pinched nerve in my neck.  I have already been through this once before with my back,” Brian continued.

“Are you still grieving?” she asked.  I was taken aback.  After all 14 years had passed.  I had just answered a question regarding why Gary’s father wasn’t attending the swim meet to watch Gary.   I felt a few tears on my cheeks.  “Some part of me will always grieve for what I lost,” I replied.

A couple of weeks after Brian first complained about his arm our son, Gary, was born.  Brian was ecstatic. He had always wanted a son.  He was a rather macho guy.  I didn’t hold that against him.  Being a mother again was exhilarating and I was pleasantly surprised by that.  For the past three years we had been working hard to blend our families.  This baby accomplished in a moment what we had been unable to do in years.  We all finally had a common bond or connection– a baby that we all loved and adored.  I pinched myself to see if I was awake.  Life was so great it had to be a dream. 

            “Samuel, Jessica, Ellen, Bridget can you all please come into the family room,” I yelled.  Several different voices chimed in asking why we wanted them all right then or asking if they could come in a few minutes.  “No we need everyone here right now,” I said firmly.  There was the sound of pounding feet or was maybe it just the pounding of my heart as Brian and I waited for everyone to arrive.  Brian was seated in the middle of the sectional sofa. Samuel sat down right next to him.  I don’t remember where the girls sat.  I was holding Gary in my arms.  They were all looking at Brian eagerly waiting for him to announce plans for our next family vacation.

            “I am going to die,” Brian said.  No one moved. No one made a sound.  Even Gary was quiet in my arms.  “I have a terminal illness.  There is no treatment or cure.  I don’t know how long I have to live,” Brian continued.  Samuel’s head was bowed and he was quietly crying.  I could see the tears dropping onto his shirt.  I felt the tears on my face as I hugged Gary close to me.  Should I let the children see me cry I wondered?  They are already losing one parent.  If they see me cry will they be afraid they are losing both parents?  I didn’t want them to think I didn’t love Brian.  On the other hand I didn’t want to make life more traumatic than it already was for them.

It was surreal how the routines of life pushed the illness into the background.  They acted like a salve.  But the knowledge of illness and death was always there – like a dark specter following you and haunting you everywhere you went.  The only relief was sleep at least some of the time.

            You see Brian had gone to visit the doctor as he promised.  That night, as our two week old infant slept in his crib next to our bed, Brian told me the doctor thought he had ALS.  They wanted to do more tests to be certain.  I had never heard of ALS before.  Brian gently explained to me what it was and told me that there was no treatment or cure.  I was numb.  Somehow I was able to sleep.

“How do you live with this pain every day?  How do you get up every day and do the things that need to be done knowing that one of the persons you love most in the world is dying a little more each day that passes?”  I asked Walt.  He was a marriage counselor Brian and I had been going to see, on and off, for several years.  I didn’t really expect him to have an answer although I secretly hoped he might have even some small insight.  Walt just looked at me with eyes that mirrored the despair in mine.  He had no answers, not even any insights.

 This was unchartered territory.  There were no road maps and no guideposts to be found.  There were no instruction manuals.  Doctors provide the information regarding the physical progression of the disease but they have absolutely no information regarding the emotional aspect.  I felt like I was falling off a cliff with no safety net.  There was no hope that Brian would survive and I was starting to think there was no hope that I would survive either.

The demands of daily living came to my rescue.  They numbed me to the pain.  I felt like a zombie.  I was physically present and functioning but emotionally I was absent.  My physical body or shell performed the daily tasks but there was nothing inside. 

  Many years have passed yet I still get overcome with emotion as I write this.  I am both sad and angry and everything in between.  My emotions run the gauntlet.  The past still has a powerful hold over me.  Is that true for everyone or am I just weird?

I believe that some wounds are so deep they never completely heal.  It is as if a piece has been ripped out of your heart leaving a huge gaping hole.  In the beginning the edges of the wound are shredded, torn, raw and bleeding.  The pain is excruciating and constant.  Over time the wound begins to heal but the hole remains.  If you touch the hole you no longer experience a sharp, stabbing pain as you did when the wound was new.  But the wound is still tender enough that a touch can bring tears to your eyes.  For me certain memories “touch” the wound. 

 My wound has remained tender for many, many years and I expect it will remain in this condition for the remainder of my days.  I have come to accept that this wound will never completely heal.  In some ways that is a good thing as it reminds me of some of the important lessons I learned from that horrendous experience.  I learned to be grateful for what I do have and not to get distracted by less important things.  It also has its dark side.  If I am not careful, I can find myself travelling down that dark and well trod path of anger and bitterness.

            “Get your affairs in order and prepare to die,” the doctor said to Brian when he gave us the final diagnosis.  “There is no treatment or cure.  The average life span after the onset of symptoms is 3 years,” the doctor continued.  Brian asked some specific questions.  Why is it that we often find comfort in knowledge?  It is as if we believe a bunch of facts can change the outcome or ease the pain.  I didn’t really listen to the conversation between Brian and the doctor.  I listened to the sound of Brian’s voice thinking that I wouldn’t be hearing that for much longer.  I was startled back to what was happening when the doctor spoke the word “coffin”.  “It is often called the coffin disease because you are trapped in a dead and lifeless body.  The brain is never affected by the disease,” the doctor continued. 

Brian and I didn’t explain all of this to the children when we returned from the doctor’s office.  I am not sure I ever really explained it to them.  They were still in shock from the initial announcement.  The children weren’t interested in details.  I think it would have made things worse for them.  They would have something else, in addition to death, to dread. 

            For the previous six months our life had been a series of highs and lows as we lived through a myriad of medical tests that would confirm or maybe even reject that diagnosis.  ALS is a cruel disease. The emotional devastation begins long before the physical deterioration manifests itself.  It started as we waited for the confirmation of the initial diagnosis.  The only way to diagnosis ALS is by a process of elimination.  If it doesn’t fit the pattern for other diseases then it must, by default, be ALS.  I think we were given the final diagnosis at Christmas.

          TO BE CONTINUED...

Your experiences

I would love for you to share your personal stories or experiences. You can post them anonymously.

I apologize that I failed to mention that  I was out of town last week and wouldn't be posting. I will be back on track for posting at least twice a week starting today or tomorrow.

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?