It was a lovely late summer day; sunny and warm outside. My daughter and son-in-law had gone to the Big City to conduct some business, the 4 children and a friend were all at home as were my husband and i. Everyone was in various parts of the house doing their thing. i was in our bedroom at the back of the house and my husband was in the living room on his computer. It was around noon and i heard the kids running through the house. i asked one of them what was going on and i was told that the oldest sister was taking them out for lunch. That was pretty unusual but i thought it was a nice thing to do. After they left, i went out to ask my husband if he wanted lunch, which he did. i fixed us something, we ate together and went back to our various activities.
A little while later my daughter and son-in-law came home sans children. i came out to greet them and i could tell by the looks on their faces that something was very wrong. My daughter had been crying and my son-in-law looked angry. My daughter went straight to their bedroom and my son-in-law told me to go with her as she had something to tell me. He stayed in the living room with my husband. As i entered the bedroom my daughter's face told me that something very serious had happened. She then began to tell me amid tears that my husband had molested her then-10 year old daughter (my granddaughter). R (the granddaughter) had had presence of mind (and good training) to go to her older sister, use her phone and call her parents. They told the older sister to take all of the children out of the house immediately and to stay away until sent for. My daughter and son-in-law left right away for home with a stop on the way at the pastor's house for prayer and counsel.
My son-in-law had talked to my husband who admitted what he had done. He was told to pack a bag and to leave the house immediately. When i left my daughter, my husband was in our bedroom packing some things preparing to leave. i was so overwrought and in shock i didn't even know what to say to him. i kept repeating "What have you done?" He admitted to me that he had done it but said he had no idea why and that he had never done anything like that before or even had a thought of it. in a few more minutes he was gone and my life was forever changed.
to be continued.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Chapter 4
So, in January, 2013 my husband and i moved out of our big, old home in Kansas to start a new life in the Pacific Northwest. i was very excited about it as the PNW is the place i feel most at home but there were also a few concerns. i had lived my entire life in the midwest ~ Nebraska and Kansas ~ with a 3 year stint in Colorado. Even though it wasn't always pleasant there, it was at least familiar. 2 of my children live in the midwest and my sister lives in Colorado; i was moving farther away from all of them and as before i could get in the car and go visit them, now i could not. i was ready for something new, however, so off we went. The trip was 4 days on the road with the first night being spent at my youngest daughter's house in Kansas, the second night at my sister-in-law's in W. Nebraska (also visiting my middle daughter and her family) and the third night in a motel at my husband's request as it was his birthday. In spite of the fact that we moved in mid-January we encountered no bad weather on the way. Quite a miracle, i think.
My daughter and son-in-law then offered us their attached garage and we had some plans drawn up to add on to it and make that our living space. The architect came up with some very good plans and we were excited to get moving on it when we talked to the contractors. The cost of converting their garage into living quarters for us was astronomical! At least to our thinking. We wanted to pay cash but we didn't have nearly enough, so once again ~ back to the drawing board. We started looking at used manufactured homes but they were either also too expensive, too small or in bad shape. Needless to say, i was getting rather discouraged at this point. We had been living in the back bedroom for nearly 6 months and i was ready for my own place. The family was extremely gracious and considerate of us but there's nothing like having one's own home.
We then went back to the manufactured home sales lot that we had visited originally and Lo and Behold! they had a new model that was very nice, good-sized and most importantly of all ~ affordable! We were able to choose color schemes, flooring and a few other options. It was so exciting! Now we just had to wait for the house to be built. i admit to having a hard time waiting but by the end of July it was finished and it was being delivered to our site. (We had spent the previous month doing dirt work, taking out trees, putting in the septic, etc.) Finally! there it was. i was so anxious to move in but i had to wait a few more weeks for everything to be put together, hooked up and inspected.
And then, my world turned upside down.
to be continued...
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Journal Entry
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
i am so up and down these days. i had felt that i was making good progress in acceptance with living this life and then i am hit with very emotional days. Days when i don't want to get out of bed. When i lay on the couch all day hoping the L's don't notice how down i am. They would worry. i sailed through Valentine's Day and was a mess for 2 days after.
Last night i don't think i got more than 4 hours sleep. Why? I have no idea ~ i just couldn't sleep so i listened to An Echo In the Bone, played solitaire, worked several crossword puzzles. Now, today, even on 4 hours sleep i feel more like doing something. What gives?
i know that i am making progress in acceptance. i can sit in church on Sunday morning and not want to weep when i see the married couples together. i can move about my house without the continual ache of "aloneness"; it is there sometimes but not continually. i can get in my car to run errands and not think that someone else should be here with me. There are more days than ever now when i go about my day just doing what i do without the pain of loss. i don't think "This isn't right!" much anymore. i think all of this indicates progress. i think it will always be a work in progress.
i am so up and down these days. i had felt that i was making good progress in acceptance with living this life and then i am hit with very emotional days. Days when i don't want to get out of bed. When i lay on the couch all day hoping the L's don't notice how down i am. They would worry. i sailed through Valentine's Day and was a mess for 2 days after.
Last night i don't think i got more than 4 hours sleep. Why? I have no idea ~ i just couldn't sleep so i listened to An Echo In the Bone, played solitaire, worked several crossword puzzles. Now, today, even on 4 hours sleep i feel more like doing something. What gives?
i know that i am making progress in acceptance. i can sit in church on Sunday morning and not want to weep when i see the married couples together. i can move about my house without the continual ache of "aloneness"; it is there sometimes but not continually. i can get in my car to run errands and not think that someone else should be here with me. There are more days than ever now when i go about my day just doing what i do without the pain of loss. i don't think "This isn't right!" much anymore. i think all of this indicates progress. i think it will always be a work in progress.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Chapter 3
Picking up where i left off nearly 4 months ago, i will continue my life story with Chapter 3. After 20 years of marriage to a very troubled, alcoholic man i believed that God had released me from my vows to him and we divorced. At the time of the divorce i discovered that he had also been unfaithful to me over the years. At the time i discovered this fact, it really didn't matter any more; my heart was cold toward him. He left and there i was ~ starting over. i was nearly 39 years old with 3 almost grown daughters and a toddler son. My oldest daughter was taking a year off from college to work and was living in another city with my sister's family while she worked as a nanny and my second daughter had just graduated from high school, taken a job in a nearby town and gotten an apartment. My youngest daughter was entering her senior year of high school and my son was 2 1/2 years old. i was scared to death. i had no job skills and had only worked outside the home for 3 years when the girls were much younger. i did not want to put my son in daycare so i decided to become the daycare. i became licensed and took several little ones into my home during the day. It was hectic and crazy at times, but i really enjoyed it. i was able to earn a bit of money and stay home with my son. i was earning "a bit" of money and looking back on that year i have no idea how i paid the bills, bought groceries, etc but i did. God took good care of us as i received no child support or help from my husband in any way. He took his newest girlfriend and left the state and we were not to hear a word from him for many years.
So, to continue Chapter 3, there was a family who lived down the street who had 2 children about the same ages as my 3 girls. The kids had been fast friends but there was no relationship between the parents. After my husband left, the man from down the street spoke to me one day while i was taking my son for a walk in the stroller. He told me that his wife had left him a while ago. That was news to me. He started calling, taking me out for a coke, etc. i knew him ~ or thought i did~ as we had been neighbors for 14 years. i was divorced and he began courting me in earnest. There were a few "quirky" things about him but nothing that raised a big red flag. Frankly, i was so afraid that i could not take care of my family and as he appeared to be a good provider and all around nice guy i accepted when he proposed marriage 6 months later. (Now i know that things happened way too fast ~ i needed more time to process being alone, but fear took over.) Both of us being Christians, we prayed about our situation and i truly sought God's direction in the matter. He said he did too, and i have no reason to doubt him.
Over the next 24 years he and i shared a life and raised my son whom he adopted. We had moved to another state to make a fresh start. In the meantime, the 6 children finished growing up, going to college, marrying, starting a family and presenting us with 11 grandchildren all told. My oldest daughter and her family had moved half of a continent away to a beautiful area of the country and they wanted us to come and move near them. After 3 years of trying to sell our house, it finally happened. We sold our house, packed up all of our worldly good and moved halfway across the country to begin our retirement years.
To be continued...
So, to continue Chapter 3, there was a family who lived down the street who had 2 children about the same ages as my 3 girls. The kids had been fast friends but there was no relationship between the parents. After my husband left, the man from down the street spoke to me one day while i was taking my son for a walk in the stroller. He told me that his wife had left him a while ago. That was news to me. He started calling, taking me out for a coke, etc. i knew him ~ or thought i did~ as we had been neighbors for 14 years. i was divorced and he began courting me in earnest. There were a few "quirky" things about him but nothing that raised a big red flag. Frankly, i was so afraid that i could not take care of my family and as he appeared to be a good provider and all around nice guy i accepted when he proposed marriage 6 months later. (Now i know that things happened way too fast ~ i needed more time to process being alone, but fear took over.) Both of us being Christians, we prayed about our situation and i truly sought God's direction in the matter. He said he did too, and i have no reason to doubt him.
Over the next 24 years he and i shared a life and raised my son whom he adopted. We had moved to another state to make a fresh start. In the meantime, the 6 children finished growing up, going to college, marrying, starting a family and presenting us with 11 grandchildren all told. My oldest daughter and her family had moved half of a continent away to a beautiful area of the country and they wanted us to come and move near them. After 3 years of trying to sell our house, it finally happened. We sold our house, packed up all of our worldly good and moved halfway across the country to begin our retirement years.
To be continued...
Friday, August 1, 2014
Me, starting over...again
This is a blog i never expected to write. One that i never intended or planned to write. i did not plan to start over...again, ever. Sometimes circumstances take us by surprise, don't they? Maybe i shouldn't say "sometimes" but "usually" or "always". At least that's the way it seems to me.
i think of life as being composed of chapters as in a book. My book started at my birth and the first chapter covered the first 18 3/4 years of my life. i am the oldest of 4 children born into a middle-class, middle-America family. In many ways my family was quite dysfunctional but as many people who grow up in dysfunctional families, i didn't realize it until i was grown and other people pointed it out to me. At first i denied it; rejected the idea until i began, slowly, to see the truth of the matter. Now, m-a-n-y years later, i am still finding new truths about my upbringing. It was not awful, or abusive, just. . . dysfunctional. As a teen i became very angry and that anger continued for many years. i honestly didn't know what i was so very angry about but it was directed at my family and almost no one else.
Chapter 2 ~ During this very angry period, just after graduating high school, i met a young man just home from the Viet Nam war where he had been wounded. i thought it would be fun to date such an interesting person for a while, not expecting anything more than a "summer fling". Several months later, we married and over the next 3 years brought into the world 3 beautiful daughters. (A 4th child, a son, came along 14 years later.) Early in this marriage it became apparent that my husband was a raging alcoholic, a fact that did not surface until i was pregnant with our second daughter. The third daughter came along a year later and i peddled as fast as i could to hold the family together, keep them safe and as well fed as i could manage. He was unable to hold a job which made things more difficult. After a few years, at the urging of a neighbor, i attended a little Bible study group where i met the Lord and surrendered myself and my everything to Him. i had really hoped that this would make things better in my life and it did but not in the way i expected. My outer circumstances did not change and in fact in some ways got worse, but my inner being was strengthened and i was comforted and provided for in sometimes supernatural ways. My husband drank more and more heavily during those years although he went to alcohol treatment 3 times and maintained sobriety 3 times for 2 years each time. Each period of sobriety brought renewed hope that he could be delivered from the demons of alcohol. As i said, our son came along when our youngest daughter was 14 years old and with him came especially renewed hope for my husband to finally, once and for all, kick this addiction. He had wanted a son since the beginning of our marriage and he was so happy and proud to have one. He worked so hard. i prayed so hard. We all hoped so hard. It was not to be. When our son was 2 1/2 years old, my husband went back to drinking with a vengeance. i had hung on for as long as i could believing that, as a Christian, divorce was not an option but when he started drinking again, i knew in my heart of hearts that it was over. i believed (and still do believe) that at that time God released me from the vows i had taken 20 years before. Thus ended Chapter 2 of the story of my life.
To be continued...
(i don't know if anyone will read this blog; in fact, i don't care if they do. i am writing it for myself, as a kind of therapy but if anyone does read it, please know and remember that God does not make mistakes. His plan is perfect. His timing is perfect. He does all things well. That is the truth)
i think of life as being composed of chapters as in a book. My book started at my birth and the first chapter covered the first 18 3/4 years of my life. i am the oldest of 4 children born into a middle-class, middle-America family. In many ways my family was quite dysfunctional but as many people who grow up in dysfunctional families, i didn't realize it until i was grown and other people pointed it out to me. At first i denied it; rejected the idea until i began, slowly, to see the truth of the matter. Now, m-a-n-y years later, i am still finding new truths about my upbringing. It was not awful, or abusive, just. . . dysfunctional. As a teen i became very angry and that anger continued for many years. i honestly didn't know what i was so very angry about but it was directed at my family and almost no one else.
Chapter 2 ~ During this very angry period, just after graduating high school, i met a young man just home from the Viet Nam war where he had been wounded. i thought it would be fun to date such an interesting person for a while, not expecting anything more than a "summer fling". Several months later, we married and over the next 3 years brought into the world 3 beautiful daughters. (A 4th child, a son, came along 14 years later.) Early in this marriage it became apparent that my husband was a raging alcoholic, a fact that did not surface until i was pregnant with our second daughter. The third daughter came along a year later and i peddled as fast as i could to hold the family together, keep them safe and as well fed as i could manage. He was unable to hold a job which made things more difficult. After a few years, at the urging of a neighbor, i attended a little Bible study group where i met the Lord and surrendered myself and my everything to Him. i had really hoped that this would make things better in my life and it did but not in the way i expected. My outer circumstances did not change and in fact in some ways got worse, but my inner being was strengthened and i was comforted and provided for in sometimes supernatural ways. My husband drank more and more heavily during those years although he went to alcohol treatment 3 times and maintained sobriety 3 times for 2 years each time. Each period of sobriety brought renewed hope that he could be delivered from the demons of alcohol. As i said, our son came along when our youngest daughter was 14 years old and with him came especially renewed hope for my husband to finally, once and for all, kick this addiction. He had wanted a son since the beginning of our marriage and he was so happy and proud to have one. He worked so hard. i prayed so hard. We all hoped so hard. It was not to be. When our son was 2 1/2 years old, my husband went back to drinking with a vengeance. i had hung on for as long as i could believing that, as a Christian, divorce was not an option but when he started drinking again, i knew in my heart of hearts that it was over. i believed (and still do believe) that at that time God released me from the vows i had taken 20 years before. Thus ended Chapter 2 of the story of my life.
To be continued...
(i don't know if anyone will read this blog; in fact, i don't care if they do. i am writing it for myself, as a kind of therapy but if anyone does read it, please know and remember that God does not make mistakes. His plan is perfect. His timing is perfect. He does all things well. That is the truth)
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