Forgiveness

It is such a relief for me when I extend forgiveness.  That grudge gets so darn heavy after a while.  And I don't even realize I'm being crushed under the weight of it.  Clever, insidious deception.

Someone recently posted on FaceBook that, "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."  You KNOW it's true.  And yet, we hang on to and nurse some grudges FOREVER.  Why?  Because it feels good.  But why does it feel good?  Negative feelings have an energy that is very powerful and make me feel very superior to whomever the grudge is against.  My grudge allows me to believe I am a better person than the one I'm grudging.  How incredibly ridiculous and contrary is that?

The opposite of grudging is forgiving.  And the difference between their two energies is something that is kind of scary if you really take it to task and determine the source of the "energy".   At first, for me, the thought of forgiving is repulsive.  So I have to ask myself, why would forgiving EVER be repulsive???   And if I take it to the core, it's because I'm filled with what I believe is righteous indignation--that person DESERVES to be raked over the coals.  And imagining that happening is so...satisfying.  Oh ya.  And for a few happy minutes I'm blissfully seeing their demise.  Who Am I????  Yuck.

About three years ago I had an experience with forgiving someone that has had a profound effect on my life.  It's hard to express what it's done to me.  But its ramifications have been far-reaching and powerful in a way I could never have anticipated. 

I went through an extremely rough divorce about 20 years ago.  It came along with the ugliness that most divorces have...custody battles, custodial interference issues, children's loyalties being tested and all the ridiculous, stupid, selfish, horrible things that divorce brings out.  Now, you'll only hear my side of this because that's what I have.  I won't exaggerate or lie, but in order for anyone to fully comprehend and understand what happens years down the road, you have to understand what went on before. 

We got married when we were 19.  I got pregnant about seven months later.  I lost that baby in its fifth month.  I was so young, so scared and so immature.  That event caused my husband to lose a lot of respect for me, I believe--because all I wanted at the time was my mother.  It took me a long time to miscarry.  I bled on and off for several months.  Finally, a perfect little baby boy was born on December 5.  He only lived a few hours.  That devastating event took a heavy toll on a young and fragile union.  Three years later we tried again and proceeded then to have a perfect little boy.  My then-husband was moving up in the ranks at work and spent little time at home.  I can't say I was ever especially interested in sex and rarely initiated it.  My husband was, I realize now, a sex addict.  Bad combo.  Anyway, nine months after I had Ryan, I became pregnant with Cassie.  During that time, one of my husband's employees lost her young daughter and we attended the funeral.  My husband's assistant Karen, attended the funeral as well and we were both about six months pregnant, comparing our bellies and talking shop, enjoying the camaraderie that pregnant women have.

Jump ahead three years or so.  The marriage is on the rocks.  He becomes domineering and controlling and I turn into someone who allows that crap.  He had complete control over the finances.  My name was removed from the checking account but I was expected to pay the bills.  The way I had to do this was to make a list of bills for him and he would write me a check to cover the amount.  I'd go to the bank and get money orders for each bill--fifteen to twenty separate bills.  I learned very quickly that if I wanted any pocket money, I had to pad those bills.  And I did--with glee at getting away with it. 

One night he didn't come home.  I was used to him coming home late occasionally, but not just not showing up.  I don't remember ever really having any suspicions that anything was going on.  I think I did pack the kids up in the car and go looking for him.  Finally around 3:00 a.m. he came home and he looked different than I'd ever seen him.  He told me he "wanted out".  There was not a moment's hesitation on my part.  I said, "Okay".  He moved out shortly after that--in with another woman, but wouldn't stop coming over.  So I decided to move out.  I moved into this roach-ridden apartment with my two precious babies and life went on. 

In the meantime, Mark had been promoted and moved to Indiana to open up a manufacturing plant there.  He and I began to communicate and pretty soon resolved to put our marriage back together.  We'd never divorced, so it was simply a matter of my moving back to Indiana with him.  Prior to agreeing to being together again, he felt he needed to divulge to me that he had another child.  That child was the same age as Cassie.  It was his and Karen's--his assistant.  To this day, I'm pretty sure he told me that they'd had another child too, but my memory is foggy there.  Doesn't really matter I guess.  I think for Ryan's and Cassie's sakes, I let it just roll off my back after the shock of it wore off.  Karen and Mark had chosen not to become a "family" and the affair was over.  Actually, Karen was married too, and her husband was sterile.  He believed that the baby Karen and Mark conceived was his miracle child. 

We became a family and lived in Indian together for four years.  Good years, I believed.  I got pregnant with Meggie and gave birth to her on the first sunny day Kokomo, Indiana had seen in weeks.  However, shortly before she was born, two weeks before Christmas, and right after we'd bought our home, Mark was fired.  I imagine this was devastating to Mark's ego.  It was certainly devastating to our budget.  But, being the man he was, Mark hit the ground running and somehow we survived for another three years in Kokomo.  However, I became critically homesick.  Big Baby Homesick.  I wanted to move back to Phoenix.  I hated Indiana.  And I'm sure I made it known.  Finally, Mark sent me and the kids back to Phoenix to investigate those possibilities, find us a home and he'd follow after selling our home and closing his business he'd begun. 

Well, he never followed.  He met and married, and is still married, to Gerri.  The divorce that ensued was bitter, nasty and long.  He made a trip to Arizona to visit the kids and to take them back to Indiana for the summer later that year.  The divorce was still not complete.  At the end of the summer, he returned the girls, but kept Ryan.  I had to move in with my parents for financial reasons and stayed there for quite some time.  I eventually found a low paying job and moved my girls and me into the ghettos of Sunnyslope.  The divorce papers went through and I lost custody of my precious son.  I could not afford an attorney and I had zero funds to fight him.  Ryan would now be separated not only from me for the remainder of his growing years, but also from his sisters. 

For several years, a battle ensued.  Child support was whittled down to $40.00 a week--and was rarely paid.  He lied often and without conscience about his income.  I didn't have money to pour into a divorce.  I had to take what was offered.  I did put up a good fight through the judge and occasionally won some small battle, but for the most part, I and my girls were the losers in this never-ending battle.  He often threatened to fight me for custody of the girls--and I truly believe to this day that it was nothing but a threat meant to scare me because the girls just never seemed that important to him.  I had to resort one summer to calling the Sheriff's office in Kokomo pleading custodial interference in order to get him to put the girls on the plane to return from their summer visit.  And I think he did this just to be spiteful and mean.  I know he loved his girls, but he and Gerri did not have the accommodations to house two more children.  He resorted in the years to come to calling me an unfit mother, telling the courts I slept around and any other horrible thing he could think of to make me look unfit.  It was awful.  We fought nasty.  He rarely paid his child support.  The girls and I lived in poverty--enough to qualify for state welfare assistance.  I only got to see Ryan once a year and I did not have the funds to fly to Indiana to see him.  Mark managed to work up a debt of $4,000-$5,000 in child support within a couple of years and persisted in his unfounded attacks on my character and my mothering abilities. 

I endured years and years of this.  The children grew older, the battles changed in nature.  Every summer was the fight to get my girls home.  It never got easier until the kids were out of high school.  But there was always some conflict.  I know I was no angel, but I can say in all honesty that I never set out to cause trouble, strip someone of their dignity, or instill fear for the pleasure of it.  I got nasty when I had to, probably said more in front of the girls than I should have and delighted when he experienced a set back.  I wasn't a saint.  I made some bad decisions.  Decisions I still regret. 

Eventually, I remarried (the reason for this blog in the first place), the children became adults, and my youngest decided to go to college in Indiana.  I'm sure Mark used his powers of persuasion to coerce this and Meg didn't get along with Ron, so it was pretty much a done deal.  I was devastated to say the least, but knew that Meg needed to follow her heart.

  I also had found a church that ministered to my needs and became a child redeemed.  My love for the Lord blossomed and I began to see things differently--through a different lens.  My worldview had shifted.  Meg left and Ron and I were actually empty-nesters.  Cass had married and pregnant, and Ryan was living on his own in another city going to ASU. 

I decided, because Meg was so homesick, to go and visit her in Indiana.  She was living with her dad and step-mom so I knew this could be a little tricky.

I'll continue this tomorrow....