On D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

Wanna know what I think of divorce? I wish I could answer that in a sentence or two. Instead, my mind races all over everywhere about what it is like.

For forty plus years, I had no idea what divorced people really felt like. I still couldn’t say that I know how anyone else feels, because we all experience things in very different ways. And until about two years ago, I never in my wildest imagination thought that I would ever be a divorced person. It still hits me in strange ways, pretty much every single day. And it absolutely does a number on your self-esteem.

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about divorce, what led up to it, who was involved in how and why it happened, and on and on. It is complex. It is somewhat mystifying. And because I don’t need to air everyone’s dirty laundry, I won’t share the gory details of it all. Nevertheless, divorce does not happen in a vacuum; there are often numerous layers and players, and a whole boatload of misunderstandings and misperceptions.

One thing that I feel fairly certain of is, there are things that happened before this life that we likely are not conscious of. But I absolutely believe we were involved in some way and quite possibly made agreements/contracts with others. Others that need our help, others that we need help from, people who will have information that we need here, contracts regarding our learning here and who will help us do that. I have wondered to myself if my 40 yr. marriage was just that, a contract for 40 years. (I half-jokingly posted, on our 40th anniversary in August of 2019, that we had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, but so far had not found the promised land. I said that because there were so many unresolved issues that I honestly did not know if we were going to make it any further.) We would fall in love, marry, raise our family, and eventually a pot would get stirred, issues would not get resolved, and that would bring us to the place where we came to the end of the contract. It is one way I can begin to make peace with a situation that I cannot change. 

We all have our agency. We make choices and decisions that not only affect us, but affect others. Others’ agency is constantly bumping into our own. We don’t always know what others will do, or why they will do what they do. We can’t always make sense of their choices, and sometimes we can’t make sense of our own! I do know that one person’s agency, one person’s decision to deal with their “stuff” in the manner that they did, had a profound effect on our ability to sort through our differences, to come together on solutions, and to resolve what came bubbling up to the surface. I don’t blame anyone else for the problems that we faced, but those problems, due to another’s choices, became so large that it was best to go our separate ways and put an end to the pain that occurs when spouses have expectations from one another that are not being met.

I re-read an article the other day, "The Silent Killer of Relationships," something I had seen some time ago. The author attended a seminar where the presenter asked what the number one reason is that people get divorced. The author, who thought he was so smart and knew exactly the right answer, said “Sex, finances and communication,” and the presenter said, “Wrong!” The number one reason is “unmet expectations.” And sure enough, that would describe my feelings exactly, and I feel fairly certain it describes my ex’s feelings as well. For me, when the one person in the family dished out their “issues” in the way that they did, it was my expectation that my spouse would prioritize things, and me, in a particular way. When that did not occur, and after nearly three years of going up and down and all around the troubles and what was behind them, it became evident that, due to deeply ingrained things, nothing was going to change. He may well have a similar story to tell.

Consequently, we are a family divided, fragmented. There is no joy for me in a family gathering, as there once was. (And we haven’t had one with everyone since Christmas 2018, which was painful for me.) I have an arch-enemy that helped this all get going, who influenced others, and who remains firmly on one side with no apparent desire to try to resolve any of it. If I have learned anything here, it is that, as adults, we cannot “make” anyone do anything. We can hope, we can pray, we can invite, but we cannot force. And when someone has planted their heels firmly in the ground, our best choice is to let it go. That isn’t to say that we are relieved of the commandment to forgive, because we are not, but we can also let go of any expectation that someone else will ever change how they think and feel, or are willing to at least take a look at a situation from other perspectives. And because “hanging onto” the idea that someone else will change, and it does not happen as years go by, is terribly painful and energy-sucking, then letting go is a matter of survival. 

I have been labeled a narcissist. I have been called abusive. I have been accused of never apologizing. I have been told that I always have to be right about everything. I have been accused of posting passive-aggressively to my family members on social media. It was insinuated that I was having an affair. If I was truly all of the things that I have been accused of, and there were more, I, quite frankly, wouldn’t want anything to do with me either!  But that is one person’s proclaimed perception, although their influence on others has been profound. But their perception does not make it the truth. Painful? Yes. Truthful? No. 

I have very little interaction with some of my grandsons. I’m certain they have heard all manner of things about their nana, and it is one of the most painful things imaginable. Or, it is the most painful thing imaginable. I can’t go and “clear the record,” and tell them that what they are hearing is not true. I have no place undermining a parent, and I would not do so, even if it leaves me looking like the spawn of Satan. My wounds are gaping though, and my only balm is knowing that God knows the truth, He knows every single thing about me, and he knows my heart intimately. It is also helpful that a therapist, after several years of time spent together, has very different conclusions than the mix that was sent my way. Particularly with the narcissist accusation, the therapist said, “I have visited with every member of your family. I have been doing this for almost 40 years. Trust me, I know a narcissist when I meet one! You are simply not a narcissist.” But that particular accusation has caught hold and fanned the flames of this entire situation to the point that there is no longer a reason to attempt to disprove it. Sometimes people need to believe certain things in order for them to be “right” about some of their own deeper feelings and beliefs, and another person becomes their “evidence” to make them right. This is all tied in with perception but not always with truth. 

I am learning how to live life on my own. Not because I want to, but because I need to. I researched and bought tires for the car that I now own alone. I had to take it in for an oil leak. (And hallelujah! I've found a repair shop, thanks to one of my daughters, that does not try to to take advantage of women who may not know a lot about car repairs. A blessing!) I replaced all of the smoke alarms in my house yesterday, even the one on the vaulted ceiling above my bed. I nearly broke my neck trying to figure out how to reach it with the soft mattress below, but after a couple of misfires, I figured out a safe way to do it. I climbed the ladder and replaced bulbs in my garage door opener, then 3 of 4 bulbs in my kitchen. It’s not that I haven’t done some of these things before (well, I’ve replaced batteries in a smoke alarm, but not the whole dang thing!), but I never had to do them, or had to do them without assistance. I reprogrammed my garage opener remote. I nearly started the house on fire with a bag of popcorn in the microwave (which is how I learned that the smoke alarms were no longer working!) and coughed and choked my way out of the house with the dogs, who had been cowering in corners because of the thick smoke. 

With the holidays poised to arrive, I am having to rethink just about everything. I had a patient ask me the other day if I decorated for Halloween. Hmm, well I used to! I made a lot of things, I’ve bought a few things (I am definitely not big into Halloween), but the joy is gone. All of those things are connected to a life that is no longer mine. In fact, the majority of my decor for these three holidays will go to my ex or be donated to a thrift store. My heart just isn’t in it anymore, at least not into the things that are painful reminders of what once was but will never again be. 

I am shopping for a smaller Christmas tree so that I am able, by myself, to get it off the high garage shelf and then put it together without assistance, even though I love the tree that we bought three Christmases ago. It’s just too heavy for me. And it already holds too many memories. I have 40 years’ worth of sentimental ornaments that represent different interests and years of my life, and our family's lives, that I have no interest in anymore. Life has to be adapted to the circumstances, and these are mine. Adapt, migrate or die, right? That’s what I learned in science class in 7th grade! I’d like to not migrate or die, so I am busily attempting to adapt.

I get to call the exterminator and see if he can come out again and help me find where the mice have access to my basement because the last hole that was plugged didn’t stop them. I am planning to have my floors redone and will have to hire someone to do them. I can be distrustful of hired folks coming into my home, but I am determined to make life work with what I have been given. And if I get Covid, I suppose I’ll lay upstairs in my bed until I can no longer breathe and then I’ll get a little trip to the other side. (My hospice patients might be jealous of that!) There’s no one in the family that could or would help care for me (can’t be exposed because of kids, or others with precarious health). It is all a bit sobering, but I go through each day trusting God, knowing that He is aware of even me. If I am to remain on this earth much longer, it will be because that is His plan.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I am feeling sorry for myself. A good 90% of the time, I am not. I do struggle with this whole year of “oddities” that make my life extra challenging while I adapt to this gigantic change. But I am thankful for so many things, and I work hard to focus on that as I navigate these new trails. I have a few friends that check on me now and again. I have one really good friend that is a safety net if I start to spiral down. My emotions are finding themselves on the roller coaster rides at every amusement park there is! One moment I’m feeling pretty okay, and the next moment I feel incredibly hurt and cannot stop the tears. Even in a day, I can go from one extreme to another, and yet another. 

I am trying hard to be kind to myself, to give myself some space. But even in the expression of some of my feelings, related or not to the divorce, I’ve had others bail out on me. Sometimes people don't know that when you go through something this life-changing, this painful, that your emotions can be raw and possibly your ability to cope can be diminished. If I’ve offended anyone as I have attempted to make my way through this exquisitely painful experience, I am very sorry. Sometimes I’m not even sure that it is the same “me” in this body that moves through this life. I feel different. I feel shocked. I feel out of sorts. I feel a heaviness that won’t leave. Some days I feel like getting out of bed is really too much to ask of me. But there are dogs to feed, patients to see, and life yet left to live.

So I get up and force myself until I am back into gear and can show up in the ways and places that I need to. 

And then I thank God, again and again, for His unending love, His compassion, His understanding, His perfect judgment, and His all-encompassing mercy and grace. With Him on my team, I can keep playing in the game until I'm on the final stretch, making my way home, and the Referee calls "Safe!" What a game it is! 

Forty-Four and Two-Thirds Years to Be Exact

I met him at 6 a.m. seminary in October of 1975. I was 15 and he was just about to turn 18. He came with his best friend, Tom, who I had become friends with too. The seminary teacher, Brother Price, had written his name on the chalkboard: MIKE FITZGERALD.

He lived 70 miles away from my parent's Lake Oswego home, in Monmouth, Oregon, on a 700 acre cattle ranch that he'd persuaded his father to buy. His father, a lifelong Catholic, had threatened him that if he joined the "Mormon church," he would be taken out of the will, and any Mormon that came onto the property would be shot. Those threats did not stop him from doing what his heart was telling him to do; he was baptized on November 14th, 1975, his 18th birthday. Before leaving the baptism that evening, I gave him a hug.

We started writing letters, because back in 1975, long distance phone calls were absurdly expensive. We wrote letters at least weekly for the next 3+ years. Two of those years were while he was away on a mission to Cleveland, Ohio, and when he returned, I was away at Ricks College in southeastern Idaho. We continued to write, pretty much until we were married in August of 1979. We had never lived near one another the entire time we'd known each other. It was always a long distance romance.

One year for Christmas, he took all of our letters, organized them chronologically, and filled binders with them. We had a lot to tell each other while we were still growing up. They serve as a history of our lives during those years.

Following our wedding, we packed up our little brown Volkswagen Rabbit, hooked a tiny U-Haul trailer to it, and headed east, chugging our way over the mountains to Rexburg, Idaho, where we'd make our first home. We had a furnished, two bedroom apartment, amazingly close to campus. Previously, it had been a girls' apartment but had recently been converted to married student housing. It had a tub but no shower. I'd always wonder how four girls managed with only a tub!

We took too many classes that first semester. It was hard to be under so much pressure from school while trying to adapt to married life. We both dropped a couple of classes in order to pick up some sanity. We were in a married student ward, we made many friends, and we were living the newlywed life!

Eventually, we moved briefly to Tooele, Utah (summer sales, please don't remind him of it!), back to Rexburg, then on to Orem, Utah, while he attended BYU. Then to Tualatin, Oregon, where we lived in an apartment, then rental home when he got his first grown-up job. Back to Orem when he thought he'd get a master's degree. And once more to Oregon, this time to West Linn, Lake Oswego’s neighbor, where we made two more moves within the city, and lived there for 16 years. We moved to Mapleton, Utah, living in two different homes, then to downtown Salt Lake City, living in an apartment and then a condo, and finally purchasing a townhome in Draper where we fully intended for our next move to be the final one, the one into eternity.

Fifteen times we boxed up our things and went together to the next adventure. We also collected three daughters along the way, five grandsons, a few equines, numerous felines, and several canines too. We loved hard and we prayed hard. We survived some VERY challenging times and had created a full and rich life together.

Then, with a stroke of Judge Kelly's pen, it all ended on June 16th, 2020.

We were two-months-minus-one-day shy of celebrating our 41st anniversary. There has been serious upset in the family, and in some ways, our family is no longer the way it once was. There are wounds galore that have not healed. In the end, we could not find common ground when the family discord and wounds caused even small, old issues to become monumental. Consequently, the house came tumbling down.

The wreckage is by far the most painful thing I have endured in my life.

I had a doctor make a small error in surgery that landed me in the hospital for three weeks and nearly claimed my life. I later had a major surgery that caused my body to nearly call it quits. He has endured an autoimmune disease (gout) for several decades, and now fights illness constantly due to the damage done to his body from medications used to treat that disease. None of this though compares in any way with what it is like to watch your family come unglued and your marriage crumble.

They have their reasons. He has his reasons. I have my reasons.

I have watched longtime friends fall off their chairs when they heard this news. 

"It knocked the wind out of me," 

"I never ever saw this coming," 

"You were the last people I would have ever expected this from," 

"I am shocked beyond belief," 

"I don't know what to say; I have no words right now." 

Me too. ME TOO!

I am a Grief Support Specialist. I sit with people who have lost their beloved, and I listen as they tell their story of loss, sorrow and pain. I cry with them because my heart hurts too when someone else's hurts. I encourage them to "get it out," to not hold their emotions inside where they can erode both health and heart. "Tell me about your wife/husband/mother/father/companion/friend; I want to know them the way you know them." I listen as they confess that they feel they didn't do enough, or did something thoughtless that they feel may have hastened the passing, or they tell me they did not treat their beloved as good as they wish they had. My heart listens when they cannot speak because their emotions have hijacked their vocal cords. I sometimes read to them the words of scripture or the quote from an old man who compares grief to waves in an ocean. And I encourage them to feel all of their feelings.

What though do you do when your loss is not due to death? When your eternal dreams are shattered right before your very eyes? When you do not want to disparage anyone in your family but you are hurt so deeply that no words exist to describe your feelings? Or the stream of divorcees who quickly proclaim, "You will feel so much better,” or “This too will pass,” as if it is a gallstone that is hung up on its way out. Or when you refuse to tell, or let anyone else tell, your father because this was his first "son," and you cannot handle his broken heart on top of your own?

A song, a memory, a place, a word, a movie . . .  they all can trigger my tears. Sometimes they trigger anger, but most often it is sadness. The deepest sadness I have ever known. There is stress, as I have shared before. Employment struggles due to the pandemic, loan challenges due to the employment struggles, additional health insurance costs, and on it goes. In the end though, it is still the disbelief and the sadness that permeate everything else.

Sorrow has won the day.

I do know, deep within my soul, that healing is found through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He is the only one that knows "my" sadness, my unique recipe of life ingredients that came together to cause a broken family, a broken marriage, and a broken heart. I hold tightly onto that. In faith I make it through another day. In faith I choose to believe that He heals ALL wounds. In faith I walk the path before me, not knowing where it leads. He is the Master Healer. My broken heart is in His capable hands.

My Child, artist David Bowman

A Mother's Aching Heart

My soul aches on this day, the day set aside to honor and remember mothers.

I have fond recollections of honoring my mom on Mother’s Day, both from the time I was small, as well as into adulthood. I remember making or choosing things that I hoped she would love and would be a keepsake for her. I too recall receiving things from my own daughters that they had made or chosen to celebrate me on that special day. For about 35 years I was given love and attention, as if I was actually a mother worthy of it. Mike used to go so overboard, and wear himself out, that we finally agreed on simple gifts and take-out food, just to conserve energy and clean-up time.

These past few years have been brutal. I anticipate Mother’s Day nearly as dreadfully as I would anticipate a surgery. That is the only thing that I can think of that is more horrid to me. How one can be loved, honored, celebrated, doted on, and then be both privately and publicly shunned, with a refusal to join together for professional help, as if the years of a mother’s love, sacrifice, cheering, believing, helping, and putting her own aspirations on hold, are of no value anymore? One's mind and heart simply do not know what to do with that.

There are times that I just need my mom.

Back in 1991, my “simple” surgery healing took a wrong turn. I was taken to the ER, where they determined there was “nothing wrong” with me and sent me away. I arrived back home at about 1 a.m., and because I didn’t know what to do or how I could live one more minute with the most excruciating pain I’ve ever known, I called Mom. She arrived, came to my bed sporting her colorful and soft shirt, and her trademark scent of Victoria’s Secret Strawberry Champagne lotion, and she wrapped me in her arms as she cried with me. She too didn’t know what could be done, but she joined me in my absolute misery and let me know I was loved.

That “there’s nothing wrong” pain turned into a three week hospital stay filled with morphine, no food, an NG tube, CT and ultrasound scans, diarrhea, a grapefruit-sized abscess, a wide and winding incision with staples, antibiotics that made me vomit and nearly split my incision, a colostomy and mucous fistula, an allergy to morphine that resulted in me watching horses gallop past my third story window, and an all-out battle to stay on this side of the veil. My doctor remarked that he nearly lost me and that I was "too damn skinny." Through it all, Mom was there. Although there was an empty bed in the room, no one was allowed to sleep on it, so she commandeered a cardiac chair, brought blankets and her pillow, and slept near my side because it was dangerous and frightening when I couldn’t always get the help I needed during the night. When I told her that I didn’t know if I was going to make it, she cried and told me I would. I had two young children that we both thought needed their mom. (That is now debatable!)

Over these years, my family has loved to gather, to celebrate and honor one another for birthdays or other holidays, or truthfully, just for the heck of it. We enjoyed one another’s company and, at least in my estimation, we were part of a web of interconnected humans that would go to battle for one another. We prayed and we played. We showed up when there was a crisis and all helped in the ways we could. We loved hard.

How then can something so beautiful turn into something so sour that the unity is gone? For nearly three years now, there have been no all-family gatherings. Faith and devotion have changed in ways I never saw coming. There are those that choose not to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, or happy any-other-day. The contrast is glaring. The reality is excruciating. The sadness is palpable.

Mom, I really need a hug.

I am left with my faith in a loving Father, who understands my broken heart, who hears my wails in the night, my pleas for help, and who sends me kind and loving friends and family to keep me going when I’m uncertain that I can. He reassures me that all is not lost, even if it appears that it is. He knows my mother-heart, the heart that would cause me to run in front of a freight train to save my children, the heart that fought so very hard through two life-threatening illnesses because she did not want to leave her children motherless, the heart that has never before known so much agony and pain. He understands and He freely offers His healing balm.

He tells me that I am His and He has the biggest and best family of them all.

Life Changes in a Rapidly Changing World

It's been years since I've had a blog, and I accidentally let my website domain lapse, but the writer part of me is begging for a voice with all that is happening in our/my world. So here I am, with a fresh start.

It has been a crazy few months in this world of ours, with the global pandemic of COVID-19. Businesses closed everywhere you turn, few cars were on the roads, people kept to their own domiciles in order to not spread the germs of this sometimes deadly virus, and many deaths throughout the world. I was constantly out and about because I work in hospice, so my job has continued through it all. I have loved driving the freeways with hardly any cars on them, any time of the day! That has been a treat.

That's the serious state of the world right now, and likewise, there are serious issues taking place in my personal life. The combination of the oddity of the world around me, along with my own mountainous struggles, is a doozy!

I have been cautious about sharing widely all that has happened. We had some very intense difficulties in our family nearly three years ago. Since that time, there hasn't been peace amongst some family members. What happened then has had everything to do with what is happening now, effectively causing smaller issues to become giant problems. A magnifying glass, a spotlight effect is what it feels like to me.

Although my husband and I love each other, and have loved each other for more than 44 years, we have mutually arrived at the conclusion that we can no longer be spouses under these circumstances, circumstances that are not related to sin. Although this seems sudden to most everyone who has known us, it is something that we have had to weigh out for several years. The particular circumstances of our difficulties have made it challenging to go for professional help. Although there may be things we'd wish for, and would like to demand out of others, sometimes we have to accept that others have their agency and we cannot force the things we feel are best and right. I am getting well practiced at "letting things be."

Needless to say, my world has caved in. I now move through each day with a broken heart. It is simply impossible to not feel brokenhearted when the person you have loved the most in the whole wide world is no longer your daily companion. He lives several miles away now, and has for several months, and when we made the decision to separate, it felt sudden and unbelievable to me. Although we communicate frequently and see one another almost daily because of our pups, and we behave amicably, there's no getting around the fact that everything is very different. I cannot type those words without a flood of tears; tears are my daily companions. Never ever, not even for a moment, before all of this happened, did I have any thought at all about divorce. It was not part of our vocabulary, even if we were very, very upset with one another. Soon, though, it will be our reality.

Although everything I have said so far is not "news" for me, obviously, I am learning that the few people I have shared it with find themselves in a state of shock. I know! I have been dealing with shock myself for about three months. I have learned to visit hospice patients while in a state of shock, to go through an earthquake for a double load of shock, to try to function alone in my home while in a state of shock. It is shocking.

More than anything, I am sharing here because I've learned a few new things and have had other truths reinforced. I am eternally grateful for the friends that have been propping me up as I sink into yet another hole. Although I know for an absolute certainty, that when someone says, "If you need to talk, give me a call," they are very sincere in doing so, very sincere; yet doing exactly that, making the call, is a very difficult thing for someone who is hurting, who is battling circumstance-induced depression (or other causes), because the very nature of depression prevents one from actually doing the simple things that would be helpful. It is a conundrum.

Something that I find the most helpful is when someone says to me, "Let's get together. What are some dates/times that will work for you?" or, "If you feel like talking, I'd love to talk. Can I call you sometime this evening?" rather than the open-ended invitation, "Give me a call if you need to talk," which requires the action to be instigated by me. None of us like to feel "needy," or to prove to others that we are, simply by responding to that invitation, even if the truth is that we are very needy! Getting it into gear to call or try to set up the get-together can often be too much. I have said the same things myself to friends in struggle. I am now becoming hyper-aware of how I approach my offers of friendship and help. It is so frustrating to feel this bit of depression that prevents me from doing anything that makes me feel better! 

May I humbly suggest that we re-think how we offer our help to others? It really can make a world of difference!

I am grateful for all of my friends, near and far. I am also so thankful for those who remember to keep in touch with me, who sometimes don't take no for an answer, but do so without plowing over the top of me. I am not who I once was. I am in the fire and it is burning right up next to my soul. A life change like this is huge any time it happens. It is particularly challenging to face during the pandemic when I cannot be with my loved ones or friends. We have all taken seriously the "stay home, stay safe" challenge. Zoom is nice, but it is no substitute for a hug, for presence. As a hospice chaplain, that is also very true. I told my boss the other day, "I just want to hold my patients' hands and stare into their souls." I can't do that for hardly anyone right now, but for my heart, it is what matters most.

This is a wild, painful ride. So far, here are some of the things I've learned along my journey:

1.   Life can be very full of surprises, not all of them fun.
2.   If you're unhappy with someone's behavior, talk to them about it with love in your heart. Don't let it fester and come out like a shotgun blast. The damage can be vast and lasting.
3.   Love people. Look for what is good and forgive what is challenging. We are all here learning together. Remember that "when people know better, they do better." Sometimes they don't know better, even if we think they should.
4.   Pay attention to what your childhood traumas and generational issues are and how they may be wreaking havoc in your adult life relationships. Seek professional help.
5.   Be kind. Be tender. Be patient.
6.   Let God whisper to you words of understanding about your situation that help you find peace, and help you take another step when you don't know if you can.
7.   Be thankful for your friends and family members who love you no matter what.
8.   Notice and acknowledge the small victories, the subtle shifts, and the big and small miracles. Heaven is nearby.
9.  Have no shame. Shame never benefits anyone; it is a tool of the devil to make you feel worthless. We can feel bad for things we've done that hurt another or even hurt ourselves, but that does not make us bad. 
10. Be grateful. Gratitude is a magnet for more good. Have faith. Pray often. Then hang on for all you're worth. 

We all have our challenges. We all wonder if we'll make it through. Many of us look to the heavens and wonder if God is paying attention. I have learned that He is. He allows us our learning without interference though, and if we aren't careful and prayerful, we may think we're being ignored. I know that we are not being ignored, we are being loved as we pass through the painful experiences that He knew we would have. He provides angels on both sides of the veil to encourage us, minister to us, love us.

And when everything else seems to fall, God is there to catch us. He is good all of the time.