Living Happily Ever After
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Never Suppress A Generous Thought

Date: April 20, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

To live, and how to live, every day, is a choice.

Last spring, in the middle of my nightmare, I was driving up my driveway and saw several neighbors gathered at the top. It seemed like everyone had been so mean and nasty to me, that just the sight of them gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I had a moment of panic.

I knew I had a choice to make.

I felt my choice was to emulate their choices OR to continue to be myself.

I decided I didn’t ever want to make anyone feel the way some of my neighbors had made me feel, so I chose to be myself.  I drove up the driveway and waved as I passed them.  I figured they could look at me with hate in their eyes, but I was going to do the right thing anyway.

One neighbor in the group watched me wave, but continued to stare. However, after a few seconds of me waving, she lifted her arm and waved back! My initial thought was, “Oh! Maybe she didn’t know it was me!” But we had waved at each other for years.  She couldn’t have been mistaken.  She chose in that moment to be kind, and I was so thankful. One year later, I still remember that.

As I continued to drive away I realized that had I responded in an “eye for an eye” fashion (as many tangled in the web of my spouse’s crimes had) I would have glared instead of waved, and I would have missed out on that tiny slice of friendliness that was in such short supply at that time and during the whole nightmare experience.

I read, once, that we should “never suppress a generous thought.”  I have always believed that and have tried, in my own small ways, to live life like that.  That day showed me, again, what a blessing even the simple act of a smile or wave, generously shared even in trying circumstances, can be.

Never suppress a generous thought. Or a smile. Or a wave.

The Price of Crime? Don’t Ask!

Date: March 29, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Five days into the nightmare I had to ask:  How big was your initial mistake?

You see, if I understand it right, His ponzi scheme began when He did a stock trade that lost money.  He said He did a bigger stock trade to cover that loss and lost money again.  So he chose to omit those two trades from his statements that month to make the account balance sheet look better. And after that, He said it was too late.

The ponzi scheme was in place.

I remember, now, why you shouldn’t ask questions you don’t REALLY want to know the answer to.

$5,000.

My ENTIRE life, my marriage, my family, my dreams, my children’s dreams, our forever, our future, everything of mine and everyone else’s was destroyed…for $5,000.  It made me want to throw up.

Even back in 1994, $5,000 was not a life or death amount.  I was stunned that I had lost everything, and every other victim had suffered their own losses as well, for a measley $5,000.  I hope I recover from that revelation.  I don’t think I’ll ever look at $5,000 in quite the same light.

I remember thinking, “That’s all the mistake was–FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?  And now ALL OF THIS?”

The answer to my next question was even more unsettling. (To me.)

I asked:  When did you do it?  When did you suffer the loss and hide it?

He didn’t know. The man who had never forgotten a birthday or an anniversary (had even thrown in an “extra” one one year–what can I say, He was a good, kind, thoughtful and patient husband in many ways–yet another reason I had loved and trusted Him and had no reason to suspect what He was doing while at “work” those many years) didn’t know the date His crimes began.

How can the date you stole, how can the date you broke the law, NOT be etched in your memory forever?

Note to self:  AGAIN, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to!