Living Happily Ever After
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In Charge

Date: October 29, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

The day we met Cheryl Preheim we spent time in our home and in the canyon not far from our home. Eventually, I had to leave the canyon and take my middle son to football practice.

Cheryl asked, “How about if your older two children stay here with Ken and I, we’ll talk to them alone and take them home when we’re done?”

I hadn’t expected that, for some reason. I hadn’t prepared myself, or them, for that experience. I have amazing children, but still, it’s kind of huge to leave your teens alone, in front of a camera that’s recording–who knows what they’ll say? But in life, especially the unexpected one, you’ve got to improvise. I’ve flown by the seat of my pants a lot since March 18, 2009. So I drove away.

When we were back at my home, Cheryl caught me alone and said, “I have to tell you about our interview.”

I died inside.

I sort of panicked. And I’m ashamed to say, I imagined the worst.

“What?” I asked. “They didn’t argue or fight did they? They weren’t rude, were they?” That would be just my luck to display, not for the first time (please see 2009′s media reports on Shawn Merriman and the revelation of his Ponzi scheme if you don’t know what I’m talking about!) the finest aspects of our character, our finest moments, publicly, in the media.

Cheryl laughed and said, “Don’t worry! Your children are amazing. I just sat and heard your teenage son tell me life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% what you do with it. I can’t believe it.” She shared something inspiring my daughter had said, as well, and the mother in me calmed down.

Instead, it was one of those parent paydays. You parents out there know what those are. You love, labor to teach, serve, and expend your energies helping your children grow and develop and learn all they need to…and you don’t always see the fruits of your efforts right away. But if you’re lucky, every now and then, you get glimpses of the amazing adults they’re on track to become. It reminds you how worth it all is, how much fun it has all been. That’s how that day turned out for me.

Coincidentally, the thought about attitude my son referenced is part of a quote Cheryl had heard before. She loved it so much she carried it with her. And she left that thought, in the form of a fridge magnet, for us when she left. Here it is:

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.” (Charles R. Swindoll)

Thanks, Cheryl. (And Charles.)

I believe the only way you’re going to get through life and rise above your challenges is to take charge–and keep a good attitude. It is something I’ve come to realize the longer I’VE lived. And when you can’t control the the unexpected events that become your life, it’s comforting to be in charge of something.

Thank goodness we’re always in charge of the most important thing.

Attitude.

“I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.” (Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt)


The Look of Love

Date: October 19, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“When your world is full of strange arrangements
And gravity won’t pull you through
You know you’re missing out on something…
Yes one thing that turns this gray sky to blue
That’s the look, that’s the look, the look of love…
Who’s got the look? I don’t know the answer to that question.
Where’s the look? if I knew I would tell you
What’s the look? look for your information…
That’s the look, that’s the look, the look of love…
That’s the look, that’s the look, Be lucky in love
Look of Love.”
(ABC, “The Look of Love” lyrics, by Martin Fry, David Palmer, Steve Singleton, and Mark White)

I danced to that song in the 80s. And I guess I took “the look” for granted. I assumed everyone looked at their love with “the look of love.” It took my unexpected life to show me that isn’t always the case.

Just prior to my entire world falling apart, I saw the first of the “Twilight” movies and was particularly struck by the way Edward looked at Bella. I don’t know if everyone else noticed it, but I sure did, and it made me feel a little crazy: forty-something woman struck by the way an actor portraying a vampire simply LOOKED at another character in a story geared toward teenage girl fantasies and dreams of love and romance! I didn’t know why I noticed that specific aspect of the fictional relationship and why it had such an impact on me. Until March 18, 2009.

That day my then-husband, Shawn Merriman, sat me down and shattered my world. To anyone just joining us, that was the day he revealed his investment company, Market Street Advisors, was “a sham;” that he had been running a Ponzi scheme for 15 years; that he had already turned himself in to government authorities and anticipated being charged with crimes in the next week and incarcerated within the next 30 days for approximately the next 5-7 years; that all of our assets, money, home, vehicles and possessions had been seized by the government; and that I would be left alone to parent, provide for, and raise our four children.

That was also the day I realized why I found Edward’s intense look at Bella so compelling.

As part of his confession, my then-spouse expressed the guilt and shame he had lived with during the entire course of his Ponzi scheme. He felt so bad about what he had done, and so guilty, he said it became difficult for him to even look at me. “I haven’t looked you in the eye in years,” he revealed.

WHAT?

I argued with that. We had laughed, talked, joked, communicated and discussed things, ate dinner together, prayed together, interacted on a daily basis and lived as a happy, loving couple, married and raising our family for 20 years. He had looked at me all of the time! At least I’d thought he had. It seemed like he had. I was about to learn Shawn Merriman’s biggest deception of all relative to his life of crime.

It wasn’t the lies he’d told day in and day out, as he’d come home from work and report the usual business-related events of the day like all husbands do, conversations he’d had with this person or that client, stocks he had bought or sold. I found out he hadn’t bought or sold any stocks in years.

It wasn’t the fraudulent monthly statements he created and mailed to every investor, including me, each month. I found out he made all of those up.

It wasn’t the hypocrisy he exemplified to our children and the rest of the world, preaching one way of living and secretly choosing to practice another.

It was the way he had looked at me. Or intentionally had not looked at me.

He explained, “No, you only THINK I’ve looked at you. But I haven’t. Not once. I have looked at the tip of your nose every single time I’ve looked at you, and when I do that, you think I’m looking at you and can’t tell I’m not looking at you, but I promise you, I haven’t looked in your eyes in years.”

How long?

Most of our children had been born during the years he hadn’t looked me in the eye. I couldn’t count the number of events we’d shared, the memories we’d made and the daily expressions of love he had uttered to me…all while never looking at me. And I’d never even seen it. I had never known.

How could I not have been able to see that my husband was looking only at the tip of my nose instead of my eyes? How did no one else notice he didn’t look them in the eye either? And actually, how did I never know there were people out there who intentionally didn’t look people in the eye?

In a way, it was a fitting end to a relationship that came to a screeching halt due to crime, betrayal and other wrongs perpetrated by one man.

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” (Gilda Radner)

“Fed” By A Daughter

Date: September 3, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I’ve said it before: I absolutely did not feel any pressure. Bachelor #5 told me not to, so I didn’t. I simply wasn’t ready to think much about anything, especially something of THAT magnitude. However, I couldn’t help but notice some things.

Bachelor #5 took the time to chat with my kids every time he came to pick me up. They really liked him. Even my teenagers would stop what they were doing to talk to him and hang out with him and they didn’t do that with anyone! In those moments, I felt like our family was complete again. And then a thought would jolt me and I’d realize, “No, this is just a man I’m dating who is talking to my kids.” However, it sure felt like something else. But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind.

He went to Hawaii with his sons for one week. And I, the independent single mother of four who had weathered some pretty difficult storms of an unexpected life, felt a void like I can’t describe while he was gone. I attempted to occupy myself with other things (and other men) in his absence, but nothing helped. It was one of the longest weeks of my life. THAT was unexpected. But I didn’t let myself think about that, either.

Then he had my children and I over to his home for a “family night,” stories, games and dessert, one evening. He had separate activities for my younger children and my older teens, and spent one-on-one time with each. He was fun, a great host, and I smiled inside as I intentionally sat there and watched him do it all: keep a busy four-year-old occupied and happy, make a 10-year-old smile and feel important, delight a teenage girl and relate to her (I think he even sang a song for her), and make a teenage boy laugh and stay entertained… while at the same time managing to cook dessert for all of us as he composed a poem about toenail clippings and sausages using 8 words from 8 different foreign languages in minutes. (It was part of a game we were playing. I about fell off my chair when I saw that not only did he instantly and easily know as many words as he needed for the poem, he wrote an amazing and hilarious poem that made us all laugh.)

As I observed him doing all of the above that night, I couldn’t stop my thoughts. I even remember where I was sitting when they came. “Andrea, this feels like you are ‘home.’ It is more than comfortable. It doesn’t feel like you are with a man you’re dating, it feels the way marriage felt; like you are with your family and your family is whole and complete again. You like this man most when you’re alone with him, or when you’re in his home or your home, with the children.”

But I still didn’t get it. (Or let myself get it.) I thought I had to be imagining those feelings. They couldn’t be real, could they? But as I looked around at my children, smiling and laughing, no trace of devastation, sorrow or sadness in their eyes, I wasn’t so sure.

As we left to go home, walking toward the car, my daughter and I were alone and she looked at me and said, “You love him.”

WHAT?

Of course I didn’t!

I immediately launched into what had become my standard explanation and description, “No, he is just a nice older man…blah, blah, blah,” and she shook her head at me in total disbelief. Probably wondering, “Is my mom REALLY that dense?” She gave me a list of evidences and I denied them all, but she moved ahead and walked away, absolutely not believing me, or probably, how blind her mother was!

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” (Richard Wright)

Thank goodness for a beautiful, capable, amazing, selfless, mature, wise and perceptive daughter who was possibly more self-aware of her mother than her mother was!

And as I followed her to the car I was stunned to realize, in that moment, that she might be right.

A Serenade

Date: August 29, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.” (Robert Benchley)

Or serenades the girl. A little background:

My parents met and fell in love when they were 15 years old, although they fell in and out of love with several other people between that time and the day they married, as 25 year olds, on December 21, 1962. My mom raised my sisters and I on stories of her childhood like going to a dance with my dad and for their first date, my dad and another boy fist-fighting afterward over who got to take my mom home, and my mom getting so disgusted by the whole thing that she left and walked herself home while the boys fought!

My mom starring in theatrical productions like “Brigadoon,” “Oklahoma,” and others and having all kinds of adventures while performing–kissing cute boys who were the male leads, falling off the stage in the middle of a performance with her skirt and slips falling over her head showing her panties to the entire audience–and having to get back up on stage and finish the performance. (Maybe that’s why I just can’t quit and give up despite crime, divorce, betrayal, public humiliation, dating, the singles scene the second time around, and everything else that accompanies an unexpected life.)

And about the night my dad’s friend drove up and down the street in front of her house in his convertible while my dad serenaded her with his saxophone. THAT thrilled me! (Of course, it probably would have been more thrilling for my mom if she hadn’t had another date sitting in her living room during the serenade!) But I always loved that story. However, that took place in the 1950s, I grew up in the 80s, and things like that didn’t happen in “Pretty In Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

Eventually I married a man who was not musically inclined and I forgot about serenades. I didn’t remember how much I’d admired my dad’s musical performance to the girl he loved and I forgot that I had ever dreamed teenage girl dreams of experiencing that myself, especially after enduring the events of 2009 and ending up unexpectedly single. (I had a lot of other things on my mind!)

So the next week when Bachelor #5 picked me up (only this time, HE was sick and on antibiotics!) I cringed when he announced he was taking me to his house to play the piano and sing for me. I panicked. I’ve always considered myself fairly optimistic, but I wasn’t thinking positive thoughts about this unexpected performance! I just knew it was going to be mediocre at best, that the whole thing was going to be corny, and that I was going to have to come up with something complimentary to say afterward.

But I didn’t let on to any of that. I sat where he directed me to and braced myself for his performance. I couldn’t look at him. I could only look at the floor and prepare to endure. And then he started to play. He began to sing.

It’s a good thing I’d braced myself for his performance because I probably would have fallen off the couch if I hadn’t! He was unexpectedly good; a performer and entertainer. And although I hadn’t heard the song before and wasn’t sure if it was a song he sang to all women he dated, I even liked his song choice. When it ended, I didn’t know what to say. I was stunned. Speechless.

He stood up to take me home and I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t know what to say. I told him how good he was, how much I had enjoyed it and I thanked him for sharing his talent with me. Compared to how I’d imagined the whole experience would be, I felt like a gushing idiot. So then I tried to lighten things up by joking that I didn’t believe I’d ever been sung to by a man before.

He didn’t bat an eye as he replied, “I’m glad you liked it. But just so you know, that’s not all I would have done if I weren’t on antibiotics!”

And he took me home.

“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.” (Thornton Wilder)

It Was Going To Take A Miracle

Date: April 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I believe in miracles. I believe they didn’t just take place in the Middle East centuries ago, but that we still are blessed with them today, in our time. I believe we just need to keep our eyes open and look for the tender mercies that come our way each and every day, and we’ll see them. I know I do.

Ironically, at no time in my life did I see them more than during the events of 2009. Although I lost pretty much everything I had ever known (except my children), I also have probably never felt, in some ways, more blessed than I did in 2009. Yes, my life had not just been turned upside down, it had been ripped from me. But there were positive forces at work, too.

Soon after March 18, 2009, THE DAY–the day my spouse revealed he had been running a ponzi scheme, that everything we had was lost or seized by the government, that he would be going to prison, and that I would be left alone to raise and provide for our four children, etc… I had a thought.

It was this. “If I can just find a job and a place to live, I can handle everything else.”

It sort of became my mantra.

Like “The Little Engine Who Could,” who dared to attempt what others hadn’t and who kept herself going by encouraging, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” I kept telling myself, “If I can just find a job and a place to live, I can handle everything else.” I repeated that over and over to myself. Maybe if I said it enough, it would turn out to be true! But I knew it would take a miracle.

Yes, I had a college degree. But I hadn’t worked full-time in approximately 18 years! Yes, I had taught piano to 32 students a week at my home studio, but I hadn’t done that for 16 years AND I needed medical insurance for my children. At that time, the economy was a disaster, people were losing their jobs, times were tight for everyone, and very qualified people with current experience were out of work. I couldn’t imagine who would hire ME in a time like 2009. Yes, it was going to take a miracle.

And, like pretty much every other good thing that has come to me and helped me get through my unexpected life, I got one.

I had a good friend who kept his eye open for jobs for me and helped me get my resume together. I had a cousin and a brother who also reviewed my resume. By the way, putting my resume together and trying to make sense of a life I’d lived for nearly 20 years and how it would translate to help me on my resume was an overwhelming challenge in the state of shock I was in. Thank goodness I had good men to help me!

And then less than one week after everything feel apart, I got a call from a friend. He said, “Andrea, I have been so worried about you. I have prayed and prayed for days about what I can do to help you. And it came to me to call someone we both know. I told him a little bit about you, I hope that’s ok, and he told me to have you call him. He has a job for you.”

I still remember where I was standing when I got that phone call. I was at a park with my three-year-old, in that cold, Rocky Mountain spring afternoon where it’s sunny and “warm,” yet an icy breeze blows. I was shivering as tears of gratitude streamed down my face. A job? Like that? It seemed too good to be true. Things like that just don’t happen in real life, unexpected or not.

I thought about calling, I was sort of afraid to call, I put it off a day or two wondering if I dared call…and then the man called me. “Didn’t so-and-so tell you to call me?” he asked. “Didn’t he tell you I have a job for you?” He even went above and beyond (because he is just that kind of a good man) to reassure a broken, shattered potential employee that he wasn’t doing her a favor. He told me he knew me, he knew what I could do, that someone with my background and training was exactly what he needed at his company, and that actually, I would be doing him a favor by coming to work for him.

Approximately one year ago today, I received my formal offer letter of employment.

I had a job. It was a miracle.

Now, if I could just find a place to live…I could handle everything else. Anything. But it was going to take a miracle too.

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What Do You Do?

Date: March 20, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

So what do you do when you’ve been tossed out of the safety and security of the airplane seat you’ve occupied, its seatbelt securely holding you in place through any and all unexpected turbulence for 20 years, and into the open air…without a parachute?

I hope I never find out, literally, because I’m pretty sure I’d die.  March 18, 2009, showed me I could use some work on quick reflex skills!  I’d like to think I’d at least REACH for a non-existent rip cord.  Fight against the eminent landing.  SOMETHING.  But that isn’t how I responded that day.  (Hence my decision to NEVER sky dive for real.)

I sat there, like a deer caught in headlights, for a minute or two.  Stunned. My brain ceased to function, my intelligence went out the window, I couldn’t even think.  I couldn’t comprehend.  I didn’t understand.

“What?”

That was all the intelligence I could muster in a moment like that.

So He repeated what He had just said.  And I was almost equally unintelligent the second time through.

“Is this a joke?  You are kidding me.  This is a joke. I know it is.  It isn’t funny, I don’t get the punchline, but there is NO WAY you’re telling me the truth.  This is NOT real.  Am I being punked?”

Where was Asthon Kutcher?

But He wasn’t kidding.  It was not a joke.  It was a disaster of proportions I couldn’t comprehend.  I still can’t.

Then my mind kicked in and my questions began.

“How can this be?  What am I going to do?  No job? No money?  You’re going to PRISON?  How will I raise our kids?  How will I keep them alive?  How am I going to pay for our food and utility bills? How will I pay our car insurance? What am I going to do?”  (That fear I’d always had of being responsible to keep someone else alive, the responsibility of providing for someone else, returned. I was terrified for the physical survival of my children.)

He told me I still didn’t get it.  There were no cars to drive anymore.  There wasn’t a house to live in.  And the man I’d turned to for almost 20 years, to solve problems and answer questions, didn’t have any answers anymore.

I knew I was headed, with my four kids, to live in a cardboard box on the street. Literally.

I was too stunned to understand a lot, in that moment, but suddenly I had a thought come to mind.

“Is that all?”

Nope. There was more.  He said He was sorry, then started SOBBING like I’d never seen Him cry before.  And that was when it hit me.  This was not a joke.  This was real.

And all I could do was continue to be what I’d always tried to be:  polite, kind, and calm.  I actually apologized to him!  (What can I say?  You never react the way you anticipate in moments like that.  Of course, I’d never anticipated any moments like that!)

“I’m sorry, so sorry to leave you here like this, but I have to go.  I have to get out of here.”

I got up from the table, got in my car, and drove away.

I didn’t know where I was headed, I just knew I had to get away from Him.  But there was nowhere I could drive that would take me away from the disaster.  I made it less than 1/3 of a mile before the shock and reality hit and the tears began like a flood.  And the shaking.  The shaking set in so immediately I doubted my ability to control a steering wheel.  I quickly pulled over so I didn’t add to the disaster by hurting myself or someone else.

There I was, alone, unable to drive, TERRIFIED, with not a clue what to do.  My panic was absolute, but indescribable.  My every thought was for my children:  how was I going to feed them?  How was I going to keep them alive?  WHAT was I going to do?

I picked up my cell phone and called my sister.  Something wasn’t right with my fingers.  I couldn’t get them to work.  I couldn’t get them to dial the numbers on the phone correctly.  Either that or she wasn’t home.  I then tried my friend from college who had become like a sister to me over the years–we traveled together, spent holidays together, etc… It was a miracle.  She was home.

I could hardly speak, but she finally understood what I was saying although she couldn’t comprehend it either.  I remember asking, “What should I do?  What do I do?  Should I go to the bank and try to get ANY money so I can keep my kids alive?”  My survival instinct had set in at that point, I guess.

“Yes, go to the bank and try to get some money,” she advised.

I didn’t know if I could, but I had to try.

I drove to the bank.

When we married, we’d brought our own checking accounts to our marriage and had never changed that.  We’d never had a joint checking account.  (Looking back, I’ve been told this might not have been normal.  But I hadn’t been married before.  I didn’t know what was normal.  I had married a man capable of a lot more than anyone had ever realized.)  I’d never had access to any of “his” accounts or money.  I never needed it–I charged everything to a credit card, which he told me he paid off monthly, and that was how our household operated.  Things that couldn’t be charged (like the house cleaner and school fees for our children), I paid for out of my small checking account that he replenished with small amounts of cash as needed because I was a stay-at-home mom.  Unfortunately, I always waited until I was almost out of money to tell him I needed money.  So my cash resource was small.

I got a little cash, but not all of it, so I could buy groceries for my children. It was all I had to begin a new life with.  And then, not knowing what else to do, I returned “home.”

But it didn’t feel like my home any more.