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Blog Articles

It’s Grand

Date: December 23, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.” (Herb Caen)

Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew through choices we make and sometimes we’re thrust into overwhelming situations through no choice of our own that can leave our jaws flapping! That’s the unexpected life, regardless of how it comes. But I can’t emphasize this aspect enough: if we handle it right, we gain valuable life experience, we learn important lessons and we increase in wisdom. And we can do great things with what we’ve learned.

Like Walt Disney, who rose above his own setbacks to create a magical legacy and impact millions even after he was gone: “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” (Walt Disney)

Speaking of wisdom and teeth, my daughter had her’s removed a few days ago. Prior to her surgery, the oral surgeon walked into the room, looked at me and asked, “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

I replied, “No.”

He looked puzzled, stared at me and said, “Really? You look so familiar. I am trying to figure out where I’ve seen you. I’m just sure I have met you before.”

I joked that I have blonde hair, blue eyes and we live in the state of Utah where it seems like the majority of the state’s residents look like I do, so no surprise that I look familiar. He laughed and walked out of the room to get what he needed to begin the procedure on my daughter. When the door closed, I realized how far we’ve come…and yet how some things haven’t changed much.

When the door clicked shut, the first words out of my daughter’s mouth were, “Mom! You’ve GOT to be kidding me! Don’t tell me you dated HIM too?” (That’s the part that hasn’t changed!)

Yet I realized how far we’ve come when it dawned on me after the doctor had left the room (and after I had defended myself against my daughter’s accusation—and for the record, NO, I did not date that doctor!) that when he commented that I looked familiar, I didn’t cringe; I didn’t inwardly cower in fear that he might have seen me in the media, connected to a crime I had no part of (other than that I happened to be married to the man who perpetrated the crime.) Honestly, and surprisingly, for maybe the first time in my unexpected life, that hadn’t even crossed my mind—it was almost as if I’d forgotten about it and hadn’t even realized I’d forgotten, that’s how natural the process of forgetting, aka. healing, has become.  I was sure I seemed familiar to him because I live in a state where a large percentage of the population descends from Scandinavian immigrants!

Apparently, I’ve developed something. Unexpected amnesia, occasionally, regarding the trauma that led to my unexpected life. I anticipate as we move further and further from 2009, I’ll forget what led to my new opportunities more and more. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.”

And isn’t THAT grand?

That’s How We Learn

Date: November 16, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I grew up with six brothers. That’s how I learned to dance – waiting for the bathroom.” (Bob Hope)

I can relate, although I learned to dance in the kitchen watching my parents cha-cha before breakfast and taking a spin when my mom needed to stir something.

But that is the grand adventure of life, isn’t it?

Learning the most unexpected lessons at the most unexpected times and from the most unexpected places.

I learned honesty as a child, but learned, again, how committed I was to it when government agents were coming to my home to seize everything of value and I knew the contents of my jewelry box. It would have been so easy to take something I could sell to feed, clothe or shelter my children and none would be the wiser. Except me. And that was the problem.

So I didn’t do it, although I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. It absolutely did. When you’re left alone, financially devastated, and have four children to provide for, it’s amazing how desperate that situation can make you feel. However, I’ve never been one to sell my soul for “things” and even when the stakes were so high in my eyes, I learned I still wasn’t going to. I learned for myself I wasn’t going to break down and be dishonest after living a life of complete honesty just because my spouse had. I learned I’d rather starve or be forced to rely upon the charity of others than to choose to steal or sell my soul for any “thing.”

In that moment I also learned that as much as we know what is right, and regardless of how much a virtue (like honesty) we possess, we are never absolutely above temptation. At least, I’m imperfect enough not to be.

Life is an endless opportunity to prove ourselves and reprove ourselves and prove ourselves again, even when we think we have something mastered–we get to learn and prove ourselves in an entirely new, and unexpected, way!

Like dance. I graduated from high school and dancing in the kitchen to college, social dance class, and returning home for New Year’s Eve 1985 to cha-cha with my dad, one last time, but in public, at a dance. Later I added clogging, BYU Folk Dancers and Irish dance to the resume of my experience. And eventually, a dance class with Bachelor #5. He keeps inviting me to country/western dance, so that may be next on our list. But wherever our lesson, and our life lessons take us, this I know:

That’s how we learn. And we’re learning all the time. The tombstone will be our diploma, said Eartha Kitt.

“Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.” (Henry L. Doherty)

Especially in the unexpected one.

A Perspective on Things I Never Thought I’d Learn

Date: October 22, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There is not an issue that a woman cannot bring a perspective to.” (Eddie Bernice Johnson)

Speaking of perspective, here’s more of mine: Life teaches you lessons you don’t anticipate; you learn things you never, in your wildest dreams, imagine you will learn.

I’ve been exposed to things in my unexpected life I never expected–like crime, divorce, and prison. I’ve learned things I NEVER imagined knowing anything about! Like aspects of the justice system, jail and prison.

After my then-husband revealed his criminal activity to me on March 18, 2009, and told me he anticipated being incarcerated for 5-7 years, I could not wrap my head around any part of it. I’d never stolen so much as a grape from a grocery store without paying for it, and my husband had stolen millions of dollars and was heading to prison? I was shocked and in shock. I didn’t know everything it entailed or what was coming to any of us. I’d never known anyone in prison, anyone with a relative in prison and had never been involved in breaking the law beyond an occasional speeding ticket while driving. My only education about any of it came courtesy of Hollywood, and based on everything I’d ever seen about prisons in t.v. shows and movies, they seemed like the ultimate horror. And then the man I was married to told me he was heading to one.

What do you do when you find out your husband of 20 years is heading to prison? If you’re me, you worry and wonder. Then you google “jail” and “prison”, read and research and try to learn anything you can. That’s what I did anyway.

I tried to find out anything I could about prison and what to expect his living conditions, life, and incarceration experience would be. I didn’t have a lot of luck, as a law abiding citizen I didn’t even know where to look, but I did learn some new things. The little bit I found was just a tiny taste of what was to come. Despite everything he had done, and all his selfish choices had thrust upon his victims, me and my children, I was scared. For him. And that’s really all I knew of the prison experience until that day in late August 2009, when my former spouse went before a magistrate and was charged with a crime, pled “not guilty” to the charge and was taken into custody.

Besides his sentencing day last month, March 18, 2009, and July 13, 2009, that day was one of the worst for me.

I was at work all day in Utah, trying to get a lot done and keep busy with projects so I wouldn’t worry or wonder about what was happening in Denver, CO. I didn’t know what to expect, or how I would know what happened in court that day, since no one considered me a victim and I was no longer married to the criminal. I knew of no one who was going to get me word of what transpired, so I checked online media sources every hour or two throughout the day, anticipating something would be mentioned at some point. Yet as much as I had waited for it all morning, and expected it, I was still shocked when I entered the words “Shawn Merriman Ponzi” and up popped stories about the events of that day.

I sat there, at the computer monitor, frozen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was real. (I still couldn’t believe it.) I really wasn’t going to wake up any time soon and discover I’d simply been experiencing the most real-feeling nightmare of my life. It truly was more than a bad dream. It was the worst of the unexpected life. The day I had anticipated for months had finally arrived and the wheels of justice were turning. I couldn’t believe a man I’d loved and lived with, and had chosen to be the father of my children, was actually going to prison. But somehow I kept it together; finished my work day; drove home to my children, and no one was the wiser about what had happened in my life that day.

Everything about that event made me sick to my stomach–the “last phone call” Shawn made to talk to someone, me, that morning before he headed to the courthouse and embarked on the rest of his journey and the additional consequences resulting from his crimes; reading an email he sent that a friend was driving him to the courthouse as he was “a bit distracted and didn’t want to drive himself;” seeing video of him walking through the glass revolving doors of the courthouse heading to his hearing; reading of a courtroom packed with victims and how “more than 20 of his alleged victims stood up and applauded…Most were smiling.” (Miles Moffat, denverpost.com, 8/20/2009)

I don’t know how I’d feel if someone took MY most important possession, any one of my children from me, so I don’t judge the actions of those in attendance that day as right or wrong. I simply offer my perspective that it made me sick to see others exult in the demise of another, regardless of what that person had done. I hoped within my heart that regardless of what the future held for me, I would always choose to be strong enough to refrain from exulting in the downfall of another.

It also bothered me to read about myself in the stories about Shawn Merriman. Despite the fact I repeatedly asked everyone involved not to mention me or my children, they always did. That day, the magistrate referenced my children and I in a confidential, pre-hearing document, so it became part of the record, and was reported. And of course the reports were never accurate. That day it was, “his wife and children have moved to Utah…” There was no “wife.” We were divorced! (You might have to be the innocent ex-wife of a criminal to understand my perspective–absolute distaste for anything attempting to link me to the man, the crimes he committed or the media coverage about any of it.)

It was a welcome relief to actually laugh at one thing I read: the part about how Shawn Merriman was considered a flight risk so he had been taken into custody at the courthouse. That wasn’t quite accurate either, but it did make for more drama in the reporting! The reality is that Shawn Merriman did not have a passport–that, and his guns, were taken from him immediately upon turning himself in to the authorities. He had no money. He had no vehicle. No family. Only a handful of friends. And nowhere to go. He wasn’t going anywhere but prison, and he certainly wasn’t a flight risk! In fact, as I understood it, it had been Shawn who requested he be taken into custody as he wanted to get the clock ticking on the time he had to serve.

Well, he got what he wanted. He was taken into custody. That day, the clock began ticking. And for the first time since 1989, I had no idea where Shawn Merriman was, or if he was even safe. He seemed to just drop off the face of the planet into the deep, dark recesses of the criminal justice system and a jail somewhere. I didn’t know where he had gone; I didn’t know where he had been taken. There was no way to contact him. I was afraid for him, not for the first time, since beginning my unexpected life.

His incarceration had begun.

“That hunger of the flesh, that longing for ease, that terror of incarceration, that insistence on tribal honour being obeyed: all of that exists, and it exists everywhere.” (Ben Kingsley)