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Prison Humor

Date: April 9, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

One day I couldn’t help myself. I researched federal prisons on the internet.

It was like a terrible car wreck off to the side of the road. I didn’t want to see it, but I had to look.  It gave me the shivers to even know someone going to prison.

I wasn’t the only one thinking about prisons.

My oldest son was too.  He came home one day to report that at school his economics teacher showed the class a prison in Georgia.  I couldn’t believe it.  What are the odds they’d be discussing prisons in economics as my son’s father was heading to one?

To my son, the Georgia prison looked like a nice hotel: glass walls with forest views, basketball courts, tennis courts, ping pong tables, and every cell had a flat screen t.v.

It was incomprehensible to me, and to my kids, that we knew someone heading to prison.

I also couldn’t believe I didn’t know where my children and I were going to live or how we were going to eat, yet He was going to have everything provided for him in prison! Never had the thought of prison sounded like a dream, but there was a tiny part of me that felt like He was getting off easier than I was.  His sentence sounded a lot less harsh than mine.

So my children and I joked about it.  (And I have to give Him credit.  He sat there and took our jokes.)

We repeated jokes like, “In prison, you get three square meals a day. At home, you cook three square meals a day and try to get your kids to eat them. In prison, if you have visitors, all you do is go to a room, sit, talk and then say good-bye when you are ready or your time is up. At home, you clean for days getting ready for your guests, cook and clean up after your guests, and hope that they will one day leave. In prison, you spend your free time writing letters or hanging out in your own space all day. At home, you get to clean your space and everyone else’s space, too, and what the heck is free time again? In prison, there are no whining children or spouses asking you to do something else for them. At home….stop me when I get to the downside of prison, will ya?”

But my oldest son made us laugh the hardest.  He detailed the prison he learned about in school to his dad and suggested He “make a reservation” for Georgia for the next several years!

I guess you had to be there. But I do know the laughter was a nice break from crying! It always is.

“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.” (Abraham Lincoln)

I knew the feeling.  We all did.

Snow Day

Date: April 8, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I remember snow days in Colorado were always a celebration. Cozy, unexpected family time; days filled with sledding and hot cocoa; relaxing by the fire; snuggling on the couch.  But the snow day we had in the spring of 2009 was completely different.  It just felt cold and alone.

That snow day I saw what an outcast I had become. Even regarding snow!

Every single driveway of ALL of our neighbors had been plowed, except ours.  (We hadn’t shoveled our snow in years–a neighbor with a snow plow on his truck, or a neighbor with an ATV and snowplow, always took care of it for everyone.  Not in 2009.) To make matters worse, all of the plowed snow had been piled, four feet high, at the top of OUR driveway.

A subtle message.

Aristotle was right.  ”Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.”

My son and I shoveled and shoveled the snow in an attempt to clear the driveway.  There was so much snow, snow that was that heavy, wet, spring snow, and the snow was piled so deep, we hardly made a dent in the piles although we shoveled until we felt like we’d sprinted a 10k.

My daughter was going to be late to meet her friends due to the snow situation blocking the exit from our driveway so I finally called a friend and asked her to pick my daughter up so she wouldn’t miss the activity. When her husband drove up and saw the piles of snow deposited in front of our driveway by neighbors, he was appalled! And angry.  He went home, got his snowblower, drove it over to my neighborhood and home, and cleared the snow away. (His wife told me he glared at every neighbor he saw as he did it–he was THAT disgusted by the hateful actions of our neighbors.)

That day I wrote, “I’m an outcast. But like the old song says, ‘I get by with a little help from my friends.’ Thanks, Dan.”

And truly, with good friends you’re never REALLY an outcast. Aristotle forgot to mention that while misfortune shows those who aren’t your friends, it also shows those who really are!  At a time when I felt like the biggest loser on earth and a total failure–believe me, ending up with my life at 41 1/2 years old had NOT been my life plan–I had friends who showed me otherwise.  ”The making of friends who are real friends,” said Edward Everett Hale, “is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.” If that was the measure of success, I hadn’t failed at all!

I don’t know how I would have survived my nightmare without friends.  ”A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”  (Anonymous) At a time when I felt like I had lost everything, including myself, they reminded me of who I was, what I had always been and showed me I was still me.  Me. Me PLUS the adventure of my unexpected life!

They helped me make the transition into a new chapter of my unexpected life. And although it was very hard to leave them in Colorado and begin a new life in Utah (so hard, in fact, I couldn’t say goodbye to anyone–I just drove away), how fortunate I am to have known such good people, to have been blessed with such incredible friends, that it WAS so hard to say goodbye!

My friends, old and new, help keep me going even to this day. Truly, I get by with a little help from my friends.  Don’t we all?

I Never Knew

Date: April 7, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.” (From the television show, The Wonder Years)

In 2009, I lived that line for real.  I felt like the life I thought I had, the life I had lived, had never really been real. I didn’t even trust my memories of my “former life” for a long time; everything seemed so tainted by the crime, the lies, and the betrayal. The pain of losing something I’d never really had hurt more than I imagined.

The spring of 2009 can best be described as the season my heart hurt.  It literally hurt ALL of the time.  It ached all day, every day, every moment, and I didn’t know if it hurt because it was broken or if I was actually physically in trouble due to the stress I lived under! Can healthy women have heart attacks at 41?  I wondered…

Here’s how “optimistic” and hopeful I felt sometimes.  Last April, one year ago, I wrote, “I’m looking at an eternity alone, people hating me the rest of my life, latch-key kids, if you name it and it’s miserable it’s my lot in life! I wonder how will I make it three months, much less the rest of my life? How can one man destroy so much? I deserved better. I deserved more, and so did my children.  His lies stole my life from age 26-41.  The consequences of his lies will steal the rest of my life. Everything looks so black. I never imagined pain like this existed, especially for someone so innocent.”

I spent depressing days packing stuff to move, preparing to leave the home I had brought each of my babies home to, had lived in for 16 years and had always thought it would be the home I’d live in when I was 80 years old.  I cried a lot. I reminisced. I mourned. I felt as if my heart had broken and would never heal.  And when I thought about my kids…I felt grief like I’d never felt before.

But I always pulled it together by the time my kids got home from school.

I had to carry on and keep it together (or at least look like I was keeping it together!) for my kids.  I had to show them what we do when our world falls apart:  we keep living.

My mom taught me that.

When I was 19 and my dad died unexpectedly in an airplane crash, I came home from college for the funeral to a house full of well-meaning neighbors and friends who told me I would not be returning to school because I was needed at home to help my mom and family.  So many told me that I thought my mom had decided that in my absence.  When I asked her if it was true that I wouldn’t be returning to college because my dad died, she was stunned.  And she corrected that mistaken assumption.  ”Absolutely you will be returning to school!  Andrea, you don’t stop living just because something terrible has happened to you!  You keep doing what you need to do, you keep living, you keep smiling even though you don’t feel like it, and some day your smiles will feel real again.”

So I smiled in 1986-1987 when I didn’t feel like it.  And I smiled in 2009 when I REALLY didn’t feel like it too.  They were forced.  They were ‘fake’ in that I didn’t feel them on the inside but I showed them on the outside anyway.  I smiled for the sake of my children.

I remember I was still forcing myself to smile in August 2009.  By then, it killed me that I didn’t mean them. I’d always been a pretty cheerful and positive person and it was hard for me to not feel like myself any more.  I had moments that I wondered if, in addition to losing everything I had known as my life, I had lost myself too.  I remember wondering if I’d ever smile, for real, again.

However, my mom turned out to be right.  As usual.

By October 2009, the smiles were real and the tears were less and less.  Sometime that month I realized I had gone an entire week without crying!  Baby steps forward, but steps forward all the same.  I think that’s one thing 2009 reinforced to me:  it doesn’t matter how fast you move along the path of your unexpected life.  Just as long as you keep moving.  Forward. Pressing on.

Oh, and smiling!

You Still Get To Write The Book

Date: April 4, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

In the middle of my 2009 nightmare I read an article about Michael J. Fox (the actor diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in his 30s) titled, “On The Bright Side of Life.”  It inspired me enough that I took the time to write down two key things he said in the interview.

Fox said, “Optimism doesn’t mean you get to skip the bad stuff.  If you’re truly optimistic or have a capacity to hope, it should allow you to look at what’s bad and really get it’s measure, and say, ‘What is the extent of this?’ It’s the courage to look at something and say, ‘However bad this is, it isn’t bad indefinitely.’”

The “bad stuff” comes to everyone.  When it came to me, I found it IS helpful to (try) to look at it with a perspective beyond the moment. In 2009, I wasn’t perfect at that, but I tried.  I tried because I believe if we allow ourselves to “wallow” in the moment we may never leave it, and it may come to define us for the rest of our lives and may literally become all we are.  We have to become more than simply the sum of the “bad stuff.”

Defining moments come to everyone in their unexpected lives.  And if we handle those moments right, what we DO with the moment and its attendant challenges rather than the moment itself, can define us.  We can choose to grow beyond the moment and become better than we would otherwise have been.

Fox also said, “We sometimes see subtractions…I’m not me minus anything. I’m me plus this experience…you still get to write the book.  It’s going to have some chapters you might not have anticipated, but it’s still your story.”

His words hit home with me.

My experience of 2009 wasn’t going to destroy me.  It wasn’t going to be the only aspect to me and of my life forever.  I have a story, and it isn’t only one of ponzi schemes, crime, betrayal, divorce and an unexpected life.  I still get to write the book. Although “The Unexpected Life” has been and continues to be quite a ride and some story–with experiences and chapters I never anticipated, it is mine.  I’m the author. And although the plot has taken some very unexpected twists and turns, and it’s still going, I have faith and am determined to work to ensure there will be a happy ending!

An Old Bag

Date: April 3, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I met with a leader of my church regularly.  He was there for me, took time to chat with me, to find out my thoughts and to offer a wise perspective.  We covered temporal issues, spiritual concepts, my children, me, etc…

On our last visit, before I relocated to Utah from Colorado, he gave me some excellent advice.  He told me I was going to be working full-time and I was going to be a single mother.  He said, “Andrea, as you go on and rebuild your life, remember to have fun!  Don’t let yourself be so burdened by all of your responsibilities that you forget to laugh and have fun! THAT is my advice for you as a single woman.”

Exellent advice.  I’ve tried to follow it and live it. I recommend it for everyone.

Another visit, though, he broached the subject of me marrying again some day.

I shook my head and said, “No.  I’m not marrying again.  I’m 41 years old.  I have four kids.  I’m an ‘old bag’! No one will want me!”

He was kind enough to laugh and say, “Andrea, you’re NOT an ‘old bag’.”

Then why did I feel like it?

But my church leader had a bit more perspective than I did.  I went on my “first” date less than three months later (VERY unexpected.)  And I don’t feel like an “old bag” any more. Or maybe I really am one, but I’m too busy laughing and having fun to know it!

There’s Nothing Like Love Songs

Date: April 2, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I used to watch a t.v. show where real-life people, singers, perform.  Maybe you’ve heard of it?  ”American Idol.”

The last time I regularly watched was in 2009.  That night, most songs were love songs, and by the time the episode was over, I was thoroughly depressed!

To know what I didn’t have, to know what I probably never had (and just hadn’t known it), to realize how ripped off I got in love, marriage, eternity, romance, partnership, trust, honesty, life, a whole and complete family, a father for my children (even in alimony and child support) was sadly overwhelming.

There’s nothing like love songs to make you realize what you don’t have!

I finally couldn’t let myself think about it, or I was afraid I might not carry on. So I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind, I quit watching “American Idol,” and it was a long time before I could hear a love song and not cry.

Kahlil Gibran said, “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”  He was right on.  Inside, I felt like a burned, blackened, twisted, dry, bent, lifeless, broken, dead tree!  (If you’ve ever seen a mountain scarred by a forest fire, that’s how I felt.) And thanks to “American Idol,” and love songs, I realized that.

So, if you are in love, or are fortunate enough to be loved by someone, take a moment today and acknowledge that blessing in your life.  Because life, with love, IS a tree blossoming with flowers and fruit, boughs bending toward earth, laden with goodness and beauty. Bounteous. Beautiful to behold. Fragrant. Nourishing. Satisfying. Satiating. Protective.

Even love songs recognize that.

And if you aren’t currently in love, or loved, don’t give up.  I haven’t.  I’ve seen new life, flowers, and green leaves grow out of the most inhospitable environments–cracks in rocks on cliffs, charred fields, even burned, dead, twisted and broken trees.  I’m counting on that.

Life Cycles…And Jewels

Date: April 1, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

You know, it’s funny how life cycles.

I’ve noticed how just when I think I have conquered a challenge in my life, or overcome a shortcoming, sooner or later life comes at me again, in a new way, and I get to refine myself even more in that particular area.

For example, patience.  I struggled with patience as a child, yet by the time I became a young adult, I felt I had mastered my temper and impatience.  I was patient.  All was good for a few years, and then I became a mother.  I developed patience in entirely new ways as a result of being blessed with children.  I was really patient.  All was good, and then I became the daughter of a mother with brain damage and personality changes as a result of strokes and health challenges and I developed new aspects of patience.  The list of life experiences that have helped me refine myself in the area of patience is long and continues…even with the events of 2009.

Honesty, however, is one area of my life I can honestly say (pun intended!) I have been close to perfect in.  My parents drilled the importance of honesty and integrity, in all things.  We were raised to be CHRISTENSENS, and as such, we had to be an example to others, we needed to be honest and live good lives, and bring honor to the good name our ancestors had passed on to us.

So 2009 was a shock to me.  I couldn’t believe the dishonesty one man was capable of.  I couldn’t believe I knew a person so dishonest–much less, was married to him! But what shocked me even more were fleeting thoughts I had.

I had been left in poverty, homeless, unemployed, and had four children depending on me for survival.  I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit to thinking, fleetingly, “I could hide something of value from the government.  I could try to hide something that I could sell to support my children.”

And then just as fast, I thought, “I have lived a life of integrity my entire life!  WHY would I throw that away now?  And for worthless THINGS that will stay here when I die?  I’m not going to sell MY soul for THINGS! I am honest, always have been, and I will remain honest even in this.”  I also didn’t want ANY of Him to have rubbed off on me.

I remembered a story from the life of  a good man named David B. Haight.  He played college football at the University of Utah and told of how he could have moved the football half an inch to win a championship game and no one but him would have known what he had done.  Instead, he chose to be honest and his team lost the game.

Sure there was a moment when I shocked myself with the thought to try to secure something for my children.  In fact, that was the moment that surprised me–I was an honest person, always had been, I didn’t expect to think even a thought about another alternative. I chose to remain honest.  I chose not to attempt to secure something for my children. I “didn’t move the football.”  (I even thought, “Maybe if I am 100% honest I will escape some hatred and persecution.”  That didn’t work out, to my knowledge, but I stand by my decision to remain honest!)

And really, the bank, the government, anyone could take my home or anything I owned, they could take my diamonds and other jewelry, but I would still have my jewels.  My children.  My children have always been my jewels.  And they are priceless to me.

So I did it.  Some would say I lost practically everything, and I did lose a lot materially, but I kept my honesty and integrity intact AND…I got to keep my jewels!

The price of integrity? Priceless.

It’s Not A Movie, It’s My Unexpected Life

Date: March 30, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

They came.

Government representatives, approximately eight of them.  Wearing dark jackets and sunglasses, flashing gold badges, they arrived at my home in dark Suburbans with tinted windows–just like in the movies.  Only this time it wasn’t a movie, it was my new and unexpected life.

I was embarrassed.  I was humiliated.  I was ashamed to be associated (by marriage only) with anyone and anything that required government agents entering my home, doing inventory of its contents, and compiling lists of things for seizure.  It was surreal.

They were very kind to me.  Very polite.  They quietly chatted, walked from room to room filming the contents, narrated what they were filming, they asked questions. I mostly stood in one corner of the house, in the dining room, looking out the window, seeing the same view I’d gazed at for the past 16 years so differently. Sadly, I saw everything very differently now. I tried to come to grips with what was taking place in my home around me.

But I don’t think I ever reconciled it.  I just endured it, and waited for it to be over.

I had so many questions, but hardly dared speak unless spoken to, much less dared to ask my questions.  (And it wasn’t because the officials were sullen looking, tough, or anything else.  It was completely the opposite, in fact.  They were a group of nice looking, clean cut, friendly, polite, people.  They seemed trustworthy and good.  Had I met them in any other circumstances, I really would have liked them!  That day I was just completely out of my element, still in shock, and very afraid.)

Before they left, I dared ask if they would be taking the painting my mom had painted and the things I had inherited from her.  (They weren’t worth anything monetarily, but they had huge sentimental value to me and I was prepared to fight for them.)  They assured me they would not take anything of my mom’s.  Then they told me what I could expect to happen next and when, and gave me permission to remove any personal items, household items and furniture.  They also told me they weren’t interested in my jewelry.

Then they were gone.

I went from there to meet with my attorney. The attorney I had to hire even though I hadn’t known anything was going on and had never participated in any illegal activity. It was our first meeting.  To my surprise, it actually was an encouraging meeting.  (Maybe the only encouraging meeting I attended through the whole experience!)  Not encouraging regarding money, there was no money, but encouraging regarding the rest of my life.  Here’s why.

The day my spouse told me of His crimes, He also told me He, and I (even though I had no involvement in any part of His crimes), would be “watched” the rest of our lives.  Talk about a life sentence that never ends!  Instead, my attorney told me that when everything was settled, I would be free to move on and live my life.

I had to make sure I’d heard right.  ”Free to live my life as a private citizen? Free to live a life of anonymity again?”

Yes.

What a gift freedom is.  And the opportunity to live life, quietly and privately, unexpected as it may be?  A true gift.

It’s amazing when you think you’ve lost it all, to realize that you still have the greatest gift ever given:  life.  I am so grateful for mine.  It’s not the one I imagined for myself or the one I worked to create those many years, but it is still a gift; a life of possibilities. Mine to make of it what I can and will.  That is my responsibility.  I believe that is the responsibility we each have, whatever the “life gift” we receive.

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming something more.” (Tony Robbins)

I also believe life is a choice.  We can choose to laugh or cry (as I’ve mentioned before); we can choose to educate ourselves or remain ignorant; we can choose to make stumbling blocks or stepping stones out of our experiences; and we can choose to press forward and carry on or give up and quit. I am grateful to have been taught to make the most of mine.  That is one gift I can give myself. All of us can.

“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”  (Voltaire)

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!

Paranoid…But Trying To Laugh!

Date: March 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

His attorney came to our home within a few days of March 18.  The lawyer warned of media coverage, publicity, paparazzi stalking the house, public questions about ME, etc… With every sentence he spoke, I worried the nightmare was about to worsen.

Shortly after the attorney departed,  one of my spouse’s clients called our home.  Although this particular client had shown up on my doorstep the evening of March 18 moments after my children had been informed about the situation, and had yelled at my children and I when we answered the door and all stood there huddled together crying, I was still stunned when this same client called my home that day and directed his venom toward ME.  He yelled at me and said my spouse was the most despicable man he had ever known.  When he was done ranting, I thought, “It is totally his right to feel that way and believe it, but I don’t know how it’s going to help his situation by subjecting me to it!”

And I laughed as I realized I had politely listened to all of it, didn’t hang up the phone during any part of his tirade, endured his yelling fury, even had the presence of mind to thank him for calling before HE hung up on ME!  My phone etiquette was alive and well.  (My parents would be so proud!)

That afternoon I played outside with my three-year-old and saw a dark Suburban cruise slowly by our house, turn around, and cruise slowly back by.  I guess I’d seen too many crime-themed t.v. shows and movies because I wondered if it was a criminal casing a new opportunity, a reporter, a former client of His, or someone out to do my children and I harm.  I couldn’t believe I didn’t feel safe at home anymore.

Again, I laughed at myself and my crazy fears that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Later that day I went to my spouse’s office behind our home to get a fax.  When I turned around, my three-year-old was gone.  I hunted everywhere in the yard and on our property but he was nowhere to be found.  I told my spouse of the situation and He joined me in the hunt.  We looked for 30 minutes–the longest 30 minutes of my life.  The entire time I worried an angry client had kidnapped my three-year-old.  I wondered if a client’s loss would be so great that they’d mentally snap and kill my child.  I thought, “I’ve lost EVERYTHING AND my three-year-old!” I fought back waves of panic like I’d never felt before, and thankfully, we found our little son next door.

That time, I was so afraid I couldn’t laugh.

By that evening, when the doorbell rang again, I was in full-blown paranoia.  Through the glass front door I could see a man in a baseball cap and jacket who appeared to be holding some type of recording device.  I debated about answering the door, but finally decided to get it over with.  I braced myself to face a reporter.  I hoped I was in control enough to rely on my professional media training (but seriously doubted I was–it’s different when YOU are in the negative spotlight for something you had no knowledge of and no participation in.) I  thought to myself, “So it has begun,” and grasped the doorknob.

I was SO afraid, but I opened the door anyway, and discovered it was only the Schwann man selling ice cream and other frozen products! My terror must have been written all over my face because before I could speak, the man put both hands in the air and said, “It’s ok, ma’am! I’m just the Schwann man! I’m not going to hurt you!” And he slowly backed away and left without even attempting to sell me anything!

I imagined the story that Schwann man was going to go home and tell that night.  I closed the door…and laughed.

I had become paranoid in less than one day. The insanity of it all made me laugh. And I’m happy to report that I’m still laughing.

Remember:  it’s a choice.