Living Happily Ever After
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The Speech, Part III

Date: March 6, 2014  Author: Andrea Merriman

Long story short, within days U.S. Marshalls descended on my home and inventoried my possessions, anything of value, for seizure. Victims contacted the media. U.S. attorneys broke the news and my home was soon surrounded with media satellite trucks from across the country, shining spotlights on my home and into my windows night and day, filming every move, looking in my windows, knocking on my door.

Victims appeared at my home and screamed and yelled the worst of things at me and my children for the things my husband had done. One victim loaded a gun and made it all the way to my front door, prepared to blow someone away, before changing his mind. Federal agents seized everything of value. Hate mail came from across the country. And public speculation ran rampant–even about me. Of course I had to have know, of course I was probably involved; you name it, if it was hostile, hateful, untrue or anything of that nature…someone thought it and shared it with the world via the media. Victims even entered my home one night and terrorized my teenage daughter.

I had a matter of weeks to put together a life for my children and I. Thankfully, I found a job. (It didn’t cover all of our living expenses, but at least it was something!) I divorced my husband–I had no money, so I wrote my own divorce to the best of my ability and with the help of a friend, and went to court to have it finalized.

My ex-husband was taken into custody and eventually sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison. And I began to claw and crawl my way out of the deepest, darkest, blackest pit of destruction and despair I could never have imagined. Lets just say it’s not quite the happily ever after I EVER dreamed of as a young girl (or at any time of my life, for that matter!)

But I was raised on fairy tales. I still enjoy them! I believe in happy endings and that a happily ever after is possible for everyone, regardless of their challenges.

So today I’d like to share my formula for HAPLY EVR AFTR (™), courtesy of my unexpected life. It comes not from a fairy godmother, but from living through and recovering from an indescribable horror–we all have one, don’t we?

It worked for me. And it can work for you, too!

(Sorry to drag this on, but tune in again tomorrow and in the coming days for the good stuff–HAPLY EVR AFTR!)

“That’s when the great stuff happens…” (Carol Kane)

Don’t Leave Home Without Them

Date: May 10, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn’t take them along.” (Margaret Culken Banning)

When I got my job, I was a single mother. With an ex-husband in prison and my parents dead, it meant that when I wasn’t with my children, they were basically “orphans.” Thankfully, my company could not have been more understanding of that. I told them up front I couldn’t travel due to my situation and they hired me anyway, allowed me significant flexibility in my work schedule (they still do) and although many employees traveled on the company’s behalf every quarter, they never once asked me to, made me feel guilty because I didn’t travel or forced me to travel. (I work for an amazing company, by the way.)

After my marriage, they asked if I could travel to a quarterly event. My husband stayed home with the kids, I made the trip but as all mothers know, especially those who work full-time, you frequently have your children in mind. Nothing reminded me of that more than a recent business trip I made to Anaheim, Calif. for my company’s annual Global Convention.

I was gone five days. As I departed my husband commented, “Who would have imagined that, of the two of us, YOU would have the longest business trips!” True. I certainly never imagined I’d ever have a business trip much less longer ones than those of my husband.

And, wouldn’t you know, my business trip overlapped with a significant event—you guessed it—my daughter’s prom! (Talk about Proma Drama continued! If my daughter were writing this, I’m sure she’d clarify that she is also my “only” daughter. Yes, I’m a loser working mother! Out of town the weekend of my daughter’s Junior Prom!) I had no choice. But it didn’t stop my daughter from noting, “Do you realize you’ve been out of town for every single school dance I’ve had?” (Can you sense the working mother guilt oozing from me? Trust me, it is!)

But I did what I could. Despite everything I had going on at my event (including working from early morning to late at night each day with hardly time to eat) I did everything I could in advance of the big event: I helped her find the perfect dress, I paid for it, I arranged for jewelry to match her dress, I asked my sister-in-law to do my daughter’s hair (turns out, it was quite a party with my daughter and her cousin going to prom the same night resulting in an assembly line of hair and make-up artistry performed by nieces and my sister-in-law, a fun memory for all; everyone but me, that is, as I was out of town!)

I even remembered to ask my son for pictures of my daughter and her date, to text them to me so I could experience as much of the event as possible. So there I sat in my hotel room after midnight, knowing I had to wake up in five short hours, looking at pictures of my daughter heading to her prom. And I realized, again, and not for the first time, that truly, you never do quite leave your children at home, even when you don’t take them with you.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t prom, but I was having a few adventures of my own.

“My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful, difficult, but led me to greater happiness and opportunities.” (Diana Ross)

Bad Day

Date: May 2, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Less is more.” (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe)

My youngest is in kindergarten; six years old going on 26 (he thinks, and always has, I assume because of his older siblings.) Needless to say, with his siblings all quite a bit older than him , he knows the latest dance moves of high school and college students as well as the words to the most current, hip music but as such, he has never been that into toys; mostly he just tears all of them out of his closet into a mess on the floor and then leaves to go play outside!

Working mother that I am, I confess, most of the time it ALL stays there for several days as I risk breaking my neck each night, carefully stepping over the disaster zone to tuck him in bed, until the weekend when I muster the energy to help him clean it all up again! Not too long ago, the mess was particularly horrendous and my son decided he wanted to sack it all up and give it away to charity rather than clean it all up again. So we did.

We cleaned the toys out, put his room back in order and I had him haul the sacks out to the car to be delivered to his charity of choice. He returned from the task, crying. I asked him what was wrong. He replied, “I’m having the worst day! I’m really struggling! I don’t have any toys left!”

We had a little pep talk. I showed him that I actually had, in all of my motherly wisdom, saved a few things I knew he might want to play with in the future (despite his insistence, at the time, that he wanted every single toy gone so he wouldn’t have to ever clean his room again!) and the sacks remained in the car.

I believe that while his initial adjustment may be difficult (like me adjusting to my unexpected life) he’ll get used to it. He’ll see very quickly that less really IS more: more of what’s important; more, in that it’s all you need. Less gives you more hours in your day. Less destresses. Less frees you to appreciate the simple things and to actually have time for them. I recommend it.

I believe that “less” actually is “more” so strongly that if you don’t anticipate discovering your spouse has been leading a double life, is heading to prison and that the U.S. Marshalls are going to help you “clean out” and “declutter” your life of “things” in the very near future, I highly recommend you do it on your own— although perhaps not to the extent my life was “decluttered”! (lol)

See for yourself what I’m talking about.

“A lot of people tend to chew up the scenery. I’m a firm believer in less is more, especially on the big screen.” (Mark Wahlberg)

Especially in the unexpected life.

Speech: Your Happily Ever After

Date: April 21, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

I had the opportunity to speak at a women’s meeting for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ephraim, Utah this week. I was asked to speak on “Your Happily Ever After.” Here are excepts from what I said.

“I was raised on fairy tales: Cinderella, The Goose Girl, Snow White and Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Seven Ravens, The Little Tin Soldier, The Emperor’s Nightingale and others.

Every fairy tale began with the words “Once upon a time.” Each one detailed the life of the heroine—which always included extreme adversity. And somehow, despite every hardship and challenge the heroines endured, they were obedient; they were kind to others; they performed their labors with a smile; and while every heroine in the illustrations was always beautiful on the outside they also each demonstrated their true beauty, their inner beauty, as they humbly accepted their unjust circumstances and the wicked treatment of other characters in the story and endured to the end, eventually, enjoying a “happily ever after.”

Fairy tales are and always have been absolutely believable to me. My mom, grandmother, female ancestors and other noble women have all lived them: life stories filled with ups and downs, adversities and triumphs, and in the end, a happily ever after. Doesn’t every woman do that? I believe we do when we endure to the end of challenging plot developments in faith, although each of our stories are in various stages of completion and many chapters have yet to be written.

Now you know my background and what I believed in when I was handed my own, but unexpected, “once upon a time” opportunity: a story of adventure, overwhelming darkness, evil, obstacles, injustice, courage, hope, tender mercies, miracles, overcoming, romance, eventually everlasting love and, of course, a “happily ever after!”

My once upon a time began when I was born to goodly parents. Later I graduated from Brigham Young University, married and enjoyed a happy marriage for the next 20 years, had 4 children, served in our church and community and enjoyed many material blessings as well—a comfortable home, a swimming pool, a Sport Court, luxury cars, a second home in Yellowstone, a world-class art collection that was loaned to museums around the world, world travel and financial means. (Over the years, I’d watched our investments and savings grow to well over $10 million dollars. I thought I was on track for, and living, the happily ever after of my life.)

And then our life, marriage, family, world, everything, ended in one moment when my husband sat me down and confessed that his company was a sham. That in reality, all those years I’d thought he’d been going to work every day and running an investment company, he had actually been perpetuating a Ponzi scheme. He’d already hired an attorney, turned himself in to the government and to church leaders, and anticipated serving 5-7 years in prison. Our house, cars and assets were gone; I was left alone, the sole parent and support of our four children; and my parents were dead.

To this day I can imagine very few storylines worse than the one that was written in to mine! (I even had a friend whose young husband was dying of cancer tell me she’d take her life over mine any day! And sadly, I would have, too.) Oh, and on top of everything else, he told me I’d need an attorney even though I’d done nothing wrong and how sorry he was that he’d maxed out the last of our credit cards paying for his attorney!

I can’t adequately describe the despair, the darkness, the shock, the grief, the fear and the humiliation associated with my nightmare—I mean fairy tale. As an added bonus, my husband’s victims included neighbors, friends, family members as well as my closest lifelong friends, and the shock and rage at my husband and what he had done was extended to my children and me, but especially to me. The hatred was indescribable.

My world collapsed, my marriage ended and it all played out on national television and in newspapers nationwide. The stress was so great it led to what I like to call the felony diet—7 pounds GONE that first day! But the worst was facing my children and witnessing the destruction of their world, their childhood innocence and their fairy tale lives go up in flames (or out the door, courtesy of the U.S. Marshalls.) Shortly after my husband’s revelations, I saw my 9-year-old writing on a piece a paper: “There’s a hole where my heart used to be. My dad is going to prison.”

We lost anything, everything and more that had been paid for with tainted funds; we lost everything of worldly value. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be thrown into a fairy tale like that. Everything I’d worked toward and built my entire adult life was gone. I didn’t know how I was going to live, to feed my children or survive. I didn’t know what was ahead.

I’ve been asked to get personal with you regarding my experience so I thought I’d share the first person account of what I lived through, a few of my journal entries, written in those dark days—mingled with the things I learned and the principles I tried to live by.

1. As you’re writing your life story never forget that the story may develop in ways you never expected, you may get to live some very unwanted chapters, but that doesn’t have to change the end of your story—or that you’re expected to get there anyway.

Right and wrong don’t change just because your life does. Don’t let yourself make excuses for doing or not doing certain things just because things have become “harder.” And contrary to what I was tempted to believe when I was thrust into my fairy tale opportunity, life doesn’t end just because your world does. You have to keep living. You have to keep striving for happiness and joy in it too, you just may have to get a little more creative or work a little harder to make your life is one of equal happiness and joy to the one you lost! Make sure you’re doing everything you can to triumph, keep on keeping on, let go of anger/resentment/fear, and in the end, you’ll become more than you ever thought possible.

2. No matter what you think you’ve lost, you are still left with something you just may have to look really hard to find it! Count your blessings despite your trials. Look for the good.

“I found out today there will be notices on our home that it’s seized by the government. Embarrassing? Maybe, but I’m counting my blessings that at least it’s a roof over our heads for a little while longer.”

 “I realized today that while my husband has received hate mail from all across the country, I haven’t received one piece! Nasty comments in the public forum, public speculation, vilification by many but no hate mail! Each week I receive a few letters of love and support and good wishes from people, but I haven’t gotten a single piece of hate mail. THAT is a tender mercy. THAT is a blessing. Count your many blessings!”

Some days the only “blessing” I could see was that for some reason, I was still breathing. That’s ok if that’s all you can find to be grateful for.

3. As you’re enduring your fairy tale, keep walking. Keep pressing forward. Don’t quit.

 Years ago, I read a story about a pioneer man who lost his wife crossing the plains, buried her and by that night had lost his infant son as well. He walked back to his wife’s grave, dug her up, buried the baby with her, then returned to the wagon train. He quit writing in his journal for awhile, but when he picked up again, he wrote only, “Still walking.”

“Like that pioneer man who quit writing in his journal for awhile during his adversities, I guess that is me. I haven’t had the time or energy or opportunity to write about my life lately. I haven’t been able to face what is now my life. And I’m not sure why it is my life. I know I shouldn’t ask why, but I am so alone and discouraged I literally can’t hold myself back. I am filled with grief for the many, many things I have lost. And I am so lonely. What did I ever do to deserve any of this besides love and trust my husband—which, I’m told that’s what you’re supposed to do in marriage. I feel so much grief I can’t express it. I hope I can get over it. I hope I can keep going. I hope. I hope. I hope. I guess I do hope, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying every day.”

Keep walking.

4. Realize how you react to adversity is a critical factor in whether or not you arrive at your own “happily ever after.” It’s up to us to make of our life and experiences what we will.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “You need to know that you will experience your own adversity. None is exempt. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges come growth and strength. It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.”

 “Winston Churchill said ‘to every man [and woman] there comes…that special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to them…what a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.’ It hit me as I read that that I have an opportunity to let this time be my finest hour. It is a critical time. As daunting as it seems, I MUST make this time my finest hour. I don’t know what the future holds, but I have faith. I know there will be one.”

 “It’s taking all of my faith and trust to hope the kids and I don’t end up homeless, on the street, living in a cardboard box. My heart ached all day yesterday and I didn’t know if it’s because my heart is broken or because I was having a heart attack! I’m being dealt so many injustices and there will never be any restitution to me for any of it. I guess I am the one who will just have to let go of it, forgive and go on. I have only one goal: to not hate. Ok, I have two goals: to be cheerful, happy and optimistic again somehow.”

Be of good courage. One day I came across the theme for my new life: “If you can’t jump over life’s hurdles, LIMBO under them!”

It’s all in what you choose to do with it. You can let your trials “ruin” your lives and become an excuse for every future challenge or failure you’ll have; or you can hang in there, get through them, and figure out how to use them for your good, to make you better, and you can learn to smile in spite of them.

5. Remember that your situation never ends up as bed, in the end, as you imagine it’s going to. Things are never quite as bad as they seem. Have patience until things settle. (That was true even for me!)

Jeffrey Holland, president of Brigham Young University when I attended college encouraged: “Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. On those days when we have special need… remember there is help. There IS happiness. There really IS light at the end of the tunnel. Hold on. Keep trying. Things will improve…Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can.“

“It is another day of not being able to comprehend how I’ll make it through another day, but I have no choice. I have to try. Each time I think I am healing, or that maybe we can make it, or that everything will be ok, each time I start to feel even a tiny shade of peace or confidence, something HUGE happens to suck me right back in to the black hole I have been trying to crawl out of since March 18. I don’t believe God caused this calamity to come upon us, my husband did; but it doesn’t mean I don’t get to experience it, it means only that the Lord knew I was strong enough to handle this. It means God knows we can survive it if we choose to. It also means that we have to wade through the most incredible garbage I have ever seen! And I also have to hope it means things will, someday, get better.”

 6. Recognize your challenges are opportunities for growth.

“I couldn’t help but laugh at the encouragement from my church leaders regarding tribulation at our recent conference. They always mention economic challenge OR job challenge OR family challenge OR marital challenge OR disappointment OR broken heart, etc…but they haven’t mentioned all of them together at the same time, and THAT is me! (If you add hatred and persecution from neighbors, friends, and many church members; orphaned and without parents; prison, crimes, divorce and everything else with it too!) HOW did I get so blessed? I have been given so many unimaginable opportunities for growth and all at the same time. Lucky me. I hope I can do it.”

You can do it. I did. I’m living proof.

7. Have a sense of humor during the hard chapters of your fairy tale. I firmly believe a sense of humor helps you get through challenges.

 “In church today the teacher asked us to think of our 5 most valuable material possessions. Hmmm. I don’t have any anymore! I had nothing to think of. That struck me so funny I laughed. I always thought ‘you can’t take it with you’ applied to death, but it applies to 41-year-old, alive me!

Another funny thing:  Today my daughter told me I need to get married to a good man so I’m not alone. I told her I won’t marry again because I am an ‘old bag.’ She helpfully said, “Mom! Botox!” (No disagreement on her end that her mother is a disgusting and old ugly ‘bag’, just a helpful suggestion to me on how to overcome it! P.S. to My Daughter: No shelter, no food, no job, no everything also means Botox IS NOT an option!)”

8. Realize that no matter what develops in your life your dreams can still come true—you just might get to them differently than you expected.

 “My high school son dreamed his entire life of playing hockey at the college level. But then our life happened, we moved to Utah, we are literally in the depths of poverty—short of the needed money for our expenses each month—and initially thought every dream had been taken from us. And then today my son was asked, as a high school student, if he had any interest in practicing with the BYU team. Does he? It’s amazing, this experience called life; how things work out for us, and how the Lord moves in mysterious ways and truly can make all things work together for our good. When our world ended, I thought every dream we’d ever had was gone too. Yet, because of my ex-husband’s crimes and the way things worked out for us, we ended up in Utah, right where we are, and my son is probably in a better position now to make his college hockey dream come true than he ever would have been living what we thought was our fairy tale life in Colorado. It proves once again that you can lose your entire life, be gifted a cesspool, and you can still grow flowers out of the manure someone else created for you. That is why you never quit, you never give up, you keep pressing forward, you keep doing what is right and living as excellently as you can, and eventually, you create out of your new life all of the good things you were aiming for in your old one. You arrive at the same happily ever after, you just end up taking a different path to get there.”

Long story short, we survived our losses, my divorce, our move to Utah and everything else which eventually led to a total lapse of sanity on my part resulting in me, on a whim late one Friday night, signing up online for a single’s site; which led me to me re-entering the singles scene!

I wish I could report associations with many handsome princes—and there were a few of those—but the reality consisted of a LOT more frogs! (No disrespect to any men intended.) But I eventually (in fact, a lot quicker than I expected) I found a prince! We married in 2011 and recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary.

 9. Lastly, remember every single life lesson will be worth it.

My 2011 marriage was one of the greatest moments of my life. All I could think was, “This is absolutely perfect. It was worth everything I went through to get here.” I was actually grateful for everything that had happened to me. Not only because of what I learned, but because my experience, MY LOSS, looking back on it, actually freed me.

My unexpected life freed me to find and receive what I’d always wanted, what I’d always thought I had but really hadn’t had—a true happily ever after with a wonderful man.  And not that every story has to end with a handsome prince; but mine did! And I’m so grateful.

“Life is a precious gift as precious a gift as ‘once upon a time.’ It’s our own true story of adventure, trial, opportunity for greatness, nobility, courage and love. But happily ever after doesn’t come without a price. Sandwiched between ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after is great adversity. In stories as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps develop a depth of character that comes no other way. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your once upon a time is now.” (Dieter Uchtdorf)

If you remember nothing else from my remarks tonight, please remember this:

 Happily ever after is not something found only in fairy tales. You can have it. It is available to you. I am living proof—of that and that by seeking to not just endure but triumph in adversity, our challenges can make us better than we would otherwise have been. So keep living, reading and writing your own story with faith and courage regardless of the plot developments, creating your own happily ever after, until the day that you really do experience this phrase again: ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”

 

The Small World of Television

Date: April 17, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Television is intensely personal.” (Jessica Savitch)

The very next day I was chatting with a different co-worker new to my company who gathered from our conversation that I was divorced. She asked about my previous husband, where he lives now and whether or not my children ever see him. “No, they don’t see him,” I replied.

“Really? Not at all? Why not?” she asked.

“Because he’s in prison,” I clarified. “Until 2020.”

With information like that offered up, there are always a few follow-up questions! (Which I’m  happy to answer.) After more questions and some additional explanation, a light came on in my co-worker’s eyes. “Oh! I have a great idea! I know what you need to do!” she exclaimed. “There’s a television show that would be perfect for you!” She told me a about it, including its title and that it’s her favorite show, and I started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“That’s the very show that I’m talking to about appearing on!” I explained.

Two different people, two days in a row, same television show. And me.

Small world.

A Move, A Proof

Date: April 5, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

Two words describe the most recent developments at our house: Moving. Again. (Or should I more accurately describe it as U-Haul? Or you, haul? Sometimes I think I ought to go into business for myself.) Here’s the update.

We gave it a good run (two months.) However, in that time my husband’s daughter made some good choices (again)  and some seriously poor choices (again)…so she moved in with her mother. I’d assumed  we’d let her experience the consequences of her choices and try it again, but before I even knew there was a plan, the new plan was implemented and she’d made arrangements to live somewhere else. Had I had any say in the matter, had it been up to me, I would have insisted my husband’s daughter stay with us; I would have allowed her to experience the consequences of her choices and we would have given things another shot. But, I’m not in charge; I’m just my husband’s wife.

From my perspective, that’s one thing that makes divorce and the stepparent role so difficult: watching kids you like and care about make choice after choice that complicate their lives and put their futures at risk; you’re ready and willing as their friend to assist their parent in helping them learn self-control, honesty, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, family values and other important lessons you know they’re going to need to be successful adults—and not only are they not interested in those things, they have another option, another parent, another “culture,” an entirely different and opposite set of values and lifestyle they can turn to. On top of that, the additional challenge (and biggest concern from my perspective) is the effect the poor choices and lives the children of one family choose to lead can have on the children of the other family.

Honestly, sometimes that aspect of remarriage is almost overwhelming. But one unexpected part the situation has reminded me of again, however, is that everything has an upside. You just have to look for it and find it.

Here’s one. When I divorced and my children’s father went to prison to serve his 12 year sentence, I thought that was a hard and terrible thing for my children to experience. And it has been, to some degree, at least it started out that way, but it has also been a blessing too. For instance, my children don’t have to deal with two parents leading two different lives, fear of showing “loyalty” to one versus the other, the disruption in routine of moving between different parents and different rules, etc…It has also turned out to be good for me in an unexpected way—in my ability to parent my children as I see fit. While I believe my ex-husband would support my role, my philosophy and my efforts in raising our children were he near us, the “upside” or bright side to their father’s incarceration is that his absence guarantees it.

It gives my children no other option. I’m it. If they don’t like my rules, parenting philosophies or what I’m raising them to be, if they make a wrong choice, they still have to stay with me, experience the consequences of their choices and learn from their mistakes. There’s nowhere else for them to go. There’s no one they can run to, no one who will pity them or enable them to continue their wrong choices and inappropriate behaviors. And given the many divorce situations I’ve been exposed to since the demise of my original family, I now see that prison has actually been a blessing for my children and their growth and learning.

Who EVER would have thought? Certainly not me! When I think back to that dark day in 2009 when my world crumbled in one moment, one conversation, and I thought prison was the most incomprehensible thing in my world, I never saw it coming, I didn’t see an upside, if you will. But it is what it is: ”What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” (Oscar Wilde)

It reminds me again that if you’ve got a challenge, even a very bitter one; if you’re enduring your worst nightmare, even something so terrible you never could have imagined it would ever be your nightmare; hang in there! And I know that in time (if you can’t already) you’ll see a bright side. You’ll be able to recognize something good that came out of it, even if it’s a very minuscule good thing.  Eventually you’ll see a blessing in even the worst situations. That’s the unexpected life. And I’ll say it again: I’m living proof.

“A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.” (Jean Chretien)

Love

Date: February 27, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I married the first man I ever kissed.  When I tell this to my children they just about throw up.” (Barbara Bush)

I didn’t quite do what Barbara Bush did, but that doesn’t mean my kids aren’t feeling like hers did! Yes, with a newlywed mother, I’ve seen for myself how lovesick teenagers can be—make that how disgusted by aspects of love teens are bound to feel. And they don’t hold it in. They share it with me occasionally, even during this month of love (also the month of my first wedding anniversary.)

Case in point: The other day I was telling my son a story in an attempt to entertain him. Part of the story involved my imitation of some noises, unattractive sounds meant to make him laugh. I went out on a limb for the sake of entertainment and offered my finest attempt at said noises and was crushed when he failed to respond. As he was sitting in another room and I couldn’t see him, I called out, “Hey! Didn’t you hear that? You didn’t even react!”

“Oh, I heard you,” he replied. “I just thought you were kissing Mike again.”

Another child chimed in, “Watch out! Romance in the kitchen!”

My daughter just rolled her eyes and coincidentally, got up and left the room.

It was at that moment that I came to this realization: My poor children! If they haven’t been scarred by the trauma they endured when their dad confessed to running a Ponzi scheme and went to prison, I guess the behavior of their newlywed mother may be their undoing.

I’ll have to hope they learn this lesson: ”I found I could be happy and throw up at the same time.” (Pamela Anderson)

Love.

While Mother’s Away…

Date: February 5, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

A woman realizes her son has not yet gotten out of bed for school. She goes into his bedroom and tells him to get up or he will miss breakfast. ”No,” the son replies. “I don’t wanna go to school!” ”You HAVE to go to school,” the mother scolds.

“No! The kids are mean to me, the teachers don’t like me, and the lunches are icky.” ”You WILL go to school, young man,” the mother warns. ”Why? Why do I have to go to school today?” the son asks. The mother is about to lose her patience: “Because you’re the principal, now get out of bed!”

Yes, that’s sort of what happened during my cruise. Only I wasn’t home with my son—and it was my kindergarten-age son that ditched school! I NEVER expected that one! Yes, while I was on my husband’s birthday cruise experiencing karaoke and all kinds of adventures, my children were at home in Utah, one having adventures of his own!

My high school-age daughter is sharp, efficient, independent and always has been. (She could run our home and family smoothly by the time she was in 5th grade without my help, but I’m thankful she lets me hang around to attempt to do my part!)  While we were gone, she had everything under control—drove her siblings to daycare and school, went to school herself, picked up her siblings after school, supervised them, fed them, helped with homework, cleaned the house, did the laundry, and took care of everything related to the running of the family in my absence. My children were in good hands. And then I got an unexpected email. (We couldn’t get phone service on our cruise.) The email reported certain delinquent behavior…of my kindergartener!

Apparently, he’d been dropped off at school by his daycare (like he is every day) and headed through the doors of the school. Before my son went into his classroom, however, he decided he didn’t “feel” like going to school that day so he and a friend who also didn’t feel like going to school that day, headed off on an adventure. While I’ve never had a child do something like that and never expected to have one do something like that, thank goodness I live in Utah and thank goodness I have good neighbors! Mid-afternoon my neighbor was driving in the town next to ours…and saw my son walking on the side of the road! She picked him up, took him home and kept him until my daughter got home from school.

By the time I was able to reach my children by phone, my daughter had handled it: she had marched her brother to the school office to tell the principal what he had done and apologize for his poor choice; she had taken him home, grounded him from playing with friends and had taken away some other privileges as a consequence of his wrong decision; she had talked to him about his behavior AND called her older college-age brother to come home for a visit that evening to talk to the offender, again, about family expectations regarding school attendance. By the time I finally got to speak with my youngest son, he was very penitent; but I reiterated my impression of his incorrect choice and behavior again anyway, just to make sure there would NEVER be a repeat occurrence!

Kindergarten delinquent. (For a day.) WHO raises a child like that? Apparently, me. And given what we’ve lived through, holding myself back from over-reacting is a struggle. It’s a challenge for me, sometimes, to remain calm about it all. I have to make the effort to refrain from panicking. Sometimes I have to mentally calm myself down before reacting to what I once deemed “typical” childhood learning experiences (telling a lie, stealing a coin or a piece of candy or other similar behaviors.) I’m desperate for my children to avoid the mistakes made by their other parent. I’ll never give up my quest to teach my children to make correct choices, to be obedient, to follow the rules and to grow up to be honest, good, law abiding citizens that are a force for good in the world—especially given the example set by someone else once close to them.

“Hey, Cameron. You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?” (Ferris Bueller, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”)

I’m a huge fan of playing by the rules and obeying the law.
Despite, or because of, the unexpected life.

#26: The Learning Curve Extends

Date: November 10, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Well, I screwed it up real good, didn’t I?” (Richard M. Nixon)

Statistics don’t favor second marriages. I never understood that–until I entered into one myself.  I learned a lot about what I assume must be the basis for such statistical pessimism.

I had never stopped to think about the fact that in remarriage, not only are you dealing with every usual marriage adjustment and challenge (like blending two lives, personalities, hobbies, interests, cultures, goals, expectations, finances, careers, challenges and everything else that goes along with marriage), but you are also dealing with two different previous families and their histories and experiences, two very different family cultures, all of the children of those families PLUS… former spouses.

Wow.

Hard to comprehend what all of that means until it’s yours; until it happens to you. Lets just say that despite the marital bliss of your remarriage, it is a lot to deal with and occasionally can seem like more than you ever bargained for!

So what do you do?

Well, like every other aspect of the unexpected life, you deal with it. Laugh about some of it, work toward a happy ending, never give up, and of course, look on the bright side at every opportunity.

My husband is great at that. I remember the night we were discussing (and trying to laugh about) some things and he pointed out an unexpected bright spot: “Actually, we’re pretty lucky compared to other couples. We only have to deal with one former spouse. Can you imagine if we had to deal with two, and at the same time, in addition to everything else?” (I confess I never saw that one coming! While I am grateful prisons protect us from people who have chosen to break the laws of society, in 2009, I never imagined ANY “bright spot” to incarceration. But apparently, there is one! LOL.)

Second marriage moment #26. (I had to shake my head and laugh at that one.)

“Being here feels like I’m out of prison. This is the right place, the right time, the right team.” (Shaquille O’Neal)

A News Story

Date: June 15, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

It’s official.

Another opportunity for me and my children to share some of what we have experienced and learned in our unexpected life.

Jennifer Stagg, a news personality on NBC affiliate Channel 5, in Salt Lake City, Utah, did a story on our family which aired last week.

Here is the link to see the news story, if you’re interested:  http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=15904053

What I noticed most about this opportunity was the continued healing that has taken place in myself and my children, especially my middle son. He was just 9 years old when his world shattered; too young to understand a lot of what was taking place and to understand why it was happening. However, last week’s interview reminded me that a lot of growing up takes place from 9 years old to 11 years old!

Although this particular child didn’t want to participate in the interview, he agreed to stay in the yard and play while it was taking place. And then, unexpectedly, before the filming wrapped, he came in the house and hung around the film crew. I asked, “Is there something you want to say?”  He replied, “Yes.”

So Jennifer sat down and asked him some questions, including things about his old life, things about his new life, what he had learned and how he felt about it all.

As for what he missed about his old life? The fields behind our Colorado home that he played and rode his dirt bike in–and his friends. “If you have friends and family, that’s all you really need to be happy though,” he explained. “And I’m happy in my new life. My new life is just as good.”

“Really? What do you like about your new life?” asked Jenn.

“That I have a stepdad who is really nice, nice to me, who really likes me and who I really like.” (Too bad #5 was out of town on a business trip and didn’t get to hear that, huh? I shared it with him when he got home!)

He concluded by offering his wisdom: hard things happen, you just have to carry on.

Count his emotional well-being and healthy outlook and happiness in life as yet another miracle we’ve been blessed with, thanks to the triumph of living…the unexpected life.

“We are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places.” (Harold J. Duarte-Bernhardt)

He sure has.