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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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If Only…I’d Stayed Out Of The Batting Cage!

Date: April 27, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Yesterday’s post was titled, “Good News.” A friend of mine, and a reader of this blog, made some hilarious comments about baseball bats and having batting practice in my old neighborhood. (She is a character–as anyone who knows her knows! Thanks for the support and the laugh!)

Anyway, it reminded me of my most memorable experience with a baseball bat.

The day I broke my nose.

You see, He had just purchased a batting cage and pitching machine and my spouse installed it in our back yard. (I know, I know. Based on what I now know, it was most likely “purchased” with stolen money. And yes, I know, owning the same pitching machine used by the Colorado Rockies professional baseball team is a bit over the top for the average suburban family–which I thought we were–yet now I see NEVER were! What can I say? My former spouse never did things quite the same as everyone else. He was creative, enthusiastic and “over the top.” Thus, the pitching machine and batting cage in the back yard.)

Anyway, as soon as it was installed, He took me into it to show me how it worked. He told me where to stand, turned the machine on, and stood in there with me as pitches came and I hit baseballs. The speed was set at 30 mph. I turned out to be quite a slugger.

Within the week, a friend came over. He said he heard we had a pitching machine and he asked me to show him how it worked. I went out there with him, got in the cage with him, showed him where to stand, turned the machine on, and stood there as he hit balls. (I didn’t know a lot about baseball, or pitching machines, if you can’t tell. I was just doing what had been done when I was given a demonstration of the machine.)

My back was to him for awhile as I looked through the netting at the beautiful summer evening, flowers blooming, puffy clouds, hummingbirds flying. I must have turned around to watch him again right as he tipped a ball…straight into my nose.

The crack sounded like he had hit the ball out of the park!

Nope. Just into my nose. (I found out later my former spouse had gone in the batting cage and cranked up the pitching speed to 90 mph. He forgot to tell me.)

It actually didn’t hurt much at all (must have been the shock.) But I felt something begin to run, and worried about looking disgusting with blood running down my face not to mention not wanting to get blood on anyone, I put my hands to my nose to catch it.

My friend could have died. Can you imagine the poor guy? Totally not his fault, but there I stand, my hands filling with blood, and I was probably in a little bit of shock!

“Let it go, Andrea,” he said. I was doubled over trying to hide the mess I was sure was coming, but I managed a, “No! It’s going to be a mess.”

He said again, “Let it go, Andrea,” grabbed my hands, and I let it all go. (Another friend who was watching almost got sick. I could see it in his eyes, too. Poor guy!)

My friend walked me up to my house, and by the time we got there, both of us were a bloody mess. I went to the ER, I was told my options (fix it or not fix it) and sent home with an ice pack.

I’m totally a wimp when it comes to medical procedures, so I kept looking at my nose and trying to convince myself it wasn’t that bad, wasn’t that crooked, that only I could see the deviation because I’m such a perfectionist about some things. Like many infamous politicians, I “flip-flopped” back and forth. One moment I was going to have my nose straightened, the next moment I was not going to have my nose straightened. (Lets just say, if you saw the medical instruments they use to straighten a nose, you’d probably be tempted to leave yours crooked too.)

My college friend called when she found out, and she gave me great counsel about my life decision at that time. She said, “Andrea, we’re getting older. Changes are coming. There is not a lot we’ll be able to control or do about a lot of those things. Wrinkles are going to come and there is nothing you can do about them. But you CAN do something about your nose. You can choose to be old and wrinkled with a perfect nose, or you can choose to old and wrinkled with a crooked nose. Fix what you can fix so you don’t have any regrets when you’re old.”

She was so right.

I got my nose straightened. It actually took two tries because during the first attempt in the doctor’s office, I passed out (the doctor had a medical term for it and it scared him enough he didn’t dare attempt my procedure in his office, we had to reschedule in the operating room at a hospital!) And I counted my blessing that the ball had hit my nose and not my teeth! (I’d had braces twice already. What a tragedy, lol, if I lost my teeth after all of that hard work!)

Many things are handed to us in life that we have no control over and can’t really do anything about. Those things we let go–we gracefully endure and continue living in spite of their addition to our life. (And we try to find something good about our life, something we can be grateful for, even if it’s just the fact that we still have our teeth!:)

But SOME things we CAN “fix.” (Or at least give it our best shot at attempting to fix or make right.) And THEN we let go–we gracefully endure and continue living with or without them, depending on our success at fixing them. (And we try to find something good about our life, something we can be grateful for, even if it’s just the fact that we once had teeth!:)

And then we don’t look back. We press forward and carry on and look for the new day.

I heard a very wise man, Thomas S. Monson, once say something like, “The two most worthless words in the English language [or perhaps in any language] are ‘if only.’” He encouraged people to not look back or wistfully sigh about “if only,” but to look forward with hope, and make each day the best we can with what we are given.

Good advice for the outcomes in batting cages…and life!

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Good News

Date: April 26, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

When my life fell apart last year due to the criminal behavior of the man I’d been married to for nearly 20 years, a dramatic change in lifestyle was not the only side effect. As the months went on, I saw other changes. Here’s one.

My three year old, who’d been potty-trained well over a year prior to my spouse’s revelations, suddenly wasn’t anymore. (Let me apologize in advance for what is coming next: bathroom talk.) He didn’t have potty “accidents” in his boxers, he never did that, but he quit using the bathroom altogether. He chose, instead, to go on the floor of his bedroom!

I figured that as awful as it was, it was probably just a manifestation of the stress that was so prevalent in the air of our neighborhood and home that if you breathed in too deeply you almost choked! Literally. I assumed it would resolve itself when we moved. But I was wrong.

We moved to Utah and my little son continued the behavior in his new bedroom. I felt like I was becoming BFFs with carpet cleaners I saw them so often. But no matter what I tried, I could not get my now four-year-old to use the bathroom like the rest of us. It was a total mystery to me.

It had been quite a year. My son not only had been going to the bathroom on his bedroom floor, at least weekly he said “bad people” were in our house. He was afraid to be alone in any room of the house. He was afraid of the dark. He was suddenly afraid of so many things. And it wasn’t just our house, it was any home he was in. The babysitter had commented on how strange it was that he was so afraid in her home, too. I tried to help my son understand, each and every time he expressed fear of “bad people” in a house, that our home didn’t have bad people in it and we were safe. I emphasized that we prayed every day and that God would protect us. But nothing helped resolve his fear. That fear, too, was a mystery to me, along with his bathroom behavior.

Easter Sunday 2010, ONE YEAR LATER, the mystery was solved.

A friend and I were sitting in my son’s room, watching my son play a video game, and my son innocently offered the comment that “bad people” were in our house. My friend, hearing this for the first time, explained to my son that he was safe in our home and that “bad people” aren’t in our home. My son disagreed and insisted that in Colorado, bad people had been in our house.

THEN it hit me. Like a ton of bricks. THAT was why my son was afraid to leave his room to go to the bathroom! THAT was why my son was afraid of “bad people!” They had been in our home in Colorado, and my preschooler had known it, could not forget about it and had been traumatized for one year–25% of his entire young life–because of it. I had never put it together until that moment. It made my stomach turn.

As a mother, this issue and incident bothers me more than almost anything I’ve been handed in my unexpected life. I’m so bothered, in fact, that I choose to blame someone and I’m not blaming who you think I might. I am not blaming Him. (Ludicrous to the rest of His victims, I’m sure.) You know who I blame? The “bad people” who entered our home uninvited. I’m talking about the people who entered our Colorado home, while we were still in possession of it and living there, late one Sunday night when they thought no one was home.

They were wrong.

It was down to the wire, I was moving in a few days. In fact, I had a moving truck packed and ready to drive to Utah. Late one Sunday night, my spouse and I drove the packed truck to a friend’s house so the friend, who was traveling to Utah, could drive it for me.

My oldest son took his brothers to a friend’s house while we dropped the truck off, and my daughter stayed home alone to read. Our garage door was up, the house lights were mostly off, the house was quiet. Not totally responsible behavior on our part, probably, but you have to understand the rural and isolated neighborhood we lived in. Quiet, calm, fairly undiscovered and totally safe. We had never even owned a house key. We didn’t lock our doors–except at night when we were sleeping. We’d NEVER had a problem or a break in. No one had (that I’d ever heard about.)

So my daughter lay on the couch in our living room that night and read a book while she was home alone. At that time, our living room was the staging place for the move. As I got a box packed, I’d haul it to that room, and stack it until it was time to load it into a truck. Boxes were floor to almost ceiling in front of the couch and piano.

She was all alone.

Suddenly, she heard a door open and voices talking. She heard footsteps walking around on our wood floors. She heard boxes being moved, the sound of boxes being opened in another room. She heard conversation in hushed tones. The only thing she didn’t hear was a family member. She said she thought THEY would come after her if they knew they’d been discovered basically breaking and entering our home (lovely experiences my children were having, eh?), so she dove under the piano to hide. In her panic, she didn’t call 9-1-1 for help; she texted her older brother.

“Help me. Someone in house. So afraid.”

Her brother got the text. He thought she was goofing around. He texted back, “Funny. lol. Don’t joke about stuff like that.”

From under the piano, behind the packed boxes, she texted again, “I am not kidding. I’m scared. What if they find me? Help!”

Her brother says he made the 15-minute drive home in just over 5 minutes. Thankfully, his friend’s dad came too, to offer my teenage son support should it be needed. In the meantime, my daughter heard the footsteps walk around the main level of the house, a door open and close, and everything was quiet. Until her brother arrived on the scene a few minutes later and rescued her from her hiding place underneath the piano.

I arrived home shortly after the drama to have my three-year-old run up to me shouting, “Bad people are in our house!” They told me the story. I don’t even know how to communicate my thoughts about that moment. It sickened me. And although I’d tried for several months to rise above the pettiness time after time after time, I was finally disgusted and completely appalled…and angry. (I thought I was over it, until now, as I write about it. My chest is aching with disgust. That darn heart attack sensation is back! lol)

I never put the events of that night together with the potty issues we were dealing with until Easter Sunday this year. It explained everything!

The good news? I haven’t heard a single comment about “bad people in our house” ever since.

More good news? Not a single potty problem since the reassurance from our trusted friend.

Other good news? We are all healing. I know we each have our moments, every step forward is followed by the occasional step backward, but I’d say my children and I are each close to 100% healed from the trauma of our unexpected life.

And some of the best news? The heart attack sensation is gone again. Finally. And this time, I’m sure it will never come back.

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The Caterpillar Phase

Date: April 24, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I met one of my “oldest” friends for breakfast this morning. I have known her since I was 15 years old, and although we only lived in the same town for a little over a year, our friendship has endured all these years. She was my college roommate for almost three years and has been with me through thick and thin. No matter how long it has been since the last time we’ve seen each other, we are always able to pick up right where we left off. Today was no different.

We chatted about me. We chatted about her. We discussed our children. We talked about our jobs. We talked about life and the unexpected things that happen. We laughed as we reminisced about some of the good times we have shared. The time passed all too quickly (three hours just didn’t seem that long!) and then we had to part ways to attend the activities of our children. As I was partway home, she called my cell phone and asked if I was heading home. When I told her I was, she said she had something for me that reminded her of me, and was going to meet me at my house and give it to me.

She arrived a few minutes later and handed me a cute wooden plaque that said, “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” She told me as we sat and talked, and then when she saw that phrase, it reminded her of me. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness. We’d spent the morning together, and she thoughtfully added an extra 1-2 hours to her trip to share that gift with me.

I LOVE that statement on the gift she gave me! (And not just because it is true.)

Maya Angelou said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

If you think about it, we are all caterpillars journeying through life. Each experience adds to what we are and what we are becoming until…we become butterflies. Beautiful butterflies!

My mom focused on inner beauty with her children. She’d always say it’s great if you have a beautiful appearance (and to some degree, we don’t get to choose that. If we have it, it’s because we inherited it from someone else!) but true beauty, the important beauty, the beauty that means something is inner beauty. She always encouraged us to be as “pretty on the inside” as she thought we were on the outside.

Inner beauty is not without price. Life happens, we endure challenges and the changes it brings, and if we handle it right, the changes can positively impact our inner beauty. My mom always told me we can use the challenges that come our way to help us become better than we would otherwise have been; we can let the bad things that happen to us refine us, and help us develop real and lasting beauty–inner beauty–or we can allow them to canker our souls and destroy us.

I truly believe THAT is the most important thing we can do when the going is rough: use the terrible experience to help us become better people. It isn’t easy, but it IS possible.

When the unexpected events of 2009 began, a friend called and reminded me that no matter how bad everything looked at the moment, and no matter how terrible I envisioned my future would be, she wanted me to know it was not going to turn out to be QUITE as bad as I feared. And she was right. On March 18, 2009, I absolutely thought my children and I were headed to live in a cardboard box somewhere. Today we live in a home. I thought the huge, gaping hole in our hearts would never heal. But they are. But we’ve had to look for the good; look for the beauty. And have tried to create new beauty out of a very different set of circumstances.

Life, even an unexpected life, can be beautiful. We just have to endure the caterpillar phase, and the chrysalis stage, and look for the beauty that unfolds as we endure and then triumph over our challenges.

And we must never forget this truth: “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”

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No One Will Check On Me Anymore

Date: April 23, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I had a great circle of friends in Colorado who took me out to dinner every month during 2009, during my nightmare. They were an absolute blessing to me. Here are just a few of the reasons why.

First, we talked and laughed. I can’t tell you how much it helped me to laugh, hard, at some of the crazy and unexpected things I was going through. It was exactly what I needed. (And sometimes we just shook our heads at the events. Sometimes that is all you can do in an unexpected life.)

Second, they asked me thoughtful questions and I answered them, and in doing so, got free therapy and their wise perspectives about my situation and things I was immediately facing. They are sharp, smart, educated and “together” women and it was so helpful to get their counsel as to what they thought I should do.

Third, eating out (when I was mostly living on food storage) was a treat! Our meals were delicious–The Cheesecake Factory, Counter, Costa Vida, etc… Those nights were standout “bright spots” in my life when almost everything else I was facing at that present time, and in the future, seemed overwhelmingly dismal.

We stayed out late every time we went out, and one night, my spouse called at 10:45 p.m. to make sure I was ok.  When I arrived home, and as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom in my darkened house that night, I was struck by the realization that that was probably the last time in my life someone would worry that I wasn’t home and call to check on me and make sure that I was ok. My parents were dead. I was soon to be divorced; single and alone in the world. I was moving to a new state where no one knew me. No one would be worrying about me or calling to check on me any more.

It was such a powerful epiphany that it became almost a physical sensation to me. I dropped down on the stair where I stepped and cried. In the dark. All alone. I certainly was NOT ending up with the life I had worked toward and dreamed of! Everything was SO unexpected. There was a lot of grief in that moment. (I think that is what made that time so difficult–the absolute grief at what had transpired and the consequences that resulted. There were such extreme highs and lows–out with friends having a GREAT time, seconds later indulging in my grief in the dark on the stairs.)

But fortunately for me, I was so wrong.

It’s 13 months post the day my nightmare began, and little by little, very slowly, and thanks to so many good people in the world who have shown me empathy, compassion, and kindness I am waking from the scary dream I unexpectedly was forced to live. And you know what? I am not alone. I have friends, old and new, who check on me every week or every month or as they feel inspired to. I can’t express what that means to me. I hope I am always that kind of friend to them and others who cross my path.

This was reinforced to me as recently as earlier this week. Lately, life has been hectic and I’ve been more sporadic than I would like to have been about writing in this blog. Someone I haven’t even met (yet) emailed me through this blog to check on me! They said it had been a few days since I had written and they wanted to make sure I was ok! If they only knew my thoughts one year ago they would better understand how much their gesture touched me, made my day (and got me to make time to blog/write again!) I couldn’t help but think back to that night I felt such darkness about the fact no one would ever check on me or worry about me or wonder if I was ok again. I was so wrong!

Thanks to the good people in this world, the kindness of friends I haven’t met yet, the wonderful world of blogs and the many amazing people who don’t suppress their generous thoughts, I am not alone. People do check on me. How grateful I am for the friends I’ve connected with via this blog and for the new friends I have made that I haven’t even met yet. As it’s my first foray into blogging, I absolutely had no idea what to expect. But my experience has been miraculous.

I want each of you reading to know how much your friendship and support means to me. I am so gratified that anyone finds my story, or my perspective of life, worth reading. I am grateful for your comments and to hear what you think. I appreciate your support.

What a blessing we can be in the lives of those we reach out to.

You all have been that, to me, in mine. I thank you for that.

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” (Charlotte, “Charlotte’s Web”)

Thanks for reading, for being my friends…and for lifting up my life.

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Volumes of “Lies”

Date: April 22, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I got a fun comment and suggestion from a former Colorado neighbor (that identity alone should explain what is coming) and client of my former spouse the other day. He, along with many others, has discovered this blog and is apparently QUITE a fan! He not only takes the time to read it, he even spends time commenting.

He kindly pointed out I’ve mistakenly titled my blog. He suggested the title of this blog should be “lies, lies and more lies.” In his honor, and to give credit where credit is due, I feel compelled to blog about that.

The first thing I did when I saw it was LAUGH. I got a kick out of his suggestion not just because it is totally ridiculous (and inaccurate) but because, in a way, I could relate.

You see, I have been a pretty good journal writer most of my life. I got my first journal about age 12 and have been quite consistent over the years in recording the events of my life. In 2009, after my former spouse revealed that He had been running a ponzi scheme most of our marriage, that He was heading to prison, that everything I thought we had was gone, and that I would be left alone to raise and provide for our four children, I had to prepare to move from our home and begin a new life. Having lived in the same home for 16 years, there was a lot of work to be done. Lots of packing. And one day I got to packing the room my old journals were stored in.

As I looked at the approximately 30 volumes I’d written over the previous years of my life, I didn’t know what to do with them.  I treasured the books I’d written as a youth and college student–everything prior to my marriage to Him.  But what to do with the journals recording the life I’d led married to a criminal? As I handled each one, I wasn’t sure what to think of them anymore.

Although what I had written and recorded was life as I had known it (because I had no idea what was going on in the double life my spouse had been leading for 15 years or even that he was living a double life), in that moment, none of the history I’d recorded seemed true or real. At that time, everything was so tainted by the dishonesty and criminal behavior of one man, I felt like I was in possession of Volume 1 of Lies, Volume 2 of Lies, and so on.

What DO you do with volumes of words that don’t seem to be real anymore?

I still haven’t decided.

But I’m afraid I’m going to need a storage unit for the memories! lol. A place to hold the volumes of personal history, the wedding photos from 1989, and everything else that is not mine anymore…that I still am not sure what to do with.  The only thing I’m sure of is time.

I have time to decide.

Because,”Time heals what reason cannot.” (Seneca, Roman philosopher in the mid-1st century A.D.)

It’s All About Attitude

Date: April 21, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

One year ago I found a quote that, in my opinion, should be the theme of life for everyone.

“If you can’t jump over life’s hurdles, LIMBO under them!”

That says it all. (And I have to add that dancing, as well as laughing, is a much more fun alternative to crying!)

L-I-M-B-O.

Life.

Laugh Until You Cry

Date: April 16, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Last April I listened to encouragement from my church leaders regarding tribulation.  While it was comforting, some bizarre part of me found humor in it.

Here’s why.  They mentioned trials of economic challenge OR employment challenge OR family challenge OR marital challenge OR disappointment OR a broken heart.  But no one ever mentioned all of them together, all at the same time! And THAT was my life at that moment.

I had to laugh.

And when I added in the hardship of hatred, persecution from neighbors, betrayal of friends, being “orphaned” without parents during the most unexpected nightmare of my life, crimes committed by my spouse, a prison sentence my spouse was facing, divorce, no alimony or child support (probably, ever), returning to the work force full time, having to send a child to daycare (back then, I thought that was the end of the world–lol), and everything else I was dealing with at that time…I laughed again. Harder.

I laughed as I wondered how I, of all people, got so blessed? Why had I had been given so many unimagineable opportunities for growth–and ALL at the same time?  ”Lucky” me!

It made me laugh so hard I cried.

And as the tears rolled, for some reason I realized, again, that I could do it.  I knew I was going to survive, although a tiny part of me felt it would be much easier not to. Somehow, some way, I was going to make it through my nightmare.  For me. For my children. I had to.

I was going to make it because I believe in a higher power and have always believed everyone has a purpose on the earth; things to accomplish, other things to learn.  Last April I wondered if maybe THIS experience was one of the things I was here for.  ”…And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) I couldn’t allow myself to fail.

Like Esther in the Old Testament, who had to stand for something in very challenging and difficult times to save herself and her people, I had a work to do (on a much smaller scale.  I only had to save myself and my four children.) I firmly believe we each have a work to do and we can’t quit or give up.  ”After we have done all we could do…and withstood the evil that men have brought upon us, and we have been overwhelmed by their wrongs, it is still our duty to stand.  We cannot give up; we must not lie down.  Great causes are not won in a single generation.” (Joseph F. Smith)

I had to keep trying to laugh in spite of feeling like crying. I had to keep getting out of bed each day and facing what was ahead no matter how much I dreaded it. I had to keep forgiving. I had to keep rising above the challenges. I had to keep doing everything I could to pull myself out of the black hole I had been thrown into. And I had to help my children do the same.

It was my duty.  I couldn’t let myself down, and more importantly, I couldn’t let my children down and allow this experience to ruin their lives before they’d ever really had a chance to live.

So I laughed until I cried.  Sometimes I just cried.  And I kept trying to learn and allow myself to grow through the experience that had become my unexpected life.

A New Kind of Multi-tasking

Date: April 15, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I guess you’d call it a new kind of multi-tasking.

The seizure and media frenzy continued into a third day, and while that was going on, I drove myself to the Arapahoe County Courthouse with my legal documents and my toddler in tow, paid $220, and filed for divorce.  (I filed for divorce as soon as the documents were ready. It had taken a few weeks to get everything together.)

I filed for divorce the same day my oldest son went on his first date: April 9, 2009. How sad is that?

I came home from that surreal experience I had never anticipated having and played with my little one outside although a photographer cased the house. My three-year-old had been stuck with me at the courthouse far too long and just wanted to enjoy the sunshine! (Amazing, that the sun still shines on our darkest days, isn’t it?) Our name and address had been published so many times that cars of all types, even mini vans, cruised slowly past our home all day and all night and while I played outside with my toddler. However, by the time it got dark there was no sign of any more media–just a slow stream of curious people continuing to cruise past our home.

The government had finished seizing our possessions.

I was depressed about my financial situation and a little stunned at all that had been taken. The U.S. Marshalls had seized A LOT MORE than we had expected. Many “little” things that weren’t specifically named on the warrant were also removed from our possession, for example, they even took brooms, snow shovels and our sleeping bags! To cheer me, my spouse gave me a “tour of consolation,” as He called it, to “reassure” me. We walked around and looked for things that had been left that I could use to rebuild a new life.

The next morning I checked the media reports just to know what I would be up against that day. Amazingly, we weren’t in the newspapers any more.  A baby had been murdered. The media had moved on to the next tragedy.

“Fame is a fickle food–Upon a shifting plate.” (Emily Dickinson)

Thank goodness for that.

A Media Disaster

Date: April 14, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

My spouse was headed to prison for running a ponzi scheme and agents of the federal government were at what had once been my home seizing our assets.

The second day of the seizure was a media disaster!

Satellite trucks, camera men, reporters hounding us, people photographing me as I came and went, people chasing me to get a photograph, media coverage in print and on television (locally and nationally), the phone ringing off the hook, and the doorbell constantly ringing as reporters looked through the windows of my home and watched me, shoved notes in the crack of the front door, and my neighbors told everything they knew in interviews.

I can’t detail all the horrors of that day. In fact, to some degree, I still can’t comprehend it all.

I felt like I was the one person involved in the nightmare who had done absolutely nothing but who had lost everything. And I had no voice.  I had been directed to not talk to anyone, including the victims. It was a shocking position to be placed in when I’d done nothing wrong and had taken no part in any crime, and forgive me, but toward the end of the second day, I snapped.

I flaunted my unwillingness to chat with the media that surrounded my home, rang my doorbell all day long, and stared through the windows at me.  It was my version of expressing my frustration, metaphorically thumbing my nose at the people reporting the destruction of everything as I’d known it in the face of my humiliation, shock and grief. Here’s what I did.

Occasionally, intentionally, I’d walk by the front door where reporters were waiting outside and looking through the glass at me…and I wouldn’t answer the door in spite of their knocks and rings!  I’d laugh (sort of, inside) as I’d hear them say, “What is she doing?  She’s in there and she’s not opening the door!  Can you believe that?”

What did they think I was, stupid?

Oh, yes.  I was married to a man accused of stealing (according to the last media reports I saw) $23 million dollars over a period of 15 years while he ran a ponzi scheme and I never had a clue. Yes, they probably did think I was lacking in intelligence.

But I showed them.

Not only did I ignore their knocks, I taped white paper over all of the glass they were looking through (as they looked through it) so they wouldn’t be able to stare through the windows at me any more.  (And of course, that also got reported. Something to the effect about “someone taping cheap, white paper over the glass in the front door.”  THAT is news?  Lets just say the media coverage of my nightmare was far below the standard of “newsworthy” I had been trained in as a journalist!)

For our safety, that night my children and I didn’t stay in our home.  Too many people, too many spotlights shining on our home and lighting up the inside of our house like it was mid-day.  And in a situation like that, no one knew if a victim would snap or a crazy person would try to steal into our home.  (The government had recommended that at least my children and I NOT stay in our home that night.) Instead, we stayed at a friend’s home and they treated us royally–with pizza, pop, salad, dessert, and normalcy away from the craziness of our home and situation. It was the most peaceful night of sleep we’d had since our nightmare began.

I’m smarter than I look.

Hey, media outlets!  Go and report THAT to the world, why don’t you?

I can see the headline now…in my dreams.