Living Happily Ever After
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First Date

Date: May 21, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If you’re a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it’s real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.” (Jack Handy)

Who can forget their first date?

My mom fondly recalled her first date many times over the course of my life: she was 5 years old, and went to a movie at a movie theater with a boy and his parents. She was a friendly gal, and dated a lot during her childhood and early teens, and then it was recommended by L.D.S. church leaders that dating be delayed until the age of 16 so she stopped dating–until she turned 16 years old!

I remember my first date: Derek.

It was late August 1983 after I had turned 16 years old. The boy I’d had a crush on since the moment I first laid eyes on him (at 14 years old) had asked me out and my friend, Carrie, had come over to help me get ready. I talked and hung out with her while I did my hair and makeup and decided what to wear–and she gave me a pedicure, which I promptly covered up when I put my Topsiders on! It was the 1980s, so of course my hair was something to behold, and accented by the skinny tie (anyone remember wearing those?) that completed my ensemble. We saw the movie, “Strange Brew,” and had a great time. It was a first date with no regrets, or embarrassing moments, that I can recall.

My daughter’s first date was an entirely different experience: Eric.

She went to a school dance with the boy she sits by in Chemistry class, a fun and casual friend. Watching my daughter get ready, and helping her, was a total flashback to the 1980s as she was headed to a decades-themed dance and she and her date had chosen 1980s exercise wear. I helped her find a Jelly belt, tear her sweatshirt to hang off the shoulder, find neon-colored tank tops to layer, get her hair in THE  high side ponytail, with her green eyeshadow (what can I say, we couldn’t find any blue eyeshadow in the house!) and with her hot pink headband (just like Olivia Newton John’s in “Lets Get Physical.”) It wasn’t in the original plan that my daughter drive on the date, but due to car troubles of other parties involved, she ended up driving her car. And accidentally, while slowly backing up, she backed into a friend’s car.

It was dark. Neither she nor her date saw the other car. Thankfully, she backs up really slowly. Thankfully, no damage occurred to either car or to any living being. In fact, the driver of the other car got out, hugged my daughter and told her it was no big deal. I was very relieved there was no damage to people or automobiles; but my daughter was so mortified about the whole thing she wasn’t even dwelling on that. That event overshadowed every other aspect of her first date. That event was what she talked about when she got home. Even late the NEXT evening she was still worrying about it, alone in her bedroom, so I went to check on her.

She was absolutely humiliated, mortified, and didn’t want to show her face anywhere, ever, again. I tried to help her put it into perspective so I said, “Sarah, you can survive this. Just think of other hugely embarrassing things you’ve overcome.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I was stunned. Had the events of 2009 faded that fast in her teenage mind? I clarified, “Like discovering a family member stole millions of dollars, was heading to prison, it was all over the national media, we lost everything and had to watch the government come into our home and take our possessions, some people were mean to us, other people were kind to us yet we had to rely on the charity of others…ALL of those embarrassing moments we endured. If you can survive that humiliation, you can get through anything! This is nothing compared to that.”

Adding that last sentence reminded me that embarrassment and humiliation is all in your perspective. It was also a mistake; add it to the many that continually stream from my mouth, far too often, as I say what I think pretty much as soon as I think it. Call it one of my many weaknesses.

My daughter countered that her experience was far more embarrassing than the one I referenced. I was stunned! I couldn’t believe she really thought that, but she did. She drove her point home (no pun intended, lol!) when she added, “And Mom, if you think criminals, Ponzi schemes, publicity, divorce, prison, crime, government seizure and everything else is more embarrassing than backing into another car on a date…you don’t know ANYTHING about teenage girls!”

Wow. How could I have gotten so old and so far removed from being a teenage girl? And how could I have failed my daughter like that?

You see, one of the great things about being my mother’s daughter is that no matter my embarrassing moment, when I returned home mortified about something that had happened to me, my mom could totally commiserate and share an embarrassing moment from her life that absolutely outdid mine, made me laugh and made me feel so much better about my humiliation! In fact, she survived such mortification that as an adult, friends would call after something embarrassing and ask, “Tell me a story about your mom to make me feel better so I can get through this most recent humiliation.” I thought that’s what mothers are for–and I wasn’t able to do that for mine! (Although I must be blinded by my past, because I could swear 2009 is the ultimate in humiliation. I can’t see myself ever being embarrassed about anything again, after that one!)

So I quit trying to reason with my daughter, stopped attempting to help her put embarrassment into perspective and just empathized with her. I promised that someday, we will look back on her first date…and laugh; we’ll even be the better for it, and we’ll be strong.

“But I learned that there’s a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there’s not much else that can really get to ya.” (Christian Bale)

Now if we can only be totally hot when we have as much character, strength and wisdom as Batman, we’ll be absolutely set for…The Unexpected Life.

A Bit Of Magic

Date: May 20, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.”  (Lynn Redgrave)

And then, wouldn’t you know, later that evening my daughter left on her first date.

I don’t know how to explain what I was thinking or feeling about that, but add to that monumental event my earlier experiences of the day, and I was feeling some loss pretty deeply. In fact, I felt like I was going to burst into tears at any moment. Again.

So while #5 was taking a very uncharacteristic break in the middle of the day and actually laying down for a moment or two (since I’ve known him, I’ve rarely seen him even sit down in the middle of a day, ever! He is one of the most energetic people I have ever known) I went down to the laundry room to fold clean clothes–mostly to hide the potential for another emotional breakdown. I was afraid tears were going to start streaming down my cheeks again, I wasn’t going to be able to stop them and I didn’t want to do that in front of #5.

I was right. No sooner did I step into the laundry room than the tears started flowing. I cried and folded clothes, cried and folded clothes, and felt very alone as I mourned my “losses.” I had piles to fold and expected to be there, alone, for hours, but within minutes I heard a voice behind me say, “Hey! What are you doing in here? Let me help you.” It was #5.

And there I was, breaking down. I kept my back to him and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

I told him I was just folding laundry, that I could take care of it and that he could go rest. But he told me he couldn’t do that. He wanted to help me, he insisted on helping me, stepped in front of me, saw my face and immediately asked me what was wrong. I was caught in the act of what I’d been trying to hide all day long, but instead replied, ”Nothing, I’m fine.”

But #5 didn’t buy that, despite the fact I was sort of at a loss to explain it, so he stepped forward, put his arms around me and I cried. ”I had a feeling I ought to check on you,” he said. “I was afraid you might be doing something like this. This is a big day. And WHAT are we going to do when our youngest goes on HIS first date in less than 11 years? I’d better start helping you to prepare yourself for that now!” And we laughed.

Thanks to #5, I couldn’t focus on my losses a minute more, I was too focused on my present opportunities and blessings. Second marriage moment #11: seeing, and feeling, the “magic” again.

The magic…of the unexpected life.

“There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.” (Lou Reed)

So true.

Time Capsule

Date: May 19, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.”  (Lynn Redgrave)

Later that same day of the unexpected dream, the mail came, and in it, a very unexpected delivery: a time capsule.

I had completely forgotten about it. My oldest created it in 1999 as a first grader at Creekside Elementary in the Cherry Creek School District in Aurora, CO. It contained newspaper clippings, pictures, letters from his parents and other things that represented our life then, as well as plenty of our hopes and dreams.

I was shocked to receive a communication from an elementary school in Colorado several years after any of my children had attended there. I was surprised they’d found me. And I was very touched by the effort of many good people who have taught my children over the years, who have helped my children learn and create meaningful things, and who went to the effort to find us in Utah so we could have a memory and appreciate the contents of our time capsule.

I stood in my Utah kitchen, read through the contents of the time capsule, and once again, tears I couldn’t control streamed down my cheeks. I was overwhelmed by the contents of the time capsule compared to the reality we had actually lived through and had finally settled into. How was it all possible? How could it all have taken place? I’d never had ANY idea of all that was in store for my oldest and our family at the time he created the time capsule.

Not only was it finally, really, hitting me that my oldest is graduating and leaving home, I think I cried about all we have lived through and experienced since that time capsule was created. When I helped him compile the items for the time capsule, when I wrote my 1999 letter to him, life was very different. I was a stay at home mom; my mom was still alive; I only had 2 children; I’d never experienced grief and pain to the extent I did in 2009; back then, divorce was not even in my vocabulary (neither were Ponzi schemes, by the way, I had no idea what those even were at that time!); and the letter to my son from his father was written by a man now residing in prison for the next decade or more. Looking back, like was very simple then in 1999. It almost overwhelmed me that the expectations for the future as seen through the eyes of 1999 was very different than the reality we actually lived, and I felt additional sorrow at all my son has had to endure as a result of the choices his father made.

But I pulled myself together again, for the second time that day, and went on about my business. I was feeling emotional, but I was going to make it through the day with flying colors, including smiles and laughter. If only I could quit crying.

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all life really means.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

At least, that was my goal. But would you believe it? ANOTHER emotional breakdown…to come.

Loss

Date: May 18, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.”  (Lynn Redgrave)

It has been two years since my unexpected life began. I haven’t been haunted by the events that led to it for quite some time and then out of the blue, unexpectedly, I dreamed of a moment connected to it (not one of my favorite moments, by the way) and I could not shake the memory of it when I awoke.

The experience I dreamed of occurred a few weeks after certain events ended my life as I knew it. One ramification of the unexpected situation was that I was released from serving as president of the women’s organization of my church congregation. Another ramification of it was that due to the public nature of my former husband’s crimes and positions of leadership he had held within our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, local church leadership determined it was necessary to publicly address some of it to congregations our family had been closely associated with. My church leaders were very kind about it all; they told me it was necessary and explained why; they told me the day they were going to do it so I could be prepared (and probably, if I were smarter and raised by different parents, so that I could be absent from those meetings that day.) But unfortunately, I had been taught differently than that–taught to face what needs to be faced and that trials and tragedy don’t change what is right or what is expected of us.

It was a poignant lesson I learned in 1986 when my dad unexpectedly died in a plane crash. I was a teenager and dreaded going to church that Sunday after he died. He had been a leader in our congregation and I didn’t want to face people (even people I loved or people who loved me and my family) and I had a sneaking suspicion my mom was planning that our family would attend church. Late Saturday night I asked, “We don’t have to go to church tomorrow, do we?”

My mom was firm in her resolve and her answer. “Of course we do! Just because your dad isn’t here doesn’t mean the rest of us can stop living and it certainly doesn’t change what is right. We believe in going to church on Sunday, that is what we have always done and that is what we will continue to do.” She was a strong woman in a gentle kind of way (I don’t want to make her sound harsh–she was anything but that.) She took our family to church despite the loss we’d experienced just two days previously (although she relented a little bit and let us arrive 5 minutes late so we wouldn’t have to talk to anyone before the meeting.)

Interestingly, when our unexpected life began, one of my children asked me a question very similar to the one I’d asked my own mother 23 years before, “Mom, we don’t have to go to church this Sunday, do we?” and I gave an answer very similar to the one my mom had given me and we went to church and continued to attend each Sunday, regardless of some uncomfortable moments.

Like the Sunday I dreamed of recently. The Sunday I had to sit and endure public comments about my personal situation that was so public– comment about my former spouse’s crimes and the situation he created as a result. It was also the day the new presidency of the women’s organization of our congregation publicly recognized me, gave me a bouquet of flowers and thanked me for my service; and then after that, the leader of our cluster of congregations (known as a stake president) stood and addressed the issues that needed to be publicly discussed. I don’t remember a lot about that day, I mostly remember sitting in the back of the room, tears of grief, shame, humiliation, sorrow (and a host of other feelings and emotions) streaming down my cheeks as I stared at the beautiful flowers in my lap and endured what was being said to the women around me. I do remember a woman sitting by me on the back row, patting my arm or giving my shoulder a squeeze, through the whole thing. I can’t remember who she was, but how much I appreciated her kindness to me at that time! She helped me feel slightly less alone and helped me get through a very difficult moment.

That was a tough experience but I got through it and it’s now a part of my past. I honestly haven’t let myself think too much about it, or look back on it, until that recent morning when I woke up, tears streaming down my face. And #5 was asleep next to me in bed!

I was shocked. It has been two years! I am living a new life, remarried to a wonderful man, and I wake up crying over something that happened two years ago? I felt a little bit crazy. I didn’t want #5 to see, or know, he was married to such a wacky wife that dreamed about the past and woke up crying! I confess, I even felt a little bit guilty as I am the recipient of many miracles and kindness and have much to be thankful for; I have the great blessing to be remarried and am truly happy again–I can’t (or shouldn’t) be crying about the past (even if it was unintentional–something I woke up doing in a dream!)

I quickly got up to hide my insanity, pulled myself together and went on about my day. Except that I couldn’t quite shake the feelings that dream left me with. I felt slightly emotionally “off.” And that was just the start of the day.

“Going back to Ireland involves at least six to seven emotional breakdowns for me per day.” (Anjelica Huston)

Stay tuned. More emotional breakdowns to come.

Knowns and Unknowns

Date: May 17, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” (Donald Rumsfeld)

When #5 and I were dating, shortly after he told me how he felt about me, he showed up one night with a book. It was titled something like, “1,000 Questions For Divorced People To Ask Before They Get Married Again.” He told me he thought we’d work our way through the questions in the book that night, and on future dates. That book and the whole idea of it caught me off guard, and while I thumbed through it a little bit as he drove, we didn’t really utilize it for our conversations. In fact, I probably made some jokes about it and assured #5 we didn’t need a book like that. (I mean, I interview people for a living!) And eventually, over the course of our unexpectedly long engagement, I forgot about it.

Then it came time to marry. One night I looked at him and exclaimed, “Wait! Where’s that book? We should read it!”

“What book?” he asked.

“The one about everything we need to know, and ask, before we get married,” I answered.

“I got rid of it,” he replied.

“WHAT?” I asked. “Why did you do that? We didn’t even read it.”

“You told me we didn’t need it,” he answered. “So I got rid of it.”

I took a leap of faith…and married him without the aid of that book. Everything went quite well until last week,  when I went to a bridal shower to honor the fiancee of #5′s oldest son.

During the event, they played a game where the fiancee had to answer a long list of questions about her intended. If she didn’t know the answer to a question, she had to chew a piece of bubblegum–adding a new piece to the blob that was accumulating in her mouth for each wrong answer or any answer she didn’t know. And although she ended up with a mouth full of bubblegum, she knew a LOT about #5′s son! I sat there marveling at all she knew about the man she was marrying and I came to a realization: I didn’t know #5–AT ALL.

Honeymoon over.

When I got home, #5 asked me how the evening went. I replied, “Fine, but it made me realize something.”

“What’s that?” he  asked.

“That I don’t know you–at all!” I answered. “I feel like I don’t know you at all and I’m trying to remember what we talked about the whole time we dated and were engaged, since there is so much about you I don’t know!”

“Like what?” he challenged.

I began to rattle off questions from the bridal shower I didn’t know:  favorite actor, favorite play, favorite song, favorite color, first girlfriend, first kiss and many other facts. I wanted #5′s answers; I’m married to him, I probably ought to know him!

That quest, however, brought me to additional realizations, like the realization that there is a reason I don’t know #5. To every answer except the favorite movie  one (his favorite movie is the original “Parent Trap–” he had a mad crush on Haley Mills, I think!) he either didn’t have a favorite or he needed more clarification: did I mean his first girlfriend (from 1st grade), his first REAL girlfriend, or his first girlfriend after his divorce? If experts say intelligent people tend to over-analyze questions and situations, I guess you could say the biggest thing I learned that night was the extent of #5′s intelligence; he is even more intelligent than I had originally thought! He asked for so much clarification I gave up and asked him an easy question I knew he’d know the answer to.

“Never mind, just tell me, where was our first kiss?”

Without missing a beat and without absolutely any hesitation he quickly answered, “At my house, by the door leading to the garage…” and he went on to describe everything in great detail. There was just one problem. That wasn’t OUR first kiss. THAT I knew.

“Must have been someone else,” I joked.

“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” (Will Rogers)

Apparently, I’m not the only one who doesn’t KNOW things!

Second marriage moment #10. That instant where I realized, again, that I was so happily married to a man I love despite the fact I don’t even “know” him! (Or at least, trivial details about him.) And that’s ok, because as Katharine Hepburn said, “Someone asked someone who was about my age, ‘How are you?’ The answer was, ‘Fine. If you don’t ask for details.’”


When You’re The One Who Has To Fix It

Date: May 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The fellow that owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store.” (Frank McKinney Hubbard)

I’m pretty sure that’s how #5, my new husband, feels—especially since moving in with me and my four children! Gone are those carefree days he enjoyed as a single dad with one self-sufficient 12-year-old son, living quietly together in a townhome, retired from yardwork and a plethora of other things that now keep him busy! Like trips to Home Depot. Out of necessity. I’m pretty sure his new mantra is, “Well, I’m off to Home Depot!”

In the two months we’ve lived together, I’m embarrassed at the extra work I’ve caused #5. And I’m not just talking about the myriad of little things around a house that have needed to be taken care of—like the kitchen pantry door that broke and needed to be painted and replaced; the holes in the wall my youngest and his neighborhood friends made when trying to hang off shelves that used to be bolted to the wall; the hole in the wall caused by a child throwing open a door a little too fast with a little too much energy; toilets; clogged drains; doorknobs; garbage disposal issues; smoke detector batteries; and lots of burned out light bulbs that need to be replaced!

I’m talking about the day I stood and flushed the toilet at the exact moment a bottle of lotion fell off the shelf above it, STRAIGHT down the hole, at the exact moment the swirling water went with it. GONE! And then the toilet didn’t work anymore. (It had to be completely taken out of the bathroom and the lotion bottle practically surgically removed from its innards before replacing the toilet again.)

Or the day a decorative painted bowl, of its own free will, spontaneously fell off the shelf above the kitchen cupboards onto the Jenn Air stove top and shattered not just the bowl, but the entire stove top! (Not only was that one a lot of work for #5, but it was expensive, too! Oops.)

He has fixed it all without comment or complaint. He just smiles at me and goes to work to take care of it despite the fact he is NOT a home repairman. (I think he’d much rather be singing, playing the piano, acting, working out, dancing, or even reading instead.) In fact, he uses it so often, he has taken to keeping his toolbox at the ready beside his side of the bed!

And then one day, he broke something. Or at least, I thought he did. He looked at me with a stunned expression, and I started celebrating. “Yes! You finally broke something! I am SO glad! Think of everything I’ve broken and all of the extra work I’ve caused you, now I’m not the only one! I’m so relieved you broke something!” But no. I celebrated too soon. Turns out, #5 hadn’t broken anything after all.

But he remains a trooper and continues to fix, without complaint, all of the little things. He inherited a yard when he thought he’d never have to maintain a yard again. And, most importantly, he took on four additional children, including a four-year-old, when he had mostly raised his family. The impact he has made and everything he has helped “fix” around the house and in our lives astounds me.

Second marriage moment #9.

“There are a [heck] of a lot of jobs that are easier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy’s heart stops, and you’re the one who has to fix it!” (Jon Stewart)


A Good Word

Date: May 10, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.” (Billie Holiday)

I’m BA-ACK!

I’d love to report that I’ve just returned from some fabulous vacation or a tropical adventure to some exotic location but that isn’t quite the case. I’ve simply had computer issues and technical difficulties with this blog that wouldn’t allow me to post anything for awhile and wasn’t able to get them resolved until today. (My thanks to brilliant friends, former co-workers, and fabulous IT gurus at my place of employment that helped bring andreamerriman.com online again!)

Call it my comeback.

The more I think about it, the more I realize I ought to be used to them by now. Comebacks are…life.

Aren’t we always making a comeback from one thing or another?

“Comeback is a good word, man.” (Mickey Rourke)

Yep.

If They Could Read

Date: April 30, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.” (Will Rogers)

I live in Utah now, not Hollywood, and I enjoy the woods up Provo Canyon my fair share.

Just two years ago I lost everything I thought was my life, except my four children, and had to make sense of the unexpected events handed me. I had the world’s share of shame, humiliation and unwanted publicity; my fair share of ups and downs, failures and successes; but I realized again, with each passing day, that life is always a choice and your life will be exactly what you make of it. (Granted, sometimes you’re blessed with better material to work with than at other times, but you can always choose to find happiness and to experience joy regardless of your life conditions. You can always strive to look on the bright side and to treat others with kindness despite the misery of your current situation. )

In this blog I’ve explained some of what I’ve lived through, how I’ve chosen to respond and why I’ve done the things I’ve done and any and all mistakes that I have made. I’ve shared all that I’ve hoped for and worked toward, the unexpected experiences I never imagined I’d have, the things I’ve learned and their outcomes. And while I know not every unexpected life results in a happy ending of complete and utter perfection, I believe you can choose to create your own fairy tales and live happily ever after.

For example, Cinderella lived through a lot of hard stuff. It’s not fun being left penniless (been there, done that!), orphaned (I can relate to that) and at the mercy of a wicked stepmother. Cinderella, with the help of her fairy godmother and her friends (mice and other farm animals) did find her handsome prince, yet she never got her mom or dad back in this life–not every thing, not every aspect, of Cinderella’s unexpected life became total perfection at the end of her story, but she did live happily ever after.

I’m grateful for that example. Fairy tales are magical. They’re great stories. They’re a wonderful escape. They give us hope. And they can teach us important things. As I look back at my life and the countless hours I spent in the nurture of fairy tale fiction, I realize fairy tales helped give me dreams; they gave me something to set my little girl sights on, so that when I grew up and and was thrust into the worst nightmare I never imagined possible, I had all of those fictional examples of triumph over tragedy, all of those imaginary happily ever afters, to help me hold on and cling to the real dreams I’d once had. They gave me courage to press forward and keep going, to create a new chapter of my story and to live a new version of my happily ever after.

A happy ending doesn’t mean complete and total restoration of what you had before. Instead, I believe it is embracing what you have now been given, looking for the good, and choosing to be happy in your new story while working to create a new and continuing happy ending for yourself and your loved ones.

It was the same with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rose Red, Thumbelina, The Goose Girl and every other fairy tale heroine. Not necessarily a “perfect” ending, but a fairy tale perfect for them.

THAT is life.

Every single one.

Every unexpected one, because I believe we all have one.

But enough of that. Never let it be said that I can’t read–or understand Will Rogers’ wisdom–so I’ll close with this:

My undying thanks to everyone who was there for me in my old life, when my mostly-perfect world fell apart, during my divorce, and as I began a new life. Thanks to all who helped my children, who helped me, who shared our journey in person or via this blog, and for every single person who reached out to me and my family and shared their love and kindness with us. Every single one of you is known and remembered by us. Every single kindness will never be forgotten. We are better because of each of you.

In fact, we made it, thanks to you.

We’re going to live happily ever after.

The End.

As in, that’s the end of this portion of my story. Feel free to check in for occasional posts about life and my entirely new and unexpected life experiences in remarriage and as a stepmother. Like every other aspect of the unexpected life, it’s completely uncharted territory. I’m sure I’ll make my fair share of mistakes along the way, the only thing I can promise about all of it is that I’ll NEVER intentionally be a wicked stepmother! And I have a feeling, if it goes the way everything else has, it’s going to be quite another unexpected ride!

Fairies And Wings And…Teeth

Date: April 28, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Listen to the wisdom of the toothless ones.” (Fijian Proverb)

A few weeks into our marriage, my middle son lost a tooth. He excitedly placed it in the special tooth fairy box (after several kids’ lost teeth, I found there was something easier than digging around underneath a pillow in the dark!) on the nightstand beside his bed and anxiously waited to see what the tooth fairy would deliver by morning.

The only problem?

He forgot to tell me what he had done. And I, his mother, had a few things on my mind: four children, new stepchildren, condensing houses, adjusting to everyone living together, full-time job, getting everyone where they needed to be at the times they needed to be there, my new marriage, and the usual worries and cares regarding bills and finances. Amidst all the other stuff, I forgot that most important item, nestled in its box, in the basement.

After a day or two of forgetfulness, my son said, “Sure do wish the tooth fairy could make a visit and hopefully leave me some money!” Oops.

A day or two after that my son reminded, “Can you believe it’s taking the tooth fairy so long to find me and my tooth?” Nope.

A few days later my son warned, “My tooth is ROTTING in the box!” Yuck. I’m not sure I want to discover what that means.

Of course, #5 wasn’t much help. He never remembered, himself, and never even remembered to remind me! Instead, he asked my son if he realized silver teeth were worth more than regular ones. Before my son got too excited at the prospect of that, I had to clarify that this daughter-of-a-former-dentist did NOT believe the tooth fairy valued a tooth so cavity-filled it had needed a silver cap on it as more valuable than a normal, healthy, cavity-free tooth! Another time #5 asked my son if he realized the longer you had to wait for the tooth fairy to take your tooth, the more money she generally left. I had to quash that one, too. (The adjustments you have to make in a second marriage–you’re both coming from two totally different worlds, with different ideas and expectations…even regarding the tooth fairy! Lol, but true.) We endured several nights of forgetfulness and then the one night before bed, when I actually did remember there was a duty to be done, I couldn’t find any cash in the entire house!

One evening, when I checked on my son before I went to bed, I saw a note he had written to remind the tooth fairy of the duty she had neglected–almost begging her to take his tooth! I dashed back upstairs, found some money, and quietly snuck through the dark of his bedroom, opened the lid of the tooth fairy box, dropped the cash in, and ran back upstairs before I was caught in the act of aiding and abetting the fairy of all things dental.

I couldn’t wait for the next morning, when my son discovered his reward and realized he hadn’t been forgotten after all! And it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Just when I was starting to feel like a loser mother, I had remembered what I needed to. Great job, Andrea! (I couldn’t help but congratulate myself on an important job, finally, well-done.)

The next morning my son appeared in the kitchen. I was brimming with expectation and excitement and he only slightly let me down when he said, “The tooth fairy came! She even gave me $1! But can you believe…she forgot to take my tooth?”

Sometimes you just can’t get it right.

Even if you’re trying to help the tooth fairy out.

Especially if you’re a newlywed.

Second marriage moment #8.

“All I know is that I’ve ruled out wearing fairy wings. When I was nine I wanted to get married in fairy wings, and now I realize that’s not cool anymore.” (Isla Fisher)

Living Legend

Date: April 27, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Deangelo: ‘Why do you use your name when you answer the phone?’ Erin: ‘Oh, that’s how Pam does it. I just copy her. She’s sort of a living legend.’” (The Office)

I had my new name, not too long thanks to the Social Security Administration, and now all I had to do was remember it. And answer to it. Easier said than done, as it turns out.

One Sunday, sitting in the women’s meeting at church, I suddenly noticed everyone in the room looking at me and laughing. They joked, “She doesn’t even know her name!” I assumed they must have called me “Andrea Ramsey” and I had failed to respond to it.

After the meeting a friend joked with me about it and I promised I’d get my name right the next time. That was when I found out they were laughing because they had called me “Andrea Ramsey” not just once, but THREE times! And it hadn’t registered with me, I hadn’t realized they meant me and had failed to respond to it every single time!

“Respond intelligently…” (Lao Tzu)

If you can. I’m going to work on that.

Second marriage moment #7.