Living Happily Ever After
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A New Year, A New Life

Date: January 5, 2015  Author: Andrea Merriman

It’s a new year–a time to reflect on the past, learn from it, and also to look forward to the new adventures, opportunities for growth and the many other “unexpected” things life brings. As such, I have reflected lately on many things. (After all, it has been almost five years since I began this blog and nearly six years since I began my unexpected life–a life I’m so busy living that I hardly have time to write about it much less share the lessons I’ve learned from it!) And after all is said and done, one memory stands out in my mind.

It was July 2009. I had just moved to Utah and was getting things settled in my new home. I entered the laundry room, closed the door to sweep behind it and came face to face with a poster left by my home’s previous occupants. (It was so perfect for my situation at that time, I wondered if they knew about me and had intentionally left it for me.) It said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Wisdom from Dr. Seuss.

I couldn’t stop the tears. (They came easily and frequently back then.) And as I stood there sobbing because of everything that had happened, crying because of everything that was over and wondering how I would ever smile again much less smile because anything had happened, I realized that should be my eventual goal and the eventual outcome for everyone living life, unexpected as many of those lives turn out to be.

Reflect on the past, learn from it, and then move forward (with a smile!) choosing to use the experiences that come to become better. Perhaps Jeffrey Holland said it best: “As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.”

Welcome, 2015.

Welcome, unexpected life, whatever it turns out to be.

I’ve learned for myself that every end is also a new beginning. That every life, even the unexpected ones, have the potential for joy and happiness–all it takes is moving forward, carrying on through the difficulties, never quitting, being thankful for what you DO have, and continually striving for happiness and joy no matter what happens.

Life “ain’t over till it’s over.” (Yogi Berra) So hang in there, this year and in every year to come.

And now I end this in the manner of every good story and with what I hope will always be said of me:

She lived happily ever after. (After the hard times, after the difficulties, after everything and even sometimes, despite them! Haha.)

THE END.

 

 

 

When all Else Fails

Date: December 17, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” (Lou Holtz)

There you have it, Andrea Merriman’s SIX STEPS TO SURVIVING ANYTHING.

And when all else fails, I guess, you can look to the inspiring examples of others, follow in their footsteps and carry on anyway when life and its challenges seem overwhelming. That’s what I do.

Let me introduce you to some of my heroes. Sadly, I don’t even know her name, but her life and what she chose to do with it, inspires me to carry on no matter what.

She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia prior to WWII. Then came the war. Her husband was killed and she was left alone to care for their four children when occupying forces determined Germans in East Prussia had to go to Western Germany. She was forced to make a journey of over 1,000 miles on foot—with four little children—allowed to take only what they could load into their small, wooden-wheeled wagon.

They left in late summer with no food or money, forced to gather whatever they could find to sustain them from fields and forests along the way. They faced constant dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops. Days turned into weeks and months, the temperatures dropped below freezing, and they continued to stumble over the frozen ground, her smallest child, a baby, in her arms and her three other children struggling behind her; the oldest, seven years old, pulling their tiny wagon.

Their shoes had disintegrated so they wore ragged and torn burlap to cover their feet. Their only clothing and protection against the cold were their thin, tattered jackets. The snows came and the days and nights became a nightmare. She constantly forced from her mind overwhelming fear that they would perish before reaching their destination. And then one morning, it happened: she awakened to find her three-year-old daughter cold and still.

Overwhelmed with grief, she used the only implement she had, A SPOON, to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her precious child. And they traveled on. They had to.

Death was her companion again, over and over on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died. Again, her only shovel was a spoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Then her five-year-old son died, and again, she used her spoon as a shovel.

She had only her baby daughter left, and as she reached the end of her journey the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. She had lost her husband and all her children; she had given up her earthly goods, her home and even her homeland; and in the moment of overwhelming sorrow, she felt her heart would break.

And then, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray.” She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life: “Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left.”

Then she recognized that her faith was the one thing she had left, and that it was a blessing to her, which led to expressions of gratitude and resulted in a new determination to live.

Recognizing our blessings and counting them, even if we can only come up with one blessing we have (that we’re still breathing, or that we have faith) can give us the will and determination to press forward and to carry on, no matter our adversities.

 

If a Tree Dies

Date: June 18, 2012  Author: admin

Sometimes, I confess, I’m struck by how different my new life (aka. the unexpected one) is from my old one. The losses have been substantial in every category. But, three years into it, so are the gains. I’ve seen over and over again that in any loss, despite your losses, you’re still left with SOMETHING; and you can use whatever you’re left with to rebuild.

Yes, old dreams die. Yet I’ve learned for myself it is possible to resurrect new dreams from the ashes of the old. So if the rug of your proverbial life has been ripped out from under you, unroll a new one in its place. Carry on. Look for the good. And eventually, you’ll find it. It’s never too late to begin again, to rise, to live.

“If a tree dies, plant another in its place.” (Carolas Linnaeus) And with enough faith, hope, hard work and endurance it will take root.

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 Open Book of My Life

Date: April 9, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak to graduate students of Brigham Young University’s business school who were studying fraud and ethics. The professor who invited me asked me to share my story and my thoughts on how fraud happens and how good people can get caught up in it. I’ve written about my experience quite a bit, I’ve spoken about it to various audiences quite a lot, but it was a different experience to ponder what to say when my life was an open book for all to study in an academic setting!

Here are some highlights from what I shared. I began by introducing myself with Part One of the 2010 Colorado 9News story by Cheryl Preheim. Then I said, “Well, there you have it. That’s me. I’m Andrea Merriman and I’m here today to talk about what it’s like after almost 20 years of marriage, four children, and what I thought was a wonderful life of world travel, financial prosperity, community and church service to have my life and my world collapse in one unexpected moment, the result of something I never EVER imagined would be a part of my life: FRAUD.

It was the worst nightmare I could never have imagined, only unfortunately, it was very real and sadly, it was now my life. You could title it:

Hold On—I’ve Never Smoked, Tasted Alcohol, Tried Drugs or Cheated in School, This Can’t Be Happening To Me!

No Way! I’m A Cougar Club Member and Have $10 Million In The Bank, I Can’t Be Penniless

I’ve Never Stolen A Thing In my Life, Not Even A Grape From the Grocery Store Without Paying For It

But the reality is titled more like this:

Think and Grow Rich…With A Ponzi Scheme

How To Win Friends and Influence People…Then Spend The Best Years of Your Life Behind Bars

What To Expect When You’re Expecting…5-7 Years and Get More Than The Max

Gone With The Wind…And The U.S. Marshalls

Crime and Punishment

From BYU to Federal Prison in 16 “Easy” Years

In truth, however, it’s much worse. You lose every material thing in your life, you lose the immaterial things like your good name and reputation, your wife, your children, your family and your friends, and then on top of that, you lose your entire life and your freedom, as well.

So what does all of this have to do with you? You may be sitting comfortably in your seats knowing you’re eagle scouts, you practice your religion, you’re at BYU living the honor code… something like this could never happen to you. Twenty-two years ago, I was just like you.

So how does this happen? How did a decent man fall so far? How did he do what he did to himself, to me, to his children, to his family, and to his victims?

I was interviewed by the MSNBC show, ‘American Greed’ recently and they asked basically the same question: How does a Ponzi scheme take place? How does a person get caught up in fraud that results in crime? How does it happen?

My answer?

One component of fraud is fear—fear of failure, fear of having to tell others you’ve failed, fear of losing your reputation for success by failing at something, fear of loss of job…But I also believe that selfishness, greed and pride are at the heart of it. You can’t commit fraud without them.

I also don’t believe every criminal sets out with the intent to commit a crime. I think there are good people who make a mistake, try to ‘fix it’ and fail and then choose to cover it up as they continue to work to fix it, but it’s too late. The MOMENT you ignore a mistake or attempt to disguise or try to hide even a small error is the moment your fraud begins.

Dieter Uchtdorf taught ‘Small Errors Can Have a Large Impact on Our Lives.’ He related it to airplanes and flight, but I believe it has application in business as well. He said, ‘The difference of a few degrees may seem minor. But even small errors over time can make a dramatic difference.  Suppose you were to take off from an airport at the equator, intending to circumnavigate the globe, but your course was off by just one degree. By the time you returned to the same longitude, how far off course would you be? A few miles? A hundred miles? An error of only one degree would put you almost 500 miles off course. Guard against the many little rationalizations, little white lies, misleading statements that are true but maybe not the whole truth, and courageously stay the ethical course.’

Stay on the straight and narrow path professionally and personally. (By the way, I believe ‘narrow path’ is no exaggeration.) It’s a narrow path, and when you start rationalizing and messing with the boundaries of it, you’re quickly into the gray and questionable area. And when you step off the clearly defined track of righteousness, it’s a very slippery and surprisingly short fall to the mists of darkness and impropriety.

In addition to correcting your course immediately and frequently, keep your heart in the right place. Lock your heart against things with no eternal value. Do whatever you need to do to keep your heart and your priorities in the right place in the workplace and in your professional endeavors. It can be pretty heady to go from college poverty making $4.90/hour (what I made when I was at BYU) to after graduation making $18k/month—I know, because that was my experience; that’s what my former husband made as an investment banker right out of college in the days when he was a law abiding citizen, prior to creating his Ponzi scheme.

Check your greed. Because at some point, close to $20k/month wasn’t enough. He had to have more and more and more until he sold out his wife, his children and his soul for money. Don’t make that mistake.

How do you prevent a fall like the one that destroyed my ex-husband? I think Mosiah (in the Book of Mormon) said it best: “But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves and your thoughts and your words and your deeds and observe the commandments of God and continue in the faith of what ye have heard…even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember and perish not.”

I apologize for the seriousness of my comments today, but I not only feel very strongly about the importance of living a life of integrity, I’ve lived through the nightmare that results when a person fails to do that professionally. So here’s my last bit of advice, courtesy of Benjamin Franklin, before you depart, as many of you graduate and go forth not only to serve but to establish your career, demonstrate to the world of business what you’ve been taught, what Brigham Young University is about and what you stand for:

‘Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollity; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.’

Your career and the rest of your life will be what you make of it—make them ethical, keep them fraud free and make sure every workday is, as Benjamin Franklin advised, a continual Christmas through your hard work and ethical business decisions. Thank you for letting me share a little bit of my story with you today. My best wishes and good luck to you all in your futures.”

There was a brief question and answer session afterward. As I drove home after it, I was struck by the thought that again, another unexpected experience has been mine. Had anyone told me in March 2009 when my world ended in a moment that three years later I’d not only be blogging about my unexpected life but also speaking to various groups and organizations about it, including Brigham Young University, I would NEVER have believed them!

Life is great, isn’t it? Hard, but full of amazing experiences. Never forget that wonderful blessings and moments are born of adversity, even from those challenges you can’t comprehend surviving much less enduring. I met some great people that day of my BYU speech—sharp college students with their futures ahead of them, children of friends and blog readers from Colorado, a successful businessman, BYU professor Mark Zimbelman and his cute teenage daughter.

Prior to my speech, the businessman asked me if I was nervous or if it was difficult to speak about my experience. No, it isn’t difficult. But here’s what apparently is: ”There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.” (Winston Churchill)

Stressed Out

Date: March 27, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

In the midst of all the adventures—moves, work and everything else life brings—we had a very special one. My oldest son began the process of belong called to serve as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was something I’d anticipated his entire life. You see, the majority of young men in the L.D.S. faith serve missions from the age of 19-21 years old. (You’ve probably seen them—clean cut young men, wearing white shirts and black name tags, walking or riding their bikes to meet with investigators, volunteering in the community and talking to people about faith, Jesus Christ and the gospel He taught.) When young men are of that age (or shortly before they turn 19) they submit their paperwork to serve a mission and then are called to serve where they are needed.

They don’t get to choose where they serve. Missionaries leave behind family, friends, work, sports, schooling and any other interests and dedicate their lives to their missionary service for two years. You don’t get to see them other than in the pictures they might send home. (They send letters and emails, they can call home twice each year, but other than that, they are focused on their mission and you don’t see them in person until they return home when their mission is completed.) And they pay all expenses associated with their missionary service.

I’d always hoped this son would choose to serve a mission. I’d planned he would serve a mission. I’d raised him to serve a mission. (I’m anticipating it for all of my sons.) But somehow, all too soon, the time is almost here.

He filled out his paperwork, met with the appropriate church leaders, and his papers were submitted to Salt Lake City for assignment. All that was left to do was wait for his mission call to arrive in the mail. (I think our official wait was actually less than 2 weeks by the time everything was submitted. But somehow it seemed longer than that. A lot was unknown, so it made the time seem to pass slowly.) In the meantime, I had no idea how stressed out I would become!

Lets just say this motherhood thing is a whole LOT more than I anticipated when I first became a mother. Those days, I remember sitting on the couch much of the day, holding and enjoying my newborn baby boy all day long, sometimes watching a video while he slept in my arms (I never wanted to put him down I was so thrilled to be a mom!) thinking, “I don’t know what all these mothers have been thinking and saying, insisting motherhood is such hard work! I don’t know what they think they are talking about!” I seriously thought they had to have exaggerated a little bit! (Ah…youth. And inexperience, huh?)

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting for that envelope to arrive.

And I, who rarely remembers that mail is delivered daily much less to pick up said mail from my mailbox, suddenly started checking the mail every day.

“I believe in opening mail once a month, whether it needs it or not.” (Bob Considine)

Waiting.

The Honest Answer I Didn’t Expect

Date: March 20, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I don’t believe in dressing up reality. I don’t believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.” (Lou Reed)

My husband called me back less than 20 minutes later and the issue was resolved.

My husband and his daughter arrived in Utah the following evening and we moved her in to our home. When the settling in was complete, we sat down with her and went over the house and family rules, what we expected from her and what she could expect from us. (I printed them out and gave her a copy so there could be no misunderstanding.)

One week later, one night when she came to say goodnight before going to bed, I took the opportunity to ask her in more detail how things were going and how she was feeling about her new life.

“Ok, you’ve been here a week,” I said. “Tell me, how are you doing? How are things going? How are you feeling?”

I don’t know what I expected to hear, or what I expected her to say, but I wasn’t expecting to be so entertained by her reply: “I’m not going to lie, it hasn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it would be!” she answered.

I kept a straight face and waited until she left the room…to laugh! I’ll never forget that (honest) answer.

And really, isn’t that pretty much life?   It rarely ends up as bad as we think it’ll be. And if it’s really that bad or worse, it doesn’t stay that way forever—I learned that myself from personal experience. Eventually, with enough faith, work and endurance, you’re on to a different happily ever after—if that’s what you choose.

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” (Denis Waitley)

Don’t Block Your Dream

Date: November 23, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.” (Mary Manin Morrissey)

I’ve been living my unexpected life for 2 1/2 years now. It has caused some serious reflection on occasion. Looking back, I can’t believe all that was thrust upon me in one single, incomprehensible, dark moment. I’m astounded at all that I lost, not to mention the fact that I emotionally survived the terrible shock all of that loss and devastation. What stunning, terrible, dark days those were. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

But somehow, I kept going. And now that I’m through it, I think I dare ask myself again: “HOW did I do it? How did I keep going? How did I survive it all?”

My answer? Faith. And dreams.

Somehow I had the faith to dream and to believe that if I did my part, if I did all I could to work hard and to make those dreams come true, they would. Somehow I had the faith to cling to the dream of a happily ever after and to trust God—to never doubt that He knows me and has a plan for me (I just wasn’t always sure what His plan was!)—and to know that with Him, my children and I could be healed of our losses and devastation, we could dream new dreams and  look forward with faith, and endure, until the time that our dreams came to fruition. Until we got our happily ever after.

I think Fox Mulder said it best: “Dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.” (The X Files)

My unexpected life provided me with the opportunity to dream new dreams I didn’t know I’d ever have; to ask questions I never thought I’d ask or have to ask; and there was a LOT to figure out! But it also provided an incredible opportunity for learning and personal growth. (That continues, by the way, as I stumble and bumble my way through my new adventures!)

But I’m so glad that I’ve learned them. I’m glad I didn’t quit (even though a few times I wanted to!) And all I can say is, to everyone and anyone in the midst of their unexpected life and its attendant trauma: don’t quit. Don’t give up. Keep the faith. And keep working toward that happily ever after you’ve always dreamed of and know is out there somewhere, some place…because it is.

I know it. And I have proof of it; I AM proof of it.

I lost my old life at 41 years old. In fact, I lost pretty much everything. I divorced, I returned to the workforce, I moved to Utah, and began again—entirely from scratch and in an entirely different way and life—yet here I sit. In my cute, comfortable little house in Utah. Happy and fulfilled in ways I didn’t even know were possible; my husband outside hanging Christmas lights with my boys; and I’m spending time with my wonderful new mother-in-law and anticipating the arrival of new, extended family to share Thanksgiving with, yes, I’m proof.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” (C.S. Lewis)

And make sure you do just that. Because it leads to some indescribable joys, moments of blissful happiness, and some other new but very unexpected adventures. I’ve had a few more. And as usual, I can’t believe some of them myself!

The New Feel of Darkness

Date: June 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I wondered vaguely if this was when it would end, whether I would pull up tonight’s darkness like a quilt and be dead and at peace evermore.” (William Manchester)

When I was thrust into my unexpected life two years ago, it felt dark and very overwhelming. I confess, I probably had a moment or two where I could absolutely relate to William Manchester. Several nights I went outside in the backyard of my Colorado home to be alone, mourn my losses, cry, pray, and to try to figure out a plan: as in, how was I going to feed and shelter four children? By myself? And how was I going to not just start over, but start over “from a hole?”

Although, “There’s nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas,” (Mad-Eye Moody, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000), I was short on ideas and options back then! But at least I knew, “When the darkness comes, keep an eye on the light…no matter how far away it seems.” (Jan Berry) I’d been raised to believe in and have faith that “For every dark night, there’s a brighter day.” (Tupac Shakur) And it’s true. I know it now, just as I knew it then, as hard as it was to always believe it.

So I didn’t succumb to the night’s darkness. Despite the black hole that was my new world, I didn’t quit. I may have ended every day in tears by crying myself into a fitful sleep (what little I slept), and I woke up and cried when I opened my eyes to my new reality and realized it wasn’t a bad dream but my new life (THAT is something–when your reality is worse than a nightmare! LOL), but I carried on as best I could.

Last night, I was out in the backyard of my Utah home. It was late, close to 11 p.m., but I wasn’t alone or mourning anything; I was planting a garden with #5!

With our busy work and family schedules, that was the time we had available to do it–so I kept the dirt moist with water and held the camping lantern so we could see, and #5 dug the holes, placed the plants in the earth, and covered them with soil. We talked, laughed, worked side by side and enjoyed one another. And when we finished, #5 went to put the tools and equipment away. I was left, alone, in the late night blackness of a summer night.

It has been awhile since I’ve thought about the dark summer nights alone in my Colorado yard, but brief memories of that time came unbidden. I indulged in them for just a moment, wondering if I’ll ever experience dark summer nights alone without remembering that traumatic time in 2009 but also marveling at the difference time, and light, can make.

“I guess darkness serves a purpose: to show us that there is redemption through chaos. I believe in that.” (Brendan Fraser) So do I. Because I’m living proof. Out of darkness and chaos came redemption…in the form of a very unexpected life. Time and again I’ve seen it happen—in this century, in previous ones, to every person, everywhere, regardless of the challenge or struggle.

There is ALWAYS light, and life, at the end of the tunnel, your tunnel, whatever that challenge may be.

That’s life. And since that’s life, while we’re here, we ought to experience it and remember that, ”Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.” (Stefan Zweig)

And if you’ve never planted a garden late at night by the light of a lantern, I recommend you experience that too.

“See you in the darkness.” (Gary Gilmore)

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.’”