Living Happily Ever After
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The Speech, Part I

Date: March 5, 2014  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Everyone struggles. Everyone has a story. And the stories can be incredibly overwhelming and difficult.

Infertility, job loss, abuse, sickness, betrayal, death, pornography, crime…or a combination of one or more or ALL these together and more!

So I have to tell you I BELIEVE IN BEING HAPPY. I always have! (And despite my personal struggles with things I’ve had to overcome, I still do.) Either my parents did a REALLY good job teaching me that I was meant to be happy, or I was born that way, because even as a teenager I tried to live by these inspiring words from Martha Washington:

“I believe in being happy in whatever situation I may be. For I know that our happiness or misery, in large part, depends upon our attitude and not our circumstances.”

I’m older now. I’ve lived a long time and I’ve lived THROUGH a lot. But my philosophy is still optimistic and hopeful, and it’s very simlar to Audrey Hepburn’s:

“I believe in wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be join wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles.”

I personally believe there is a miracle for every person. Actually, I believe, no, I KNOW, there are many tender mercies and miracles for each one of us. And perhaps the greatest miracle of all: I believe no matter what has happened, it IS possible to rise from the ashes of devastation and rebuild.

It IS possible to overcome anything and everything.

It IS possible to be happy again.

It isn’t what happens to you, IT’S WHAT YOU DO WITH IT, that matters.

Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on you.

Opportunities for growth and happiness lie in the most unexpected places. I call mine “The Unexpected Life.”

(Tune in tomorrow–and in coming days–for more of the speech!)

A Perfect Day

Date: October 7, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

When I was a girl, I dreamed of perfection: perfect days. I had a pretty great life, basically a fairy tale life until age 19, and I knew that. I appreciated that. And I looked forward to life’s continuing fairy tale perfection for the remainder of my days until…1986—when “life” hit.

One Tragedy. Loss my teenage mind could hardly comprehend. Grief. Hardship. (And the occasional despair!) I learned to deal with it, but never abandoned my dream of fairy tale perfection. Two decades later I again enjoyed a pretty great life, a fairy tale life in many ways until…2009—when the VERY “unexpected life” hit.

Now that I’m older and have moved through additional storms and am hopefully a little wiser, I think I’ve decided I’d settle for a “perfect” day—although I’m not even sure I’ve been able to create or capture many of those either! There’s always something I fall short in, or a struggle that confronts me, that results in some degree of imperfection during almost every 24-hour period.

So here’s my new ideal:

“Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and—if it all possible—speak a few sensible words. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

That sounds doable, doesn’t it? Especially in today’s web world: hear a little song, read a little something, see something visually uplifting…Even I can do that, I think.

It’s the speaking “a few sensible words” that may be a challenge! Lol.

Make it a perfect day. And be sure and let me know how it went for you.

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)

Face What You Fear

Date: February 3, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

For homework, my middle son had to select a story and prepare to tell it to his school class. A few students from each class are chosen to tell their story in front of judges, and the school’s winners get to participate in the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival. (If I understand the whole thing correctly. Last year was a blur, I still consider myself new to Utah, so I hope that’s accurate information.)

As I helped my son with his story, I couldn’t help but give him a few pointers on how to tell it. (Sometimes I just can’t hold the PR&Advertising-trained part of me back. One of the few things I can do is give a presentation!) He wasn’t buying much of what I suggested he do, I think he was too cool for most of it. So on the off chance his story ends with his 5th grade class, I have to pass it on here. Because it’s a true one. From the life of my great-grandfather, Jerome Bradley Henrie and his mother, my great-great grandmother, Amanda Bradley Henrie.

When I first heard it as a little girl, it inspired me. It helped me stand strong. And as a woman, when I needed courage during tough times, it helped me do what I needed to with my head held high. Especially when I entered my unexpected life.

Here’s the story as my son will share it with his class today:

“Jerome Henrie grew up in a dugout on the side of the temple hill in Manti, Utah, more than a century ago.

Winters were cold. Summers were hot, and the heat was especially challenging because rattlesnakes infested the cool, darkness of the family’s dugout to escape the heat of summer days–which made home life VERY interesting, not to mention just a little bit dangerous!

But rattlesnakes weren’t the only danger.

There were Indians!

One day Jerome’s mother Amanda, finished her week’s baking. She took the freshly baked loaves of bread from the fire and laid them on a table to cool. As she stood back to admire her work, a huge Indian brave barged into her home! He gestured for the bread.

Amanda gave him one loaf, but he wasn’t satisfied. The Indian again demanded bread.

All of it.

Amanda was a tiny woman. She was terrified of the tall, fierce Indian standing in her home, demanding all of her bread. But she knew if she gave him her bread, her children would have nothing to eat.

So she grabbed a poker from the fire and gestured her own invitation of departure! She chased that Indian out of her little dugout home and he never came back! It must have been quite a site to see a big brave running from a tiny pioneer woman! Yet Amanda’s courage to stand strong even in the face of what she feared, is an example to me.

Ovid said, ‘Happy is he who dares courageously to defend what he loves.’”

I’m not advocating we run around in the 21st century brandishing pokers, but I do believe we have to stand for what we believe is right (regardless of how we’re judged by others), we need to move forward even when we’re terrified and we need to see our challenge through to “the end” (without giving up) until we conquer it!

“The triumph cannot be had without the struggle.” (Wilma Rudolph)

Neither can the unexpected life.

Glimpse…From The Couch

Date: November 3, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman
“Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren’t completely embarrassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow’s embarrassment?” (Tom Cruise) 

I remember Tom’s couch jumping and the criticism he endured because of it. I just never imagined I’d feel like he had to have felt at some point in my life–publicly humiliated. And then my unexpected life hit.

Not only was I shocked at what was revealed, not only was I scrambling to preserve what I could from the ashes of destruction and create some semblance of a life for me and my children to carry on with, but I was absolutely mortified. I was appalled at the dishonesty and CRIMES that had been perpetrated; I was embarrassed to not only know a criminal but to be married to him; and I was humiliated at having to endure everything so publicly, played out on a national stage.

It was a struggle to reconcile that all of those events were my life.

I couldn’t help but recall the little girl I once was–the little girl who who loved her dolls and looked forward to the day they would become “real” and I would experience motherhood; the little girl who immersed herself in fairy tales for hours on end and had such dreams of a real one in the future for her and everyone else.

I certainly never envisioned the story I got handed. It wasn’t my plan. My plan was for me, and everyone else, to grow up and live happily ever after.

The bottom line? I didn’t want the life that became mine unexpectedly.

And then I thought of my childhood friends: friends with addictions that destroyed their families and their lives; friends who watched their toddlers suffer and eventually die from physical impairments; friends whose parents committed suicide, died of cancer, or were killed in accidents; friends who divorced; friends who never married; friends who wanted children but couldn’t have them; friends betrayed by spouses; friends who died of cancer; friends diagnosed with M.S. and other diseases they live with and endure the effects of on a daily basis; friends who battle health issues and pain all day every day; friends who struggle with employment; friends who lost their homes; friends who suffered financial reverses; the list is endless.

The challenges varied, but almost every childhood friend I knew had been blessed with an unexpected life.

I couldn’t help but wonder what we would all have thought, as children, if we’d been given a glimpse of what was to come. Honestly? I wondered if I would have run at the thought of 2009. I guess it’s a blessing that certain things are unexpected. And that’s when I remembered, not for the first time, a key to living and enduring life and it’s challenges. You have to expect that unexpected things happen. In every life. To every one. So you have to carry on. Every day.

“Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words and suffer noble sorrows.” (Charles Reade)

Shocking, devastating, heart breaking, hard, unexpected, even embarrassing things. Expected, exhilarating, happy, joyous and wonderful things. But always unexpected. Sometimes they lead to an uncontrollable desire to jump on a couch. Other times, it’s all you can do to get up off the couch and drag yourself forward to face the day.

But the important thing is that you live it and never lose your glimpse of the possibilities contained in tomorrow…if you can just make it through today.

A helpful tip to getting through the day? Don’t forget to utilize your couch if you need to. Regroup on the couch. Then get up off the couch, jump on your couch, sit close to someone you love on your couch (where is Agent M when you need him?), or rearrange your couch. Couches can be helpful in the unexpected life.

“I got up one morning and couldn’t find my socks, so I called Information. She said, “Hello, Information.” I said, “I can’t find my socks.” She said, “They’re behind the couch. And they were!” (Stephen Wright)


It’s Ok To Be Uncommon

Date: October 14, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Great dreams… never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, “How good or how bad am I?” That’s where courage comes in.” (Erma Bombeck)

During that time I struggled to accept and adjust to my unexpected life, while I so desperately needed and waited for the miracles my children and I needed, it seemed as if everything was a battle. Each new day required courage.

One day I got a message from a co-worker that inspired me. It was just what I needed to hear at that time, and it meant so much to me, I saved it. I wasn’t sure why I saved it, at the time, (other than it inspired me when I really needed inspiration) but I figured out today it was so I could pass it along.

Here goes. The best “Ryan’s Rant” I ever received.

“As an entrepreneur at heart that knows the hardships of breaking away from the herd, I found this extremely inspiring this morning and I hope you do too. There are so many things in the world that can make even an optimistic man check how full his cup is, and at times it takes leaders like Dean Alfange to remind us it’s okay to be ‘uncommon.’

I Do Not Choose To Be A Common Man

‘It is my right to be uncommon–if I can. I seek opportunity–not security…I want to…dream and to build, to fail and to succeed…I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence…I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say,’This I have done.’”

Great advice for life, especially the unexpected one.

Because it takes uncommon effort to rise above it, to dream and to build in spite of it, to overcome it, and to succeed: to create happiness and joy in spite of, or again, perhaps because of it.

*The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople (now Istanbul). He was raised in upstate New York. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of 1922.

Shock…And A Grin

Date: September 15, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.” (Augustus Hare)

Night before last I was up until midnight, hanging out and chatting with my oldest. Talking about anything and everything EXCEPT the sentencing of his father which took place yesterday. But it had to have been on his mind because he didn’t seem to want to be alone with his thoughts; I sensed he needed someone to talk to.

When he went to bed, I checked on my 10-year-old and found him crying in his bed, worried about the pending sentencing of his father. I offered words of encouragement, tried to help him look at the bright side and attempted to cheer him up–until nearly 1:30 a.m. It broke my heart and I realized in that moment, regardless of the outcome of the sentencing and the remorse my former husband feels for what he has done to so many people, there are some things he just won’t quite understand. He hasn’t been around to witness it firsthand; he has been incarcerated. He hasn’t had to look into the devastated faces of our children. He didn’t have to (or get to) watch them live with pain He caused. He hasn’t had to help them pick up the pieces and struggle to carry on and create a new life when the going was tougher than any of us ever imagined.

But, I sent everyone to school, to press forward in their lives and with their responsibilities despite the challenging circumstances–and I went to work, too, awaiting word of the sentencing outcome. Looking back, I think I worked all day under an inordinate amount of stress. I don’t think I even realized the stress I was operating under until I got a phone call near the end of the day. A Colorado friend was calling to report the outcome of my former spouse’s sentencing hearing for operating a Ponzi scheme/stealing over $20 million.

I anticipated, based on the last collect call I received from my former spouse, that the hearing would take two hours. Instead, more than eight hours later my friend called, crying, to report the maximum sentence had been handed down in a courtroom whose atmosphere was so tense and hateful she felt sick to her stomach.

I don’t know what more I can say about the importance of choosing to heal instead of hate, but I love what Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) He was absolutely right.

So as my friend recounted the events of the day, I really only heard a few words: The maximum, 12 1/2 years.

How was I going to tell my children?

I don’t know what I wanted the outcome to be; I don’t know what I expected. I have only prayed that I will be o.k. with whatever the judge decides and that somehow, I will be able to help my children be o.k. with it too. But to hear the words, “151 months,” “12 1/2 years” shocked me. It sent me into a very unprofessional, uncontrollable crying-in-the-workplace episode; the likes of which I never expected or imagined.

My poor co-workers. I’ve held it together for over a year. I’ve never done anything like that in public that I can recall. But today was so unexpected. The unstoppable wail of a woman in shock, broken-hearted, traumatized by the senseless destruction and tragedy unleashed on so many by the terrible choices of one man. The grief of a mother knowing the next time her teenage son saw his father that son would be almost 30 years old. The cry of a single mother trying to hold her little family together, knowing she had be the one to share the bad news and see pain in a little boy’s eyes, again, when he learned the fate of his father.

If I ever think I’m having a bad day…remind me of March 18, 2009, or September 14, 2010.

Shaking, somehow I managed to drive all the way home, bawling, and tried to pull myself together enough to face my children. To break their hearts one more time. I’ll never forget the dread I felt as I pulled up to my home, knowing what I had to go inside and do. Break my children’s hearts.

I spoke with my daughter first. I told her the outcome and she accepted it calmly, with grace and dignity (unlike her mother.)

I sat my 10-year-old down and prepared him for the news. He was happy and smiling until that moment then a serious expression came to his face as I shared the events of the day. Instead of the devastation I anticipated, he chose to look at the bright side, “Well, if he has already served 13 months, and he gets time off for good behavior, he’ll be free to see us when I’m only in college! That’s not so bad!”

Stoic and optimistic. All on his own. I could not have been more proud of him than I was in that moment. And despite the terrible struggle coming to terms with his father’s choices has been for him, I was amazed at how my sweet son has grown over the past 18 months. If I can only help him realize that if he will choose to handle all of the setbacks that come his way like today’s, he is destined for greatness–regardless of, or perhaps because of, his adversity.

My oldest son got the news on his phone before he even got home. When I sat him down to tell him, he already knew. Everything was what he had expected, and he is to the point in his life where he is actually grateful for all that he has learned as a result of all that he has passed through. He can see how he has been blessed as a result of his trials, so he tried to laugh about it–revealing he and his sister had placed bets on the outcome and he had gotten out of doing the dishes this week!

I guess everyone deals with shock, grief and trauma in their own way. Who’s to say which way is right or wrong? Certainly not me. But as one co-worker encouraged when I was in the throes of my unexpected reaction and trying to apologize for it, “I’d worry about you if you didn’t react.”

Note to self: one “secret” to the unexpected life is to let yourself feel so you can heal. (Just remember: no wallowing!)

We did that yesterday, each of us in our own way, and as I sent my children to bed each had a smile on their face, which brought one to mine. We’ve survived another unexpected development in our unexpected life…and we came out grinning.

“It’s easy to grin when your ships come in and you’ve got the stock market beat, but the man worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat.”

We’re going to be o.k.

And now, back to the chick-flick portion of my unexpected life. What’s coming just might be worthy of a grin, too.

How Do You Get Past…The Past?

Date: September 4, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

But I still couldn’t think about love and marriage. I couldn’t begin to process what I thought I might feel, so I just continued to observe.

It was the “laid back” approach I so excel at (the ability to ignore), although, “Too laid back is to be laid out” at times! Here’s what I saw:

Bachelor #5 offered to tend my younger sons so my daughter and I could do something special. When I returned late at night to pick the boys up, Bachelor #5 greeted me calmly at the door with a smile. He had laundry going, he had baked cookies, my middle son was running around playing and was as happy as he could be and my youngest had contentedly fallen asleep. When he woke up the next morning, my youngest son wanted only one thing: Bachelor #5.

Bachelor #5 had all 8 children (he has four, I have four) and their guests to his home for dinner so they could meet. He prepared the entire meal himself, for 14, while tending his granddaughter, my two youngest children and keeping an eye on his youngest son and his friends. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in the door for dinner; the kids were happily playing, he had everything under control, the meal was ready, and he was calm.

The question for me was, could Bachelor #5 REALLY be everything he seemed to be?

I consulted a trusted friend who always had a wise perspective and had given solid counsel many times in the past. She had some great thoughts and advice.

I consulted my sister. She said (more than once), “Andrea, you need to open your eyes and LOOK at this man. He is everything you need. He is everything you’ve ever wanted and you won’t let yourself see it. Marry him or not, but you HAVE to give him credit for being who HE is.” She told me to quit punishing him for the behavior of my former spouse.

She explained, “I think you are afraid, and I don’t blame you. I’ve been so worried about you, afraid you’d never dare love or trust anyone ever again after all you’ve been through. I’m so relieved that you seem to be open to attempting that. But you can’t hold what your first husband did against this man. I think you thought your first husband was so many things, and then he turned out to be none of them, so you won’t even let yourself see what THIS man actually IS.”

I struggled with that, yet I knew my sister was right. I tried to give Bachelor #5 credit for all he appeared to be, but it was not easy.

I didn’t really trust my opinion. Every person I introduced him to received the same plea from me, “Tell me honestly what you think. I HAVE to be missing something. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me what terrible thing–fault, flaw, lie, problem–am I not seeing?” (You see, I had missed lies and flaws of epic proportions in my first husband and was terrified to be so blind, and not see such important things that would lead to making that same mistake, again.)

But how do you get past something like that? How do you get past…the past?