We split up. We managed. We tried to make sense of it all. I didn’t understand. I had tried so hard. At some point you have to give up, especially when you are backed into a corner and have no say. The picture I am putting up is on my 50th birthday. That’s 21 Years ago. Wow! Life is a lot easier now. I’m so glad it is. Neither of us has remarried.

I wanted to tell you about Joshua, a freshman up at Western Baptist College (now Corban University). After Randy called him, he went off by himself. He cried. He couldn’t be with the other students. My two brother-in-laws went to the college and joined him. They talked and commiserated. They were so caring. By phone my other kids talked with him at some point. I heard LaVonne crying while she talked with him. I was grateful that my brother-in-laws helped my son navigate the terrible moments when he found out. When he came home Joshua was brave, comforting, and caring. I am thankful for him and the way he helped us make the best of a family woe.

LaVonne was upset and angry. She felt like she didn’t have a family anymore. She helped the younger kids as best she could, yet her anger got in the way. She needed some time. The kids talked about the split. Before the separation they thought our family was different than most families. We cared. We weren’t divorced. Now we seemed like those around them (in public school). It was a confusing way to finish your last year of public school. I wasn’t much of a help. I was hurting, and wondering, and confused.

Thomas was quiet. After a few weeks he and I had a long talk about it all. We were outside by the clothesline. He said he didn’t mind the split but he did comment about his dad. His words, “Dad doesn’t need to get the marriage back together but he needs to get his life back in a close relationship with God.” That was pretty wise for a fifteen year old, and I know he meant it.

Forrest was hurt. He spoke about the split during the time I was fixing dinner. That was our time when we were alone without the other kids. He told me that he told his friends why he had been so quiet lately. He told them that his parents had split and he was quiet because he couldn’t talk about it. He seemed to take it badly, and I worried about him. He was younger. I felt for him. I didn’t know what to do for him.

Glorianne was impacted in a different way. She was preschool age. She would come into the bedroom and talk about when her dad would come back. She’d ask me when he was going to come back. I let her talk but I didn’t give many answers. She would ask LaVonne as well. LaVonne could tell her more directly. Her voice would be tearful. I tried my best, but there wasn’t much I could say that could make it better.

The months after we split were hard for me. I could not accept being alone. More than angry, I was hurt, deeply hurt and wounded. I’d been fighting it, being set aside, for many years. In a sense, I was relieved but still hurt. He had a girlfriend, which made it harder for me. In fact, Joshua went to the bowling alley with a date, but he saw his dad’s car there and left. He didn’t want to see his dad with a girl. It just was awkward.

My former husband settled down in Paradise then in Oroville in the Thermalito area. His sister decided to leave her marriage too. Her third daughter would come over and visit me. She encouraged me, which meant a lot to me. For many years after the divorce we could barely talk. He later sued me for the predominant custodial rights, which he got. Exactly 18 months later, Glorianne decided to come back to live with me. When the kids become teens they have the most say. Unfortunately, because she was so young, she can’t remember us being married.

Divorce is ugly. It is strange but I remember that I realized it in our first week of marriage, it was going to be hard. I couldn’t get close to my mate. For twenty-one years it had been tremendously difficult. But the kids (except L.) didn’t know it. We didn’t bicker. We didn’t fight. My hope was only a hope. I believed that marriage was for good. One thing I did, that brought some things I didn’t understand, was I kept the problems to myself. I didn’t talk about the difficult things in our marriage. I remember when I closed up, I decided I wouldn’t say negative things about my husband. I wasn’t perfect, and like I said last week, I had many advantages over him. The whole thing is just sad.

I left a lot out of my synopsis of our marriage. I am thankful I am not bitter anymore. I am happy. I am content. I try to make peace with others when I need to. I learned to take whatever and make it nice. Time has helped me. I dated, but I decided to let it go as well. God has made me into a different sort of person than when I was married. I am more content, peaceful, blessed, giving, helpful and caring. The bulk of this writing was about my children for they were impacted greatly by the divorce. They are all grown up now. LaVonne has seven children and is married to Shane. Glorianne is married to Mitch. The boys have not married. I love them all. I think they all are doing well. My grown children are cautious and considerate. Only the youngest one lives in town. I am blessed. God has been good to me.

The years came and went. There were happy moments. There were sad moments. We kept pushing on. We had two more children. I learned a lot during those years. My sister died, which was terribly hard. My husband kept changing jobs, which was difficult for me and the family. We didn’t have much money or nice furniture. I went to school. I tried to get a teaching job. I’d interview but the jobs didn’t come. I continued to take coursework. There was more required than there had been. I kept pushing. To be honest, I really didn’t want to work but I needed to. I just knew my mate could leave me again. I wanted to be ready just in case.

My father had a 40 acre walnut orchard on the farm where he lived. He surprised me when he offered the orchard to me to farm. He and I would split the dollar amount the orchard produced. I was quite surprised. I started farming the orchard just after my fifth child was born. The first year my cousin helped us with the orchard…which was a good thing. Then after, he always helped with the tractoring. The kids and I moved the pipe for the irrigation, sprayed the weeds, pruned the trees, and kept the walnut orchard functioning. We did this for exactly twenty years. My oldest daughter and second son desired to get their education at BIOLA, so the orchard income helped. BIOLA is a private university which means big bucks. The orchard income helped with some of their college bills. My kids learned the work and how to work. But I digress.

My husband decided to move out of our home early in the year 2002. This time I had no choice. We had really failed to have a rich and rewarding home life although I can truthfully say I really and truthfully tried. And, I think, my mate tried in his own way. My oldest child, Josh, was away at college in Oregon that year. He was told (more in next week’s post), and my daughter, LaVonne, cried (more in next week’s post). She was in her senior year. Thomas was fifteen, Forrest was in fifth or sixth grade and Glorianne was in preschool. I was teaching part-time in the Hamilton Elementary School. I kept the news to myself at work. I didn’t think I could talk about it without crying and I was a fairly private person. The same week my husband left, the principle at the school told me my part-time job would end come summer. I was completely bummed. I’d worked so hard too secure the employment but simply it didn’t matter.

By then we had moved to the property where the orchard was planted. My parents had moved to their property in Capay. I managed by working in the orchard and continued my classwork. I thought it would be best if I continued to work as a classroom teacher. Fortunately I knew the reading specialist at Hamilton was going to retire. It worked out. She retired and I interviewed for the job. I got the job. It’s weird to think of now. Those were some trying times. You see, I still loved my husband, even though he didn’t love me (though I believed he did, just wasn’t sure he did). I remember when he told me that he was leaving for good, we both cried. He told me he had tried, and I believed him. I still believe him. He left, and that was that.

It was so sad. My son, Thomas, was at Driver’s Education class. He was told by his father when he was brought home. It was a Sunday. LaVonne and Forrest went outside when Thomas was left by their father. I looked out the window, the three of them had their arms around each other, their heads were bent, and they were crying. It was hard to make sense of. I couldn’t understand how he thought. I went out in the orchard, sat under a tree, and bitterly cried. I didn’t want my kids to see me cry, so I cried where they couldn’t see me. The next few years are a bit of a blur.

It would be best if I told you why I tried so hard. You see, I had the good parents, the strong parenting, the better home by far. My mate had been raised in such a different zone than I had. He hadn’t been raised by a mother that cared. His father was not able to show him the way to be a strong father. They both cheated. The kids knew about their cheating (that’s all I will say but there’s more). He became a Christian when he was in the army. He’d not been raised with what I had been. If the roles were reversed, I would want and wish for a stable mate.

I’m going to tell you a few of the moments that will make sense to you. You learn a lot those times when you’re going through some things that are hard. It takes time to sort your feelings from your reality. I am going to share a couple of those times in my next post.

As I said, I learned a lot. God teaches us when we are willing to listen. We can’t tell God what to do. We can try but it tends to be in our own effort. I was hurt, but not broken. God had so much to teach me. I learned to listen, to sort, to throw away that which didn’t make sense, and keep that which did. I couldn’t change the situation. I couldn’t make it easier for my kids, though I wanted to. I couldn’t make my husband, or the school, want me. I was on empty. Totally on empty. But God had much he wanted to show me. He held me up. He held my kids up. He taught us. He helped us. He brought friends into our lives. He taught me to wait, to listen, to learn, to make his way clear. I had much to learn, and learn I did. But most of all, I learned to trust in God.

to be continued

It was the day I lost my innocence. A day that would put me on a path I did not choose, on a journey I did not want, and take me to a place I did not understand. Little did I know that the events of that day would define my life for days, months, and years to come. I should have been paying closer attention but I had ignored all the signs, and there had been signs, even some huge signs. But I didn’t know how to read “sign”. An innocent doesn’t by nature of their innocence. That lone day life became hard, different, confusing. Although the girl I was in those days, of which there was no replacing, had a human spirit that would fight back with untapped resilience. Yet, there was loss. She had been a gentle soul. I would often lament her disappearance. I’d wish for the days before her initiation, the days of naive trust and love.

Time would reveal other “initiated” members who entered that same door of pain.They also remember the day when pain became their companion, a companion unwelcome on all points yet joined to the very marrow. This is the real truth about pain, life never returns to the way it was “before”. For over twenty years it was painful, sucking the heart out of life. I take you back to that day in 1985, We’d been married four and a half years.

It was a lovely August day, a Sunday, normal in all respects. My husband left early that morning to go to work; the two children and I went to Grace Baptist Church in Chico, California. Then we came home. I opened the door and noticed a note on the table.

I held the note and began to read; the words sent a warm heat coursing from head to toe. I read it again, then a third time. My breath caught in short quickened gasps. “Oh no,” I sucked in a deep breath to give me strength. My thoughts were racing, my voice no longer audible. I leaned down to pick up LaVonne, placing her in the highchair. She looked so sweet in her frilly dress, her brown eyes flashing, much like her daddy’s. She was hungry, fussy. Tears gathered in my eyes and I swiped them away. Tears would have to wait. “Not now.” I picked up Joshua to sit him in his tot chair. He was chatty and cheerful, not aware of my distress. The children needed to be fed before I called anyone. Randy’s pickup truck was still parked where he usually parked it.

“Could this Sunday have started so normal?” “Could this be happening to me?” I put a simple meal together while my eyes were drawn back to the note, aware that now everything was different. Yes, there had been problems, ever since he told me he didn’t love me and had planned on leaving me. He didn’t leave that time, but wanted to. It was just over a year since, and I hoped we were better. I tried. I hoped. But it wasn’t enough. It had never been enough.

“Shaky, I feel shaky,” I thought as I turned from the room keeping the children in view. The phone on the wall waited just beyond me. I rehearsed to myself the words I would say. They sounded strange even to me. I dialed my parents. To tell them would be uncomfortable but I had it to do. It was the only thing I could do. “I must be calm. Don’t cry.” I willed myself to be brave. I heard the tremor in my voice as my words spilled out; too quick, too unclear.

“We’ll be right over.” I heard surprise mixed with concern in Mom’s and then Dad’s voice. How unreal it felt, like being in a dream. A repetitive thud was thumping a strident pattern in my chest. I tried to ignore its alarm. I needed to think. What should I be doing? His family, I must call them. They need to know.

It took a great effort to contain my tumbling thoughts, my emotions now competing for dominance. My mind ping-ponged as it slowed to make sense of what I now knew. The most recent event of the evening before came first to mind. It had struck me as rather odd and I had been hurt. We had dressed up for going out. I thought we looked good together, he in his black dress slacks and me in my burgundy summer dress. I had been rather nervous as I anticipated meeting his old friends from Oroville high school. I thought they would like me, at least I hoped so. I wanted to look my best. In the sultry night air, the other young couples looked lovely as they visited and caught up on the ten years of living since high school. I spoke to a few but soon found myself alone. They didn’t know me, of course. I waited for Randy to come over to introduce me but he seemed to have left me. “Where is he?” I glanced at my watch and tried to look at ease, like I belonged.

to be continued

That was just the beginning of the story. God took me on a long journey, where I made choices most people wouldn’t have but I did. I learned a lot about God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s joy and God’s peace. I learned how to bear, to suffer, to know God’s redeeming power, and to know loss, brokenness, and heartache and much more. I have to admit that sometimes I felt sorry for myself. I didn’t think I deserved the treatment I was suffering. And I also felt pain from the choices I had made. I took a journey that was different, difficult, and beautiful, for God had much to teach me, and I had much to learn. I’m thankful for what God taught me as I blazed a trail into the unknown. God is good.

More next week...