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“Are you, or have you ever been, a member of an organization which promotes violence, or terrorism?
Blank look.
The interviewer’s mouth creased in a small smile.
“Have you ever been a member of the communist party?”
Jeremiah looked confused.
I butted in.
“He doesn’t understand. The only organizations he’s been involved in are our church, Boy Scouts, and Special Olympics.”
“I understand,” the man across the desk said with a friendly smile. “These are just standard questions.”
Across the country April 15th is a day many of my fellow Americans are nervous about filing their taxes. My wife and I were wondering what the future would hold for Jeremiah.
We were in an office in the Federal Building in downtown Portland. We were all dressed nice. I had put my wedding ring back on for the day.
The man across the desk did not seem the sort to go to the extreme of deportation, but we feared he may feel required to deny Jeremiah many of the opportunities which accompany permanent residency, and then, citizenship.
But it wasn’t like that at all.
Brenda and Jeremiah had the two seat directly in front of the desk. I was pulled up behind and between them. Our attorney sat to the right of us.
The questions were generally routine, except perhaps the first few.
“Why have you waited so long to file for permanent residency?”
Brenda replied, “Because we didn’t know we had to. In all the people we dealt with, the attorneys, the home study people, social security, we were never told we had to do anything.”
He smiled.
Bottom line... the friendly man behind the desk was not a typical bureaucrat, or someone inexperienced with dealing with unusual immigration cases. He had enough experience, enough seniority, that his recommendations carried a lot of weight. And he was a man who saw the reality of the situation and what he could do to fix it.
Brenda had picked up a letter from the asst. district attorney of our county which explained the situation behind the fire at our church nearly three years ago. he too out a highlighter and marked three passages, out it in the file.
After the routine questions he said that he was inclined to approve the permanent residency application. It may take a little while to get his supervisor’s approval, but he would see if he was available right now.
Five minutes later he returned. Asked for Jeremiah’s work permit, saying he won’t need it anymore. He literal rubber stamped the whole thing.
He reached into a drawer, pulled out a huge rubber stamp with small letters describing some sort of bureaucratic approval, and began stamping papers and signing in the areas of the stamping. He stood up, shook our hands.
Tears welled up in our eyes.
The biggest hurdle for Jeremiah had been cleared. he has permission to be a permanent resident in the United Sates of America.
In five years he would be able to apply for citizenship.
I could hardly believe what had just happened.
on the steps leading out of the court house I stopped a stranger.
“Pardon me... We’ve just had a rather significant event of our lives happen. would you mind taking our picture?”
She smiled, stepped back to get us fully in the picture, and snapped the picture.
It is such a relief!
Rapid shift...
Brenda wants back.
She moved out from John’s. Asked to sleep on the couch. of course I said yes.
I ran home this morning for something I had forgotten and found her replacing her things in drawers, closets, shelves.
“I have not agreed to this.,” I said.
She got angry. Threats, rants.
I simply said that if she wants to work on something, or change the situation she needs to talk with me, come to an agreement.
She sent me a text message:
hi i am walking
rocky right now
have been thinking
more and you are
right. I will go back
to kerri’s that
is the best thing
to do. i cant
expect you to
trust me i have
already destroyed
any chance of that
I am sorry about earlier.
i am not
doing so well right now
as you know
i guess its all going to
just take
some time, i will
pick up jeremiah
and meet you at
your house at
3:30
I have no idea what is going on, what to think, any of it.
I think about love, forgiveness, protecting my family, believing in marriage, sticking up for standards for myself, just doing the right thing.
She is right. I haven’t much reason to trust her.
I hope she can be all right.
I hope that whatever happens He will say... “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m sitting with Jeremiah on a couch covered in cat hair in a narrow little beauty shop wedged between two buildings, maybe a dozen feet wide, while Isaac gets his dread maintenance in the back.
My heart is racing.
I shared at church today about Jeremiah’s meeting with the immigration folks on Tuesday. I asked for their prayers. I didn’t tell them that my wife is living with another man.
My heart is racing.
It is unlikely they will determine he should be deported to Haiti. But beside that unthinkable possibility there is a range of outcomes, most of them not very good for him.
I read this morning a news story about a U.N. policeman in Port au Prince, Haiti. That is the place where my children were before coming to the United States fifteen years ago. During a riot the officer was pulled from his U.N. marked car and executed in the street.
I miss my wife.
I don’t know where I’m going with this.
I facilitated a Sunday School class this morning, a discussion of the novel The Shack. My voice hardly trembled at all during the whole class.
Because of my request during the service folks were asking for details about the interview on Tuesday.
Jeremiah tells me he is scared.
So am I.
I just paused to ask Jeremiah what he is thinking about. He nervously told me he is thinking about Tuesday.
“But everything will be alright, right?” he asked.
His eyes were on mine, and then slipped off and back again, and out the door, and back again.
“Look at me,” I told him.
I held his eyes with mine.
“Nothing is going to happen to you. I’m your dad. I love you, and I will protect you. You are a good boy and it is going to be OK.”
“All right.”
I should have taken a Xanax today. It can’t be good for me to have my heart hammering in my chest hour after hour like this.
The Bible tells me not to be anxious.
We had a fundraiser Friday night. It was pretty cool. Our students fielded a dozen air bands (they lip synch to songs, pretending to sing and play instruments). There was everything from hip hop to mariachi bands. I was the lead singer for the staff band, The Majestics. I somehow managed to look like I was comfortable duck walking and singing “Louie, Louie” while they pulled out the stops with the lights and turned on a fog machine.
There were lots of prizes, and the kids raised over $9,000. One incentive for them was for every $5 they spent on The Battle of the Bands merchandise they got their name in a drawing for my beard. So, sometime soon, one of the students will shape my beard and mustache any way he likes and I’ll wear it for a week.
I’m pretty open to almost anything they want to do, but there was a suggestion I get a Hitler mustache, and I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.
I want to write something interesting in this post. I want to turn my mind to spiritual matters, or matters of science, or something else besides the two issues which grip me, make me tremble.
I wrote something yesterday. It is much better than this weird little post, this essay which has no point at all. Still, this little bit of random thought, this soliloquy of anxiety and fear, belongs with the other posts which chronicle my life.
I guess I’ll post this Monday afternoon. I imagine I will want to write about the experience with immigration on Tuesday, and so this meaningless bit of writing will rest at the top of my blog for only a short period.
I like that. I want to write about better things, deeper things, but all I have today are random paragraphs that have no point.
I like circular plots. The sort of stories in which characters move out, go upon some sort of journey, and return again, changed.
Dorothy, tired of her life, dreams of going somewhere different, so her life can be different, only to find the things she really cherished were at home. Her journey changed her heart so it recognized what was important.
Ishmael tires of life on land, so he takes a job on a whaling vessel, and by the time he floats back to shore clinging to that coffin, his journey witnesses monomania and hubris, changing his views on faith, life, and humanity. His returns marks his deep change.
Ged saves his village with magic, and is sent to develop his powers at Roke... releasing an evil he discovers is really a part of himself. His journey takes him out, and returns him, scarred, yet wiser.
There is a pattern to such novels, a satisfaction in the circular, that rings true to my own experience of life. It seems I am always returning, yet never the same.
I like to write that way. Most of the posts on these blogs have that sort of pattern in the topics. I start out on one topic, get the reader used to the idea I’m exploring, and then I go off on a little journey. I head somewhere else. The journey may wind around a bit, but I usually bring it back and show how the journey ends where it began.
Perhaps it is because our lives are filled with cycles that we appreciate circular plots.
The moon waxes and wanes, crescent to gibbous, and the rhythm of that cycle beats in our hearts on a nearly genetic level.
The seasons roll, rebirth of life in the Spring, growth in the summer, harvest in the Fall, rest and fallowness of Winter, the slowing of the cycle in preparation of the rebirth of another Spring.
Hours of the day, seasons of the year, the rotation of generations, even the ebb and flow of wars seem to return again and again. Perhaps never exactly the same, but close enough for us to feel the familiarity.
“History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.” -- Mark Twain
The other sort of journey is the line. I think most of us feel our lives are such stories. We are born, our lives wind around, events large and small mark the mileposts, and there is never any returning. If we do come back to where we had been once before, we feel that either we or the place has changed so much that it isn’t the same any more.
What is my story? What sort of plot am I living?
Brenda and I spent time together yesterday, this morning, this afternoon. We spoke honestly. We talked about where we are, what it would take for us to repair our marriage.
Not going to happen.
She feels guilt, shame, regret. She worries about our kids, how this will affect them. She is sorry about the burden this will place on me.
She wants this new life.
We talked about how we can work through this, move from husband and wife to friends, working together.
Throughout this I have tried to be honest, with myself, with her.
It has been a difficult journey, one that isn’t finished. I have tried to accept my faults, my failings, and that isn’t an easy honesty. I have failed in my marriage, and much of the mistakes I have made I see clearly now.
Brenda says I will find someone else.
Whatever.
I know... She is trying to help me see I have a future. She knows how important it is to me to share my life with someone, and she feels, well, sorry for me.
She tells me I’m intelligent, creative, sweet. That there are women out there who would love me.
I’m not interested.
Two things dominate my thoughts today. My children and my faith.
My self esteem has taken a beating, and the thought of other women... well... doesn’t seem... Hmmmph. Some writer, I am, I can’t put it into words.
There is another side of the self esteem issue that is more healthy.
I know I am insignificant. I have a fair concept of the size of the universe, a fair handle on the the number of stars in galaxies, the way galaxies dance together, form clusters, reach toward each other in spinning motions that take millions of years, how some form groups... I know of the 10,000 year beat of the thrumming of galactic superclusters.
I know I am insignificant. A single life form on a small ball of dirt on the edge of a rather ordinary island of stars inhabiting a place in the universe that has no particular difference from any other place in the universe.
Except...
I feel something. I sense something.
I know I am significant...
to God.
That doesn’t necessarily make things easy.
As I have wrestled with the issues in my life I have turned, again and again, to what my faith tells me to do.
Sometimes, being a Christ follower is a lot tougher than one would guess. I think about Jesus, what He did, how He lived, and it makes my decisions more difficult.
For example, if I worked hard at my marriage, if I got us into counseling, and worked to restore it... I know, I really know, she would hurt me again. She would not remain faithful.
I think about Christ, how He knew Judas would betray Him. Yet He loved Judas. He taught him and walked with him, and shared His life with him.
Could I do that? Could I offer her my heart, knowing she would betray it again someday?
This isn’t the trite teenage look at life, wondering “What would Jesus do?” This is my knowingly walking into a future that will hurt me, will harm me.
If I wrestled my heart to a place of submission where I could forgive her, really forgive her, would that be enough to call it a marriage?
Looking at His life, trying to follow His example, is tough.
Perhaps the struggle is enough. Perhaps in examining my life, in seeing my faults and weaknesses, and hers as well, perhaps in the climbing over of rough terrain, I gain the strength, the spiritual muscle, which is enough for the lessons set before me.
At any rate, it is clear it is over. We have talked, and been reasonable, and tried to help each other. And we will continue to work together, as we need to.
I thought about Robert Frost’s poem about the road diverging in the woods, and I know I have such a choice before me.
I share this choice, it is hers as well as mine, but I accept that this marriage has failed, that I have not been able to grasp onto it in a way that will save it. And I accept it. I accept my failures, own them.
My future will not be the one I thought it would.
I told Brenda this afternoon that no matter what happens, no matter the circumstances, I want to live my life to the end and feel I did it with as much integrity as I could.
I didn’t say it, but I know she heard the echo my words were creating...
“...well done good and faithful servant...” (Matthew 25:21)
Some day I expect to live in grandeur greater than the most majestic chorus of beauty sung by dancing galaxies. Not because I will have earned it, for I cannot, but because someone has thought me significant enough to give that to me.
It isn’t the sort of love I long for in my heart today, but it is enough for me to do my best, my very best, in loving my children, forgiving my wife, making tough choices.
I’m unsure if I should see this as a lesson along a long road of life with many twists and turns and rough terrain... or perhaps it is the return of a journey, the coming home part of the circle plot that this small life has told in its living.
Captain Ahab commanded the Pequod to its doom, his monomania driving him to sacrifice everything, his money, his friendships, his ship, his crew. The madness of his powerful ego made his revenge against Moby Dick, a symbol of the power of all nature, more important than anything else in all the world.
His first mate on the other hand cared nothing of the killing of any particular whale. Starbuck was a whaler, willing to kill the white whale if it came within reach, but only as a part of his livelihood. He was in the business of getting whale oil, the stuff for lubricating machinery, lighting lamps, and anointing kings.
Ahab was mad, insane. His insanity more clearly revealed when reflected in the calm eyes of the man charged with carrying out his orders.
The literary term for characters which reflect qualities in another is a “foil,” as in a shiny metal used in the Renaissance to illuminate jewels.
Ahab himself was unable to see his madness though Starbuck tried to tell him, show him.
I think most people look at those around them to help them judge themselves, and the inability to see the norm in those we are near is a dangerous weakness, a step towards a hubris that leads to self destruction.
In short, being near others helps us remain humble, remain true to ourselves, to recognize where we differ and helps us to raise our standards for our own behavior.
That is but one of the benefits of friends.
The other day I wrote of Adam’s loneliness, though he was in the company of God. It is a mistake for us to claim that we find all we need in God, for even God Himself (Themself?) saw that Adam needed a mate, someone like him, in order to be happy.
I was at Starbucks today. I met with a friend. He cares for me, and I for him. He said he’d buy me a cup of coffee, and I told him I would repay him by mentioning him in my blog.
So, my friend, thank you for the coffee. I appreciate it. You are a hero.
Aside from the free dose of caffein, I got something more important from him.
I got to look in his eyes, talk about things in my life, things of importance and things of no import at all. And in the reflection of his eyes I could read myself. I could see the insanity I was feeling as I choked up in commenting about the loving elderly couple I had seen chatting sweetly with each other a few minutes before. I didn’t have to say how that affected me. He knew how I must have seen their marriage, what it meant to me today.
He looked at what I had been writing in my Moleskine and we chatted about the strange idea there.
(Hang on, sideways shift in topic here.)
Here is what I had jotted down:
A Divine Idea
Premise; Act of observation affects the object of observation (a quantum mechanics detail of modern physics). ?: What role does thought play in the universe? ?: Might powerful ideas be spread aside from communication? Independent of speech? They might present themselves to minds. Ex.: God is love. Love permeates the universe in the way that God sustains the existence of the universe, the atoms themselves. Might the concept of love be independent of minds, of thought? If a mind is constrained by the brain (which I believe it is, independent of the physical organ itself), might an idea be constrained by a mind? Could love, as an idea be a “living” thing?
He looked it over, smiled, asked if he could write a quote onto the page. (I’d share it with you, but it would reveal who my friend is, and I’m unsure if he would appreciate that much attention in my blog. No sense in giving him too much of the shadow of notoriety!)
What does all this mean?
Nothing in itself.
In sharing my notes with him I could better judge if what I was thinking made sense, or if I’m nuts. (Of course, that is supposing he isn’t nuts!)
What is more important is the time itself we spent together.
It didn’t matter what we spoke of. What mattered was we were together.
I think God intended for us to be with each other, to share our lives. It occurs to me that people must have people around them or they get strange.
Just as Ahab encapsulated himself in his obsession, in excluding all rational thought or input from others, those who eschew others become... odd.
Think of those we know who live apart from people. The hermits, the loners, the self-absorbed.
I once spent a couple of months alone in a cave, reading. When I rejoined society I had difficulty fitting in.
Is there an example of this in the Bible? Well, Jesus surrounded Himself with people, with friends, with disciples. The company of others is good, healthy I (though getting away to prayer is also important.) Is there a loner in the stories there? Sure. John the Baptist, the wild man of the desert. Though John played a very important role in the gospels, it seems evident he was a little... odd. You know, eating bugs, wearing camel hair clothing and ranting and railing against the establishment.
One of the things I love about where I work are my coworkers. They are family to me.
I haven’t shared much with them of what has been happening in my life, yet it is clear they know something is up, that the are looking out for me, cutting me a little slack.
One of the things I love about where I worship are the members of my church family. Though I haven’t shared much with them of what has been happening in my life, yet the know something is up, and they tell me they are praying for me, the send me notes, they offer to bring food over.
One of the things I love about this blog are the readers who visit. They have prayed for me, sent me encouraging notes, told me I am not alone. And these are people I have never laid eyes upon.
Why do we need people so?
Because we are made in God’s image. Not only have we souls, eternal spirits, but we are built for community, just as God Themself is three individuals in a single being.
From the obvious importance we place on having a partner, to the examples of those who reject true companionship for omphaloskepsis.
It is clear that being with others is healthy, needful, and the way God made us.
Post Script: I wrote this last night, and I guess I’ll toss it onto the blog pile. Brenda was here, fixed and ate dinner with us. She obviously feels much guilt and is trying to do her penance.
And I had nightmares all night.
Invisible evil forces were killing and leaping from body to body, people to animals to heavy equipment. I saw over a dozen people shot in the head, horses kicking, dogs biting, blood and death in nearly every moment.
Brenda and I were staying in an old farmhouse... I wasn’t supposed to be there. The huge old sleigh bed felt like a trap as evil prowled around the house.
When I finally struggled awake I laid in that empty bed, heart pounding, sweating. I took a Xanax.
Brenda wants to come over and do little things for us. I think it may be drawing out the confusion and hurt, especially for Isaac.
I know I’m weird.
I take some folks off guard. They don’t know what to make of my weird ideas. Heck, I don’t know what to make of my weird ideas.
A weird idea isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Many ideas seemed weird when people first heard them. Yet many of those ideas turned out to be very powerful.
Still, I can understand how exposure to a continuing stream of weirdness could get old.
Perhaps that is why I lost my wife’s love.
Naturally my mind follows my heart, and I keep turning back to the idea that dominates my thoughts... my wife loves another.
I have a buddy who works across the hall from me. I wander in and out of his room two or three times a day, leaving a little trail of weirdness.
I think he kind of likes it, or at least he pretends to.
I suppose my faith, my beliefs, are a little weird for many folks.
Those beliefs were novel ideas at one time.
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
“Bless those who curse you.”
Each night I put my sons to bed, talk with them, pray over them. Then I change into pajamas in an empty room, crawl into an empty bed.
In one sense I feel pretty alone.
In another, I feel like the entire universe is keeping me company.
Interesting idea, that.
I was thinking about being alone while I walked in the woods this afternoon. And I started thinking about Adam.
He was pretty lonely.
Interesting idea.
It seems fairly clear it was a common thing for God to talk with Adam, much as I talk each night with my sons. You know, all that walking in the cool of the evening stuff.
So, Adam hung out with God.
Isn't that an amazing idea?! Imagine walking in that garden, under the moonlight, with God.
But it wasn’t enough.
God recognized Adam needed another:
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18
Yet, He did not give Adam what he wanted, not right away. Instead, he put Adam to work.
“Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” Genesis 2:19-20
This is an interesting idea.
Adam had God with him, yet he was alone.
I find myself in a strange place. I find myself alone (well I’ve my kids, but they don’t count in this respect), without someone who can gaze with me at the decades ahead. It makes me feel like a rudderless ship.
But I’m not rudderless.
I’m a pretty fortunate man in that for me faith is so real, so very tangible. I sense God in the world around me. I so love the beauty of this world, and I am so lucky to be living in an age where I can gaze at images of microscopic and images of stellar wonders that were beyond the vision of previous generations. I rejoice in the smells, and tastes, and sights of this world.
I’m pretty fortunate in that I have experienced God so clearly in my life that I cannot feel truly alone.
Sure, I have the distance between me and God that everyone has had since those first orchard thieves. But I was designed to be connected to the universe, I was designed to walk in a very special garden in the cool of the evening, and that some day I will do that, and in some way, I do today.
Still... there is a part of me, a very sore place, that can hardly believe there isn’t anyone else in the bed with me.
How long did Adam work at naming animals? How long did God’s little gardner putter about the wonders and bounty of that beautiful place, but sighed because he was alone?
Isn’t that an odd idea?
He was alive in ways I cannot know, sharing a world with divinity in a way I haven’t felt, and still, he felt alone.
It took a long time for humans to move to where we are now. A lot of ideas.
Abraham told the world there was only one God. That was an idea which was considered very weird.
Moses told the world there was a living God who loved them, wanted to save them, guide them to a better place. Weird.
And Mary told the world she was pregnant with God Himself.
Weird hardly describes it. What a concept! God within the womb of a girl.
My faith is filled with such odd, such weird, ideas.
Ideas which shook the world.
Before I write another word, keep in mind I am aware my weird ideas rank nowhere near the import of those ideas. In fact, I’m pretty sure my ideas are probably quite wrong, and they will wither and die, as weak ideas should.
Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” for ideas, arguing they thrived or died, they propagate through culture and lives, a lot like the darwinian concept of natural selection. Good ideas, no matter how weird they may be, reproduce themselves through the generations.
Perhaps I’m like some creature which has strayed too near a glowing Chernobyl.
My brain produces weird memes.
I guess I’m saying that though I ache for what I have lost, I know I have someone eager to walk in a garden with me, once I leap out of this sin-filled world... I sense I am made to walk in His company.
I also know I was created to share my life with another, and in losing that it is only natural I ache.
I’ll be OK.
And to me, for now, standing in the light of that idea, it strikes me as a little weird.
Yesterday was our church’s monthly 24 hour prayer. I had the 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. slot, and knew the next hour was unassigned. I was looking forward to two hours there.
Jeremiah had gone with someone for an evening at a different church and wouldn’t be back until after 10:30. Isaac would be OK.
I prayed through ultra fine Sharpies on the wall, creating a leather apron on The Carpenter.
I prayed over my imploded marriage, over my parenting, and about my faith. I prayed my gratitude and my praises for He who made things of wood and created things of stars and things of hope and things of life.
The prayers took my heart on a short journey of self examination, confession, sorrow, and release.
I went back for another two hours this morning. Finished the apron.
Finished my prayers.
I got back home before the boys awoke.
On Saturdays Jeremiah has Special Olympics practice. I was going to be a coach this year, with Brenda... but...
I promised I would coach the Special Olympics bowling in the Fall, she can take this season.
It’s good she have this weekly connection with Jeremiah. I’ll spend Saturday morns with Isaac.
Frankly, seeing her each week, working with her there, the place where her boyfriend works, is more than I think I can accept.
Isaac and I went for a work out at the gym. She and Jeremiah were home when we returned.
She and I went over details of the house... bills, accounts, appointments. She rolled Isaac’s dreads.
I talked with the boys about my rereading the works of H. G. Wells. I told them I had requested DVDs of “The Time Machine” 2002, and 1960, and a radio drama of the story from from the 30s on CD.
Brenda pleasantly, if awkwardly, shared in the conversation with only slightly feigned interest. She and I are trying to negotiate a path, new and strange to both of us... a pair of people who care for each other, but who are headed in different directions, though we will continue to share certain responsibilities.
We took the dog for a walk.
A long one.
We spoke of details need doing. Of divorce papers, and the quit claim. We spoke of how to guide our children through the difficult times ahead. About the coming meeting with immigration on the 15th that could result in Jeremiah being denied residency, could even potentially include deportation (unlikely, but a scary possibility).
And we spoke gently. We spoke of how it is clear there is no turning from this path, though we still care for each other.
She hugged me, and told me how sorry she is, and how wrong she has been, and how we can still be kind to each other. We each shed a couple of tears.
I hugged her, told her I miss her, that I love her still, but I know I can never trust her with my heart.
We walked along the old logging road beneath maples and firs, overlooking the river, holding hands.
It was a tender walk, colored with sadness.
We each spoke of our own mistakes, confessing our sins to each other, forgiving each other, accepting this new reality.
I told her how I knew I could never really trust her again and how without such trust we could not have a marriage we would want.
She told me how she is sorry how things have turned out, and knows she spent, threw away, my trust. She said that when I had first discovered the affair we may have been able to make it work had she truly broken off with John and dedicated herself to working toward the understanding of each other we are now, ironically, reaching. She said this final failure of our marriage is hers, not mine.
I told her how I have been rethinking the past 28 years, seeing her, and seeing myself, in a new, more honest, light. How I know myself better, know her better, than I ever have.
My heart swung from sorrow to resolve, and from naked honesty to regret.
The walk was filled with echoes of old affections, reborn in new circumstances. We hugged several times, walked holding hands. She tried to defend her lover, I dismissed him with short arguments regarding honor and living a life without treachery and deceit. We decided perhaps we should change the subject.
I told her she is still my best friend and she cried over her betrayal.
We left our conversation with a rededication to a future where we would seek to help each other, being fair, kind, gentle, honest.
In some ways we are far more honest now than we have been in a very long time. We are free to be honest for there is little left to lose, little left to protect, little left to fear.
She will be back Monday morning, see the boys off to school as I head off to work.
We went over the details of immediate tasks need doing, and vague plans to get together over the divorce papers and changing bank accounts.
She loves me, and I love her.
We trust each other enough to be fair, to be honest and to work toward caring for the children, or at least my caring for them and she helping.
This love cannot extend to a future as man and wife, for there has been too much betrayal.
But... I can learn to live this new life, learn to be a single parent, learn to sleep in a bed alone.
And as strange as it sounds, I think we can do this with affection and caring.
I think I’ll go back to the Prayer Room now.
It isn’t any big surprise.
I knew it would be this way.
We had a meeting with the immigration attorney, preparations our April 15th interview with the INS folks in our attempt to get Jeremiah his U.S. permanent residence. It is a sticky mess, and there aren’t any certainties about getting him a “green card” and then, perhaps, citizenship five or six years later.
I drove. I patted Brenda on the knee as part of our “light” conversation.
I know her so well. Her reaction, or lack of it. The way she avoids looking at me, her excessive need of late to come over and do “mom things”, told me what I suspected.
She fixed a simple dinner for us (mac & cheese, corn, baked chicken) and she started washing the dishes. I told her to let Isaac do it, that I wanted to talk to her.
“You’ve been in contact with John, haven’t you?”
It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
“I thought so...
“OK... Could you go by the courthouse tomorrow and pick up the paperwork?”
“OK.”
“And see if you can locate a quit claim for the house.”
“OK.”
“I’m sorry it has come to this.”
“So am I. I really didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, let’s try to do this right. Let’s try to be kind to each other. Let’s try to make it through this and still be friends.”
“I’d like that... I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s my fault too. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted in a husband. I guess I’m boring, like you said: ‘You’re a good man, and good is boring.’”
“No. I’ve been blaming you all these months and it has been me. I have made bad choices. I have been in the wrong. I just can’t stop thinking about him. I’m sorry.”
We went on like that for a little while. Promising that if things start to get rough on either of us, if we start to get angry, or excessively hurt, we’ll just walk away for a little while until we can talk to each other with kindness, gentleness.
So, it is over.
We are going to file for a divorce.
She loves someone else, she can’t stay true to her word of staying away from him. We have not been sharing each other’s hearts, and burdens, and dreams, and desires as a married couple should, as a married couple must.
We are going to do our best to be friends. After all, we have been best friends for a very long time. We have spent the last 28 years together.
I wish it wasn’t so. But wishing does not change the universe. Wishing won’t change her heart.
She says I have been extremely kind and generous.
I responded by saying she has been extremely fickle.
We smiled a little, hugged a little, even kissed a little. We really do love each other in a certain way. Just not the way that will maintain a marriage.
After the emotional stuff, after the talk about how to gently wean the boys from her frequent visits helping with cooking, shopping, and such, gradually preparing them for the reality of our future, we gave a few hugs, a few squeezes... small signs of affection which indicate how hard it is for both of us to admit where we really are... after all that we let each other go.
At the door I thrust my right hand out to her for a firm hand shake and said “Good luck to you,” the way a prospective employer might after just telling an interviewee that they aren’t quite right for the job.
I wore a small smirk, and she burst out laughing.
We gave each other a deep, long hug. Said goodbye.
