The Makeover

Source: audreymim.tumblr.com via Diana on Pinterest

Jenny marched into the house with armloads of colorful and sensuous folds of luxurious fabric draped over her arms and piled up to her chin. A bulky Nordstrom Rack shopping bag hung on her wrist, filled with a mish-mash of expensive looking shoes.

I’d known Jenny since we were 14. In high school, she was my constant companion as sidekick, confidante, and best friend. We’d stayed friends over the years, even though our lives took decidedly different turns. She went away to college, joined a sorority, got a degree, and found a high-profile sales job downtown. She drove a shiny, black, vintage BMW convertible, had weekly pedicures and manicures, and her bleached blonde tresses tended to on a regular basis at a salon. She tanned, drank cosmopolitan martinis with wealthy businessmen at the downtown hot spots during happy hour, and vacationed in Europe.

She also had the most amazing boobs. Her chest investment had paid off over the years, and she was wined and dined often by some of Portland’s most powerful men. She even enjoyed a brief stint as the lover of a handsome and famous western-music troubadour. Compared to me, she was a celebrity and centerfold. Still, like her implants, we were the perfect pair. After several weeks of late night dinner parties and club socials, she’d come to my house to decompress. She would bring the wine, and I would provide the meatloaf and homemade mashed potatoes while she would regale me with her sex-in-the-city adventures.

After the kids kissed Auntie Jenny goodnight, we’d both slip into our sweats. Jenny’s sported a Nike swoosh on the hip and she’d wear a cleavage-flattering tank, whereas mine were usually Hanes sweatpants with the drawstring waistband and tight elastic gathered at the ankles that made my body resemble a Jimmy Dean sausage link. I topped it off with one of Mike’s XL hoodies emblazoned with a past softball team’s logo. Jenny usually used her attire to frame her bust as though it were a great work of art, or at least a really good replica. I hid mine as strategically as possible because I likened my profile to an apple on a stick.

Jenny and I would arrange ourselves on my couch and stay up late, laughing at movies she’d brought over and played on her projector laptop from work. Our lives were almost the direct opposite of each other’s, but our history and humor kept us tightly bound. She helped me remember how to laugh. She helped me remember what I was like before I became a wife and mother, what I was like when I had ideas and aspirations that went beyond figuring out which grocery store had the best coupons that week.

The kids were with my parents for the day, and Jenny had come over to be my stylist. Over the past few weeks of turmoil, she had come to my rescue. Her highly coiffed and polished exterior hid a heart of gold that far outshone her carefully gilded blonde highlights. She was always there for me, and her loyalty was unquestionable. One thing that always delighted and amazed me about our friendship was the intangible understanding, the almost psychic bond she had with me. Jenny knew things she shouldn’t have, things I’d never told her about. She always called when I needed her. She called me moments after Mike had confessed on that awful Valentine’s Day morning. After learning the devastating truth about Mike, I couldn’t bear to see anyone with my face puffed and swollen that night, so I hid in my darkened house. Jenny again knew what I needed and she delivered. I found a brown bag with Kung Pao chicken and M&M’s on my doorstep. Jenny didn’t intrude and beg for salacious details. Instead, she gave me much needed time to process the news alone, while somehow knowing I also needed Chinese take-out and chocolate.

We spread the garments across my bed. Jenny’s exquisite taste was apparent as I read the designer labels hidden inside the fully-lined, fitted jackets, blazers, cashmere sweaters, and perfectly tailored pants and skirts designed specifically to show off the feminine figure. Dana Buchman, Badgley Mischka, Elie Tahari, Banana Republic, and J.Crew were brands I’d only looked at before in catalogs, and if I was lucky, on the racks at Goodwill. Here they were, pressed and displayed across my bed as mix-and-match wardrobe essentials, and Jenny was guiding me through the process like a fairy-godmother-turned-personal-shopper. She tried everything on me, commenting on how different fabrics draped and hung on my slender, new figure and showed me how to piece together scarves, jewelry, shoes, and wraps. For the first time in a long time, I looked at myself in the mirror in my bathroom and was hopeful. With my friend’s expertise and loving touch, I was starting to come out of the frumpy shell that had cloaked me for the past 14 years.

In addition to a new wardrobe changing my appearance, weight loss was an unexpected side effect of going through the traumatic end of my marriage. When people asked how I lost weight so quickly, I explained that emotional stress was the ideal diet enhancer. Perhaps crying fits burned a lot of calories, but I also wasn’t eating like I used to. I had allowed myself to buy groceries at Trader Joe’s and was eating things like yogurt and fresh vegetables instead of Hamburger Helper and half-gallons of Western Family ice cream. Sometimes, I just plain forgot to eat. When it did occur to me, I would often decide to just push through the hunger, making it a challenge. Finally, there was something in my life that I could control.

I was down to a size four. I never imagined I could fit into sleek designer clothes. She dressed me in outfit after outfit that made me look elegant, professional, and even sexy. I tried on every shoe in the bag and realized quickly the difference a gorgeous heel can make to the silhouette of a woman’s leg, and how my feet looked much different in a peep-toe kitten heel and sheer seamed stockings than they had in secondhand Birkenstocks and tube socks. I couldn’t help but imagine scenes from Looney Tunes cartoons, when Bugs cinched in his waist, curled his ears into a movie-star hair helmet, and slathered on red lipstick to his instantly full lips. I felt like Bugs Bunny in drag, but I looked more like Jessica Rabbit.

As the closing act in my femme fatale makeover, Jenny fussed with my hair, cut short at the neighborhood Supercuts, and spiked it with product that smelled like Hawaiian flowers and banana. Wisps of playful red hair framed my face. I felt like an injured bird being let out of the cage back into the wild, taking flight after being nurtured back to health.

The next day, I was going to walk into the culinary school where Jenny worked to try to land a spontaneous interview. I desperately needed a job, and she let me know about an opening at the school she worked at in the admissions department. She had told me that about 350 other résumés, just like mine, were in a stack on the Director of Admissions’ desk, many of which had real sales and work experience and a full degree behind them. It didn't stop me, though. I had three children relying on me - three mouths to feed, three little heads to put a roof over, and most importantly, I wanted to finally provide my family with health insurance.

Mike had either been let go from or quit countless jobs since I'd known him. As a family, we never knew from one week to the next if the next ear infection, pink eye outbreak, or high fever would be covered by health insurance, and I was constantly fretting, not knowing for sure if I could call a doctor or take a child to the emergency room if necessary, due to Mike's erratic employment history. I remember applying for my family to be on the Oregon Health Plan emergency welfare insurance program a couple of times while married to him. It was embarrassing, but more importantly, it was necessary. Most of my neighbors and friends’ children were covered by their husband’s health insurance. I didn't know one parent that worried about that basic need other than me. It was a guilty secret, never knowing for sure if my children would be covered. Of course, I never knew for sure if I could pay the next utility bill, or even if I could afford milk, bread, and eggs. But not having health insurance for the kids petrified me more than anything else. I found myself, on more than one occasion, collecting the soda pop cans found in the neighborhood on walks with the children and trying to return Mike's empty Bud Light cans so I could afford a few groceries.

Never again, I told myself. To me, it would be a luxury not to worry about providing my family with the bare necessities like heat, food, a roof over our heads, health insurance, and dental insurance.

I needed my own job. I needed to be sure I could independently take care of myself and my children. The local culinary school was offering a salary of $34,000 per year, five thousand more than Mike had ever made at any of the multiple jobs he'd worked at since I'd been with him. I had to get it.

A week after Jenny had given the Director of Admissions my resumé, I still had not received a phone call. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I was going to visit him, unannounced, unexpected, and looking my best. I was determined to talk him into giving me the job. This unannounced visit to the Director of Admissions required an extra dose of audacity. I carefully wrapped my short and experience-slender resumé in a huge white gift box, tied it with an oversized royal blue ribbon, and begged my friend RJ to drive me to Portland for the day. I had never driven downtown, and the one-way streets and unfamiliar territory scared me. Not only did I need moral support, but I also needed a chauffer and someone to hang out with my children in the car while I pitched myself to a hiring executive in a borrowed suit. She graciously agreed, and arrived at my apartment with time to spare, smiling supportively.

RJ dropped me off at the front of the culinary school offices and hugged me reassuringly. Faith was asleep in her car-seat in the backseat of her minivan. Jackson and Claire sat looking out the window at the city they had never visited. I gave RJ a last squeeze, trying to glean any confidence from her that I could. Catching a reassuring look from her as we parted, I took a deep breath, threw back my shoulders, grabbed my enormous box with my tiny resumé, and stepped out onto the downtown city sidewalk.

Inside the twelve story office building, Margie, a middle-aged blonde, sparkly-eyed little lady, took an immediate liking to me for some reason. She giggled and ushered me into the Director’s office after offering me puff pastries from the tray at her desk that the students refreshed daily. When I walked into his office, even though I still felt like an overweight, undersexed housewife, he treated me like the confident and professional woman that I had disguised myself as. After all, I don't think it was every day that a doe-eyed, hyperventilating woman in spiky red hair and suit came rushing into the office carrying an enormous gift box wrapped in an oversized blue ribbon. Without a question, he welcomed me into his office.

"Hi there. You look like Annette Benning!"

I smiled broadly. This interview was off to a good start. Confidence filled me, and after the 30 minute interview I left feeling very positive. Even though I didn’t have a job offer, it wouldn’t take long for the phone to ring with good news.

Walking back to the minivan, I caught a glimpse of myself in the department store window and did an immediate double take. Subconsciously, I expected to see my old self, the predictable, safe, forest green minivan of the woman that I used to be. Instead, looking back at me was a sleek new sports car. I couldn’t help but stop and smile for a minute. I sashayed my hips and concentrated on walking in my borrowed high heels the rest of the way to the car where my kids were waiting for their smiling, and soon to be employed, mommy.
_____

"The Makeover" is a chapter from my memoir Illumination - How One Woman Made Light of the Darkness.  (For information on independent bookstores to purchase the book from, please visit  http://www.sophiavanburen.com/Sophia_van_Buren/Books.html).

Unforced Errors in Co-Parenting

 

I resisted the urge to look up and scan the audience, but the temptation was just too great.  At least it didn’t take long to find her.  She was sitting alone and motionless in the stands about 30 rows above the high school gymnasium court.  For someone who I was accustomed to only seeing and hearing in action, usually barking orders at my kids or their father, this moment was surreal.  As I walked my daughter across the floor on “Senior Night” of her final home volleyball game, I couldn’t believe the emotion I was feeling for the woman – their stepmother – who over the course of the past eight years had done a formidable job of keeping as much distance between my children and me as possible.  That emotion?  Pity.

Only a few days earlier, Claire had called me in tears.


“Dad said he won’t walk me out onto the court for my last home volleyball game since I told him I didn’t want her out there with me.  Mom, I want you to do it.  Not her.”


To put it in volleyball terms, this was more than a side-out.


“Co-parenting” is just a slick new word for an old idea.  Cooperation (a word that even looks like a thinly veiled word scramble of “co-parenting”) is a concept most kids are introduced to at an early age.  From warming a sibling-to-be up to the idea that soon there will be a newborn in the house blindly expecting a share of limited resources, to songs on Sesame Street singing the praises of working together and getting along, cooperation and sharing are highly esteemed virtues in our society.


But in my situation (and from what I can tell, in far too many other divorced families), co-parenting has not really meant cooperation or a willingness to freely share the children.  As a non-custodial parent, my ex and his wife treat me as if I’m lucky to be involved at all in the lives of my children.  They’re constantly looking to spike the ball in my face.  In a word, they are bullies.  But instead of fighting with them, I tread lightly and try to complicate things as little as possible so as to avoid conflict for the benefit of my children.  My strength is in keeping the ball in the air, and when it comes to the situation with my children and my ex, it means I co-parent alone.


My daughter recently went on a little rant about this exact thing to my husband and me.


“It doesn’t have to be this way!  It doesn’t have to be this difficult!”


She was referring to the barriers that her father and stepmother are constantly building that gum up the machinery of a cooperative co-parenting relationship.


“I have a lot of other friends whose parents are now divorced and none of their situations are like this!”


She had a full head of steam that had been building, and she wasn’t going to stop until she got it all out.  In the early years, I told myself that this day would come if I was patient.  I wouldn’t fight, but I wouldn’t give up, either.  I’d just keep digging out spiked balls and lofting them back over the net.


My daughter was right about one thing – it didn’t have to be that difficult.  Yes, the dynamics of divorced and re-blended families are complex to say the least, and rarely perfect.  But common sense and calm heads must prevail in order for the game of parenting to not become playground chaos.  I urge divorced parents to observe just a few basic guidelines:


1. Don’t speak badly about your child/stepchild’s other parent, step parents or extended family.
2. Communicate with the other parent about important information on a regular basis without hostility.
3. Respect your child’s need to have equal contact with the other parent.


At my daughter’s volleyball game last week, as I sat on the bleachers waiting for her to signal me to join her, I saw her stepmother walk into the gym with her father.  I didn’t feel victorious watching stepmom start up the steps into the stands.  I didn’t feel like I’d “won” anything, even though for years she had acted like our relationship with each other was some kind of parenting contest.  I’ve never treated my relationship with my daughter like a contest, and in fact I tried for years to have a cooperative and sharing relationship with this woman.  As the evening unfolded, though, I only felt sorry for her.  She’d spent the last nine years of her life paying for my daughter’s volleyball uniforms, camps, weekend tournaments, and club team memberships.  She drove my daughter to her practices and watched almost every game.  I hadn’t.  In order to keep my job so that I could pay child support, I was only able to make the occasional game.  One could certainly make the argument that she deserved to stand on that court with my daughter that night, but she had undermined herself in the end.  When I had asked my 17-year-old daughter why she didn’t want her stepmother on the court with her that night, she responded,  “Because she’s been such an ass**** all these years.  I am not going to reward her.”  17-year-old girls can be mean and reactive, but this reaction was a long time coming.


I would openly discourage divorced parents from treating their children as pawns in an ongoing battle.  That will only do harm to the children.  But if there are divorced parents out there who just can’t see their situation in any other light, then maybe the story of the tortoise and the hare will help.   In the end of that story, the tortoise ends up winning the race because of his persistence, unwavering dedication, and most importantly, his patience.  The much speedier hare’s arrogance caused him to lose, even though he had all the qualities needed to win.  I missed out on a lot of memories with my children.  There’s no sugar-coating that fact.  But I am more confident than ever that the foundation for my relationships with my children, now 17, 13, and 11 years of age, will prove strong and enduring.  I can’t help but wonder if their father and stepmother feel very confident about the future of their relationships with the kids.

Kill shots can be effective in volleyball, but they don’t always land in the court, and if you’re not very good, unforced errors can prove your own undoing.

~This piece first appeared on Fathers and Families

Claire's Question

We sat on my bed early in the morning.  The children had been dropped off at my apartment Friday night by their dad and Wanda, and we’d stayed up late watching 13 Going on 30, eating Jiffy Pop popcorn, and relaxing together.  Jackson and Faith were still asleep in the living room on their airbeds, and the aromas of fresh coffee and hot chocolate mingled in the air.

Claire had woken up first, which was unusual.  She usually slept in, even when the sun was streaming in through the bay windows.  But this morning, we sipped our hot chocolate and coffee in the midst of a cushy nest of white pillows and linen.  My bedroom was like a sleep lab - a serene oasis - clear, uncluttered, and brilliantly white.  I’d bought all-white bedding, a down feather mattress pad, matching comforter, white cotton sheets, and down feather pillows, rendering my bed a cloud.  The room itself was purposefully spare and empty except for the island of a bed and a large, dark, antique wooden dresser.  From my window, I had a clear view of the Fremont Bridge, and on this morning, we watched the sky change from black to grey to pink to a clear blue.

“Mommy, why did you make Daddy leave?”

I caught my breath and reeled back to reality from the peaceful moment I’d been enjoying quietly with my oldest daughter, now ten years old.  The question caught me off guard.  It had come up before, but I had dodged the issue.  She obviously hadn’t let it go, not surprisingly.  After all, not only was Claire the oldest, but she was also the most hurt and irritated by the changes that had occurred in our lives over the past two years.  And even though she was thriving at her new school in Salem, having quickly moved to the top of her class while developing close friends, she seemed angry with me most of the time.

“Honey, it’s hard to explain.”  I took a deep breath and steeled myself.  “But I’ll try.” 

First though, I wanted to ask her a question.  I took a sip of coffee and turned to her intently, trying to make the eye contact that she was avoiding.

“I’d hoped your daddy might say something to you about this.  Have you asked him?” 

“No.  He doesn’t want to talk about it.  He just said you wanted to move.”

As much as this answer pissed me off, I wasn’t surprised by it one bit.  I chose my words carefully.  All the books and articles I’d read about divorce gave good, basic advice, but they never took into account what to say to kids if one spouse had messed up so royally there was nothing to be salvaged.  Our situation was definitely not typical.

“Well, the main thing is for you to know that you didn’t do anything.  When parents get divorced, it’s not because of the kids.”

 This really was going to be hard for me to explain.  Another sip, another deep breath. 

“When two people love each other, and when they are married, they make a promise to each other.  They promise only to love one another.  They promise not to date anyone else or have another boyfriend or girlfriend or love a different person other than their partner.  You know - their husband or their wife.”

“I know.”

“Well honey, your dad didn’t keep his promise to me.  He loved someone else too.  It broke my heart and I couldn’t trust him anymore.  You should not stay with someone you cannot trust.  I didn’t decide to move us just because I was tired of our old life or because I wanted to move to another house and work downtown.  It was a change I felt I had to make.  It was not just because of me, it was because of what your dad did, leaving me to make some hard decisions.”

I could tell she didn’t quite buy it.  She looked down at the comforter and picked at a feather escaping from the bright white pillow in her lap with a frown creasing her brow.  She didn’t say anything else.  She didn’t ask any other questions.

“Claire, I love you.  I’m sorry I made choices that you didn’t like.  I never thought I’d have to do what I did.”

A tear rolled down her cheek.

I silently cursed Mike for his negligent actions again, and I was furious that not only had he put me into the position of being the one to tell our children what had happened, but that he’d encouraged Claire to think I just changed our lives on a selfish whim, for no real reason.  I promised myself, no matter how hard these conversations might be with Claire, I’d never doubt the decisions I’d made in response to the course of events that our lives had taken so suddenly.

Later that year, the news leaked out from my old church that there had been a shocking and horrible incident involving people from our old circle of friends.  A few of the fathers had taken their children on a camping trip.  The wife of one of the fathers ran a daycare in her home, like me.  Their daughter, a friend of Claire’s, and another ten-year old girl, were molested on the trip by one of the other fathers, a member of Mike’s Men’s Accountability Group.  He was found out and swiftly imprisoned.

Because of the incident, both families’ lives were ruined.  The church community was in shock.  When I heard the news, I was dumbfounded, for many reasons.  But what I kept coming back to, more than anything else, was the thought that I had gotten my daughter out of there just in time.  Mike surely would have gone on that camping trip and surely would have taken Claire.  I never would have discouraged their going - in fact, I would have encouraged it.  After all, it was church-sanctioned.

I would not curse God for the unthinkable sin this man committed.  Instead, I prayed.  I prayed for the children and the mother of the girls who had been molested.  I couldn’t even imagine what she and her daughter were going through.  In addition to praying, I thanked God for putting our evacuation into motion.  My daughter had probably been rescued, without any of us even knowing it, by our preemptive departure.  Looking at it that way, Mike’s act of indiscretion was a backwards miracle.  It was perhaps the only thing bad enough to change our situation so immediately, for me to take action and pull my kids completely out of that environment.  No matter how mad she was at me, even if she was mad at me for the rest of my life, I felt surer than ever that I’d done the right thing for my family.

Mike called me at work the following Monday, furious and seething.

“I never loved anyone else, God damn it.  How could you tell her that?!”

What was I supposed to say?  “Oh, I mean, your Daddy (detailed spoiler removed).”

But I didn’t say that.  Instead, I shrank in my cubicle chair as he berated me, and when he finally let up long enough for me to speak, I quietly apologized.

Exerpt from ILLUMINATION: How One Woman Made Light of Darkness available now as an ebook on Amazon (only $.99 until 10/13/11).

The Sun and The Wind (and the space in between)

Faith snuggled against me as I lay down next to her after tucking her in.  Since her infancy, I have put my youngest to sleep with bedtime stories and mommy/daughter talks about life, our day together, feelings, ideas, and most recently, stories about fairy tales, myths, parables, fables, and legends.

One benefit of being a non custodial parent is that you realize some of the most important moments with your child are not necessarily in the day-to-day things.  Although I miss that part of parenting, the hours spent sitting on the sidelines of their sports events or hustling them out of bed and to school aren’t always the most formative experiences for them.  Although those duties and tasks are undoubtedly a building block in the relationship bond with our children, it's the space in between those moments that is often most precious.  Like a spring garden, when we stop manicuring and pruning so intensely and slow down to give life a chance to breathe is when our blooms often appear. 

Tonight, Faith wanted me to tell her a fable.  We've begun telling stories to each other, then taking turns guessing what the moral of it is. 

“What’s a ‘moral,’ mommy?”

"You know, a lesson about what was learned and how you should live your life."

Faith patiently waits until I get to the end, knowing that I’ll be quizzing her on what the moral is.  I recently shared this fable with her...

The Sun and The Wind

"Once upon a time, the Wind challenged the Sun to a contest in order to find out who was stronger.  The Wind insisted that it was all powerful and wanted to prove it.

"Tell you what... " boasted the Wind, "whichever one of us can get the coat and hat off that man walking below will win."  He snickered to himself, certain that his brute strength and gusts of cold air would force the man’s clothing right off his body.  The Sun sat back calmly to watch the Winds' effort.

The powerful wind blew and blew.  Gusts of swirling cold wind scattered leaves and tossed papers about, and made the branches of the trees bend and groan from its pressure.  The man pulled his coat tighter around himself and gripped the brim of his hat, fighting off the chill and making sure he would not lose his possessions. 

Soon it was obvious that for all the Wind’s boasting and angry gusts, the man's coat and hat would not budge.  The more the wind blew and tried to force them off, the tighter the man clutched them to himself.

"Harrumph," said the Wind.  "If I cannot make the man's coat come off, then neither can you."

The Sun smiled and didn't say a thing.  Rays of light radiated downward, washing the man in heat.  The man raised his face toward the Sun, and feeling the temperature rise, he took off his coat happily and removed the hat from his head, welcoming the warmth.

Faith sleepily smiled and yawned, then, as our custom, ended my story with her version of the moral:

"The wind thought it could force someone to do something, but the sun helped the man and made him feel good, so he did it on his own."

I am not with my children every day or close to as much as I’d like, and that is something I've had to live with.  But what helps and seems to make it a little easier is knowing that I still have them during these times that are "the space in between."  And it's those times I cherish and try to make the most of.

Hopefully when they are grown up, my warmth and love will outshine the coolness towards me that they are exposed to at their other household, and no matter where they are, we will always be connected in our hearts and minds.  And their blooms will be radiant. 

Hellboy Mom

Based on the recent attention there has been given to Non Custodial Mom's of late in Huffington Post that I was recently interviewed for, I decided to share this chapter (originally titled "Bad Mother") from my book  ILLUMINATION: How One Woman Made Light of the Darkness.

She sat there on the couch across from me, arms crossed, chin slightly jutting out from her face, her sharp features contorted into a look of disapproval.  Her pale blue eyes looked sternly into mine, like a mother admonishing a child.  It was a look I’d seen before, many times. 

Every mother, every woman who found out I’d let - chosen, you could say - my children live with their father, had given me this look.  Not all of them had taken it to this level of uncensored judgment, which lingered on her face while she spoke to me.  Not all of them said exactly what was on their minds, but today, Kara did.

I sighed.  Here we go again.  I’d been battling my own inner demons of guilt and regret since I’d let the children go to live with Mike months earlier.  The young woman across from me on the couch was only echoing questions I had often posed to myself.

Almost daily, an inner war was being waged within my own head about what was best for the kids, what was best for me, what they needed, and what I needed.  I never seemed to find that calm, still place of assurance that I’d done the right thing.  I constantly played an imaginary recording of what phantom critics might say about me, and the choices I’d made.  I imagined the worst and put those words into their mouths before I heard them come out - things like “What kind of mother would give up her children?” and, “She must be unfit.  No decent loving mother would abandon her babies.”  Maybe they thought I’d abused or neglected them.  Or maybe they thought I did drugs, or I’d chosen to be a prostitute instead of volunteering for the PTA.  Maybe they thought I’d run off with another man, leaving my children and their father behind in a hazy wake of selfish smoke.

We had all been had been drinking wine that afternoon.  After a few glasses, the questions I supposed she’d been wondering to herself, ever since I started showing up in her mix of friends with Noah, were given voice.  She’d asked Daniel, I was sure, maybe even Emmett, but as Noah’s best friends, they must have either completely avoided the questions, or had never interrogated Noah.  Men were different than women in that respect, I thought.  Men seem to trust the choices and decisions of other men rather unconditionally.  Women, in my experience, seemed more apt to judge each other and question each other’s motivation, and almost try to find fault, if at all possible.  Sometimes women were each other’s harshest critics.  The Bachelors had not asked me why I was the non-custodial parent - it didn’t seem to occur to them.  They accepted me into their fold, no questions asked.  I assumed they believed if Noah liked me, they would too.

Their girlfriends, however, were another matter.  I had, in some ways, replaced the girl Noah had been dating, who some of them had recently travelled with to Europe with for a wedding.  The girlfriends seemed slightly leery of me.  I felt like I had to prove myself to them, to win them over.  Being an older woman, a single mom without custody of her children, was not a good start.

“Divorce is hard on children.  I think married couples should do everything they can to stay together.  Kids don’t need the stress of a broken home.”

I knew Kara was trying to enlighten me, but she was only echoing the voices that had bounced around in my head for years.

“How could a parent not be with their child?  I just don’t understand it.  I’d do anything and everything to keep my family together.”

I smiled blandly and nodded.  I’d gotten good at smiling and nodding, politely deflecting people’s judgment.  I had heard Kara’s disapproving lecture before.  In fact, I had imagined far worse things people might think about me and my situation.  But the hardest part of taking it on the chin, of letting people think I was a shitty, uncaring, heartless excuse for a mother was knowing what had really happened, and realizing, because the whole story was so crazy and unbelievable, that it wasn’t worth trying to explain.  I wasn’t about to start saying, “Before you give me that look one second longer, I need five hours of your time to make you understand the entirety of what really happened,” to every woman that gave me a sideways look when they found out I was a non-custodial mother.  Even if I did, would anyone believe it?  How could anyone possibly understand it, without having lived through it?  All of it - from the Big Bang, to losing my house, to not knowing if the kids would have health insurance – who should I tell my story to in order to make things better, let alone get off the hook from the “Perfect Mothers (and Future Perfect Mothers) Club”?  It seemed preposterous, even to me, that a seemingly normal, happy, suburban family would blow up in the style and fashion my family did.  I didn’t have the time to explain all the details, and even if I did, it was embarrassing, much too personal, hurtful, and exhausting.  Reopening wounds I still didn’t fully understand was something I wanted to avoid.  Instead, I let people think what they would.

Like many before her, I did not try to correct Kara.  She was young (in her early 30s), well-educated, recently married, and her parents had probably provided a very secure upbringing and future.  She didn’t have a clue what I’d been through (how could she?), and I didn’t fault her for that.  The wine had emboldened her, and the questions she had kept to herself for at least a couple months were spilling forth, unguarded, chased closely by her strong opinions.  She was resolute in her harsh examination of my scruples.

Noah walked into the living room to see me sitting on the small chair in Emmett and Christine’s living room, only to hear Kara ruthlessly questioning me.  He immediately came over and sat next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder.  I leaned into him.

“Hey, Emmett, do you mind if I put on a record?”

He quickly changed the subject, and before getting up, searched my face for signs of anger, sadness, or self-consciousness.  He was worried about my being cornered and put on the spot, but I was numb to those feelings by now.  Kara didn’t mean any harm, and I knew it.  She was just asking what most people wanted to ask, but were too polite to do so.

The week before, I’d visited Claire and Jackson’s school to meet with their teachers for parent-teacher conferences.  The teachers were polite, but somewhat reserved in their interaction with me.  I couldn’t help but think about how different the meetings were from when I was a stay-at-home wife and mother.  I imagined that when a divorced dad went to his children’s school conferences, the teachers would be impressed.  A “good” divorced dad was defined by the fact he was still involved with his children at all - that he picked up the kids on his weekends, paid child support on time, and not much more than that.  If a mother, however, perfectly fulfilled the same duties, something must be seriously wrong with her.  Or at least, there must be some drastic reason why she didn’t have physical custody.

Claire had shown me around her classroom, explaining the science projects the class was collectively working on, the garden they had planted just outside the classroom door, and the chapter books she was reading.  She took me into the hall to show me her artwork, a painting and writing project about heroes.

Her painting was of a tall blonde man.  She’d sketched herself holding hands with her dad, and had written in careful fourth-grade cursive, “My Daddy is My Hero.”  Seeing that stapled to the wall on bright, red butcher paper struck a chord of irony in me, and made me momentarily dizzy.

“Beautiful work, Honey,” was all I could say.

There was no way my children could know what had transpired.  No way the teachers could know, or the other children’s parents.  When I stood behind Wanda at Jackson’s tee ball game, as she handed out cupcakes with frosted tops designed to look like whipped cream baseballs, I just stood by, feeling helpless and worlds away from being a “good mother.”

The unfairness of my plight often stuck in my throat like a giant hairball of emotion, and I choked down the urge to scream out to Wanda, as she looked at me smugly with her after-game treats for my children in front of their friends.  I wanted so badly to tell her the truth.  But I never did.  I had made the decision to bite my lip.  I’d always admired that superheroes and the strongest characters in the Bible and literature never let their missions be interrupted by misperceptions that people or society might hold of them.  Every hero has a choice - to face the darkness or be consumed by it.  People judged Batman harshly at first, but he just kept doing what had to be done anyway.  Hellboy was resigned to the fact that, although he looked like a monster, he was the hero, and saved the exact people who were afraid of him or condemned him.

I felt like the Hellboy of moms standing there, behind the other parents, as Wanda handed out her cupcakes at Jackson’s game.  I felt like a mutant, an undercover mother, stripped of the matching sweatsuit-and-keds uniform.  Instead, I wore high heels and a fitted business suit to the field, having come straight from work.  Making me stand out even more was the fact I didn’t have my own folding sports chair or a spot on the roster indicating which day I was supposed to bring snacks for the kids.  I was displaced.  I was on the outside, looking in, at my children’s lives, no longer a part of the “Mommy Sorority.”  That part hurt, but I tried to remember to look at the bigger picture, which was the wellbeing of my children.  And every time I could make it to one of their events, I watched them closely to make sure they seemed happy and well-adjusted.

My responsibilities now included not only trying to navigate the waters of being a non-custodial mother, but also how to survive, and hopefully succeed, as a career woman.  I had to live a new life, and I wasn’t very keen on explaining to people what my former life was like, let alone how I’d ended up here.

I looked at Noah gratefully as he veered the conversation away from Kara’s interrogation.  I’d been turning the other cheek for awhile now.  The kids’ dad and Wanda had called me selfish, and an irresponsible parent.  According to Mike, he was the ideal father figure, and a much better parent than I was.  He looked like it to the unknowing public, too.  But Noah knew the whole story.  He knew me.  Not only was he being protective, but I knew that to him, I was brave, smart, and a loving mother, even though I felt like a mutant-mom.  He thought of me as the opposite of a “bad mother,” and I loved seeing myself through his eyes, as a courageous woman who would do whatever it took to protect the unknowing little ones around her.  He knew I was misunderstood, and he was protective of me and my reputation.

Kara didn’t look ready for the conversation to be finished, but everyone had followed Noah’s cue.  She got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen.  The record Noah had put on was still playing.  Thom York’s voice carried throughout the apartment...

“I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here?  I don’t belong here.”

Silently, we all sipped our wine and shifted uncomfortably in our seats, wondering if we’d had too much alcohol, or not enough.

Prepare to Meet Your Maker

{photo by erica}

I closed the door behind me and locked it.

I lit a few votive candles and placed them around the edge of the bathtub, which was filling with water.  I squeezed the oversized bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid that I had grabbed from under the kitchen sink over the tub, and watched the stream of blue-green gel magically transform to bubbles under the hot stream of water.  It was either dishwashing soap or bubble gum-scented Mr. Bubble bubble bath, a gift from Barbara (their grandmother) to Claire last Valentine’s Day.

I huffed as I bent over my protruding belly in an effort to shimmy off the navy blue leggings that I’d worn all day.  The legging knees were thin and faded, attesting to the fact that I spent much of my day on the ground reading, conducting “story time,” and collecting stray toys.    I turned off the light.  I was too scared and self-conscious to look at my body in the harsh and unforgiving glare that the 100-watt bulbs flanking the bathroom mirror would have bathed me in.  My bra was enormous.  “Body armor for the pregnant woman,” I thought to myself.  As the tub filled, I finally snuck a peek at my reflection in the mirror.  Shit.  I’d read about men who found pregnant women’s bodies beautiful -- a turn-on even -- testimony to her femininity and reproductive power.  But I just saw Shamu.  I was big, and white.  One blue vein that stretched across my stomach caused me to wonder momentarily if one of the daycare kids had dragged a marker across it without me noticing.

I carefully dipped my foot into the hot water.  The Dawn dishwashing liquid was doing its thing rather successfully.  Mounds of glistening white bubbles beckoned, and I was happy to take warm refuge under them.

The bubbles crackled and popped as I slowly swished around before sinking below the top layer.  Using my foot, I turned the water off and closed my eyes, reveling in the sudden quiet.  I could hear Claire playing in the room next to the kitchen that had been turned into a playroom.  She was announcing her costume, one piece at a time.  She must be using the costumes in the dress-up basket.  In the background the TV droned on, and I was pretty sure that I heard “Walker Texas Ranger,” Mike’s favorite show.  I pictured him and my stepson, Ryan sitting on the couch, one at each end, a pillow held to their stomachs, as they became engrossed in the take-no-prisoners action/drama.  They spent most of their “quality” time either in front of the television or on a baseball field.  On a field or court seemed to be the only forum in which they could communicate and bond.  Maybe that’s how most fathers and sons connected -- I wasn’t sure.  I just knew that there had also been times that Mike had tried to teach Ryan how to wash the car or mow the lawn properly, but those had been brief lessons that usually ended with Mike yelling and Ryan sulking in his room.

Tomorrow, Ryan would be going to his Grandmother’s house.  I wasn’t quite sure about the turmoil of emotions I was feeling, but the overwhelming sense of relief knowing there was one less thing to worry about had unquestionably buoyed my spirits.

I looked over the mountain of breasts and stomach bobbing amidst the glittering dish soap bubbles that filled the tub.  At the end of the bathtub, stacked like an awkward, plastic orgy, were five naked Barbie dolls with stiff matted hair that stood straight up.  Their long limbs and nipple-less breasts made me laugh, as I silently compared my real body to the toy female icon.  The candles flickered and outlined the shadow of my belly on the wall in the bathroom, and I couldn’t help but think about how I felt more like a bomb-shelter than a bombshell.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Mommy…?” 

It was Claire.

“Mommy’s taking a bath sweetheart!” 

“I know.  But…Mommy?”

“Yes Sweetie?”

“Can I have a glass of milk?”

I briefly wondered why she hadn’t asked Mike.  She knew he was in the living room.  There must be a commercial break.  That stupid show was probably even a re-run.

“Mommy?”

“Honey, can you go ask your Daddy?  He can pour you a glass of milk.”

There was a pause, a short silence followed by the patter of little feet disappearing into the living room, then shortly reappearing.

“Mommy?  Daddy’s show is on.  Can you get it?”

I sighed and lifted my heavy body out of the tub, rivulets of soapy water cascading down my swollen bosom and belly.

“Just a minute, Honey, I’m coming."

As I pulled my fortress of a body from my bubbly sanctuary, I mentally raised my fist at “Walker, Texas Ranger.”  A round-house kick to the face from Chuck Norris would apparently defeat half the hardened criminals in the Texas dustbowl, but I would pay to see him come face to face with a naked, pissed-off, hormonal, pregnant woman.  Picturing this showdown, in what would be the last episode ever, was my only revenge on Bill for his absentee parenting.  My heroine rose from the tub, blood boiling, and uttered the last words Chuck Norris would ever hear:  “Prepare to meet your maker.”

“What, Mommy?”

“Nothing, Honey.  I’m coming.” 


{Excerpt from Before the Light}

Solomon in a Nutshell

                                                                                                            {photo by Angelhead}

In my old life, the life I led with my children’s father, I was deeply involved in our church.  Our family belonged to our neighborhood’s New Methodist congregation.  I filled in as the pre-school Sunday teaching assistant sometimes while my husband ushered or attended the Men’s Accountability Group sessions.  One particular Sunday, I was asked to read a storybook version of “King Solomon’s Judgment.”

I sat criss-cross-applesauce on the floor in the circle of children with my then, seven year old daughter Claire, resting her head on my knee.  The kids snuggled into the faded calico floor pillows while I read.  That Sunday morning, I didn’t have any idea how intimately I would come to know the theme of this parable.
I didn’t realize then that, soon, I would face a similar choice to the mother in the story.
The story goes something like this…

Two women, each of whom had young sons of the same age, lived in the same village.  One night, one of the women woke to find that her son had died in his sleep.  Devastated and desperate, the weeping mother crept in the middle of the night to the other woman’s home and silently stole the sleeping child to replace her own.

In the morning, the woman whose son had been stolen was panicked.  She wailed and cried and thought she had lost her son until she saw him in the arms of her neighbor.  She demanded that the woman return her child to her, but the woman whose son had died refused.  She insisted that the child’s mother was lying.  Both women were taken, along with the child, to the royal court for King Solomon to decide who the rightful mother was.

The wise king ordered the child to be placed in front of him.  He beckoned for a guard to bring his sword.  He raised his sword over the child and shouted “Since there is no clear way of knowing who the mother is, we will split him between the two of them.”  He raised his sword, as if to divide the crying child with it.

“No!  Let him go to that woman!” The real mother shouted once she saw her son in danger.  She begged Solomon to give her son to the woman who posed as her child’s mother.  “She can have him!”

King Solomon however, had never meant to harm the child, and lowered his sword and pointed to the woman who had been so willing to give her son away to the other woman.  Wise Solomon knew that only the boy’s real mother would love her son so deeply that she would quickly forfeit him to another person rather than risk him being harmed.

A real mother always chooses what is best for her child.  Even when it is not what is best for her.

My three children are my heart and soul.  I think all parents feel this way, like there is an invisible cord wrapped tightly around you, tugging at your very core, always attaching you to your children, no matter how old or far away they are.  I tell my children how much I love them all the time.   Sometimes they roll their eyes and think I’m being corny, but for all they’ve already been through, they are amazingly well adjusted and positive.  They radiate intelligence and happiness and sometimes roll with the punches better than any of the parent figures in our little family drama.  I feel lucky they remain relatively unscathed.

But not long ago, on our drive to Book Fair night at her school, my youngest daughter Faith, dressed in her “Fancy Nancy” costume, told me that her stepmom Wanda had told her that day that I didn’t love her as much as she did.  Wanda had told my daughter that the reason I was not the full time mom was because I did not “fight” for her.

My heart lurched.

I took a deep breath and explained to Faith that I did love her…  VERY much.  I measured my voice to stay calm and positive, and assured her that I decided back when I thought I had no other choice, that for her to spend most of the week with her father and stepmother was better for her because of their neighborhood, their large house, the school she would be able to attend and because of all of our work schedules.  I tried to explain that I had wanted what would be best for her without having to “fight.”

Faith took my answer in stride.  Once we arrived at the Book Fair, she hugged me around the neck and held my hand as she skipped down the hall in her boa and glittery ensemble to join her class in the library.  I watched Faith giggling with her friends, examining paperbacks and bookmarks for sale at the costume party/book fair and I realized she’d probably already forgotten her stepmother’s words.  But those words resonated within me and coiled themselves around my throat and heart.  That night especially, I wanted to hate Wanda for saying that to my daughter.  I wanted to confront her and set her straight -- but I couldn’t.

Because Wanda was right.

I didn’t “fight” for my children.  For many reasons.  That night, I had to remind myself of those reasons over and over.  After what happened with my husband, I didn’t know how to fight.  Back then, I was too stunned, haunted, and worn down.  I didn’t have the confidence or the energy to fight, and I couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer.  I often wonder if there are other women who go through things like I did, then just crumble… in so many ways.

But the biggest reason I didn’t “fight” was because I thought I was doing what was best for my children.

I watched Faith move confidently around the library with her friends, smiling and laughing, and it gave me comfort.  I miss my children every day that they are not with me, and I often wish often that I had been able to do things differently back then.  There is no King Solomon in my story to return my children to me.  But I know they are healthy and happy, and there is no distance long enough to disconnect the invisible tether between us. 

Abandoned

                                                                                                      {photo by Cassie Kammerzell}

Years later (15 to be exact) I sat at the top of the stairs in my Lake Oswego townhouse, looking down at the cold, white, entry tiles on the floor.  Their simple, straightforward pattern, with the predictable line of caulking in between momentarily fascinated me.  Little things like this are reassuring when the rest of your world is turned upside down.


It was the first week of August.  I had been in the Lake Oswego townhouse for one year exactly.  It had served as a safe-haven, the perfect landing pad for the children and me after the Big Bang, because it was an in between place -- purgatory.  It wasn’t Beaverton, where Mike lived.  Staying there held too many painful memories.  It wasn’t Wilsonville either, where I’d grown up and my parents still lived.  If I’d moved back to Wilsonville and lived in an apartment near them, I would have felt like I’d taken a big step backwards.  Because I drove from home to my job downtown, then to Bill’s, then back home on a daily basis, living in Wilsonville would have made the daily commute untenable.  The townhouse in Lake Oswego was comfortable and safe.  I was near Jenny, Beth, and RJ, my friends who had helped me and provided support throughout the changes and challenges I had been through.


Once Mike and I agreed it was in the kids’ best interest to change our parenting time and their residence, I gave two-weeks notice at the townhouse.  Since I’d have the children each Friday through Monday, I could move closer to my job downtown.  I no longer had to consider the school district I lived in.  Mike and his new girlfriend lived within the boundaries of the Evergreen school district, which was considered one of the best in the region.


I boxed up the last of the children’s books from the shelves in their bedroom.  Goodnight Elmo was the last thin paperback, and I looked at the worn edges and bright red cover before slipping it into the box for my son Jackson.  I’d read it to him every night before bed until he was four, back in our old life when I had the time and energy to read to my children.  Tears welled up in my eyes, and my heart lodged itself in my throat.  Was I making the right decision?  I kept asking myself the question.  Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough.  I doubted myself.  I worried and wondered what I was doing, if it really was the right thing for my children.  Logically, it seemed the best thing for them, but I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of loss and dread, like I’d given up in some way.  Why wasn’t I stronger?  I felt like a bad and weak mother.  I had never imagined not having my children in my custody all the time, and now the house and my life was too quiet without them.  But they were with their Dad now.  They would get back the sense of routine and comfort that they used to have, and that they needed, I told myself.


Exhausted from emotional turmoil and a lack of sleep, I was on the edge of breaking down and crying on the floor, right there at the top of the stairs -- again.  But instead, I pushed the nagging worry aside and got back to work.  I assured myself that this was the best thing -- the only thing -- that I could do for now, and it would be good for all of us.  I told myself that it would be okay; the children would be safe and happy and have more time for playing sports after school and not being chauffeured back and forth between their dad and me every single night.   This is only temporary, I thought, the means to an end until I put things back together for us.


I put the lid on the box and carried it downstairs, then set it onto the white tiles in the entry.  The townhouse was almost empty, except for the garage.  I’d been avoiding that area completely.  Boxes of receipts, files, and documents from my life with Mike were stacked along the wall.  The children’s bicycles, Jackson’s basketball, Claire’s soccer ball, and our unopened crate of Christmas ornaments all sat covered in dust in the cool, damp, darkness of the tiny concrete garage.  I’d found a home for our dog through one of my coworkers at the school, and although I’d dropped her with a her new owner a few days earlier, piles of dried dog poop still littered the cement floor here and there, creating a minefield of hardened shit between the outdoor toys and boxes of paperwork.


I pressed the button to open the garage door from the inside and turned on the light.  Sunlight streamed in and revealed the thin layer of dirt and dust frosting the abandoned contents in the garage, making them look more forlorn, used, and unappealing than ever.  The minivan was backed up to the garage.  I started clearing out the last boxes, then setting them into the trunk.  Once the final mesh bag of sand toys was loaded, I glanced around one last time to make sure I’d gotten everything.  A few stray papers remained in the corner, along with another pile of dried dog poop.


I grabbed one of the papers and carefully scooped and scraped the little, brown, petrified pile onto it.  The paper was an Ambulance Paramedic Training Diploma.  Mike had spent countless hours in school and training programs when we were together.  He’d attempted many times to return to college, and our family’s money had been spent on pre-nursing textbooks and business administration classes from Mt Hood, Clackamas, and P.C.C. Community Colleges.  We’d spent much of our family budget on his college registration fees and tuition.  For a while, he had aspirations of joining the fire department, and had spent a lot of time volunteering at the local branch in Beaverton.  He studied for hours for the pre-firefighter exam, which he failed more than once.


This slip of paper was proof of one that he’d actually completed and passed, then decided it was not the right career for him.  I thought about all of the Sallie Mae student loans, and the multiple times I’d called to ask for payment deferments on Bill’s various different student loans because of his irregular employment history.  I remembered the many hours I’d spent watching my stepson Ryan while he attended classes, and wondered if he’d had affairs with college classmates while I was at home, juggling the cooking, cleaning, and children.


I looked down at the hardened fecal matter covering the raised, gold lettering on the 5x7 diploma and thought about how finally, today, the end result of at least one of Mike’s scholastic endeavors was proving useful.  How appropriate, I thought to myself – abandoned poop from the abandoned dog collected by the abandoned diploma.


I walked out of the garage to the side of the house to deposit the petrified turd into the garbage can.  It slid off the paper, bouncing off the refuse below.  I held Mike’s hard-won diploma in my hand, and after wondering very briefly if I should return it to him, I let it drop into the barrel with the rest of the abandoned reminders of the past.

Exerpt from ILLUMINATION: How One Woman Made Light of Darkness to be released as an E-Book in November 2010