One Year Later

All in all, my life is pretty good, so I shouldn't really complain.

Sometimes I feel like doing so anyway – publicly, where anyone who cares a hoot could look at it, even though I don't care if they do or not. In fact, I secretly wish they do not.

Picasso said that when you walk through a green field, a green forest, and a greenhouse, you get filled up with green and have to paint green – just to get it out of you.

Well, I've been keeping too many things in. It is therapeutic for me just to write and post my sorrows. I'm sorry if that sounds childish or stupid – I just really need to let it out sometimes. I'll probably delete it later, but this is my 'green' canvas.

One year ago, my life fell apart.

One year ago, my grandfather's health was ailing, and my father insisted he would take care of them instead of getting them professional help. Since my dad couldn't even keep a beta alive, I was unofficially conscripted to be the babysitter. Dad still did most of the physical stuff, like picking grandpa up off the floor, but that was mainly because Grandpa would freak if I ever saw him in his garments and try to crawl away through his own filth, usually hurting himself more in the process.

It wouldn't have been so bad if my grandmother didn't have dementia. I truly believe she was trying to murder him. She couldn't remember he was so frail and could barely speak, so she would get angry with him and hit him with a book or push him down the stairs. Then she would kick him until she forgot what she was doing and wandered off. More than once, we found him lying on the floor, bleeding, and Grandma would get all huffy and yell, “He's faking it! He's as strong as an ox!” Then she would show us a birthmark she's had forever and try to convince us he had bruised her.

Dad told me I didn't need to be with them all the time, but whenever I was able to, I would be their company and endure the endless repeated questions, because Grandma would never do anything irrational in front of me, (as long as she couldn't remember I already knew.) Perhaps that alone was enough to save him from her violence.

I was almost grateful when the police were called in. We never did figure out who did it, though I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it were my mom. My father's health had been waning ever since he took on the task, and they really needed more help than any of us could give them. I think my father thought I had called them so that I could escape the responsibility of 'honoring and caring for my ancestors,' so he made my life miserable after that.

My mom is an angel. To this day, I have no idea how she was able to both provide for and nurture her children while having to deal with my irrational, incompetent, and mildly abusive father. I was never able to understand how he can trick people outside our family into thinking he's a great man and a good father. It is my mother who put food on our table, repaired our house, read us stories, worked more than full time, and fulfilled her church calling, while Dad complained that any job he could get was beneath his stature and made his children believe they were the reason he was not famous and rich. This is why it is always so painful to me to see her struggling, and yet have no way of assisting her.

One year ago, the president of the school my mother works at (specifically so her children were all able to get a lower tuition rate – that was the contribution she was able to make to our education) announced they would be changing the program they used for financial aid. With the surge of students applying for it at that time of year, the learning curve would have been bad enough, but the program was ill-suited for the need and, in fact, did not work at all for several months. Mom was the only employee who worked intimately within that program, and fell terribly behind because of its short-comings. She had just been passed up for a promotion she was promised, and the man who took the position had never worked in that field before, so he couldn't help her. But he did make her answer for the bottleneck she was causing. She was yelled at constantly by her bosses, coworkers, and frustrated, angry parents who were scared their students wouldn't get federal aid.

The pressure mounted enough that she became suicidal. I did what I could to help her – all the house and yardwork, cooking – anything I could think of to ease some of the burden piling up on her, but nothing helped. She was still being treated like dirt at her work and by my father. I was afraid to leave her alone, (mostly to chaperone my grandparents,) praying each time I did that she would still be there when I got back. I even committed the ultimate social faux pas: I drug her along on one of my dates. (Yes, I knew it was unacceptable, but I was not leaving her alone, and she needed to escape my father and his parents for a while.)

I love my mother, and I would do anything for her. Including laughing when I feel like crying, and lying to her by telling her “Everything's going to be alright.” I did my best for her, but my best wasn't good enough, and I still feared for her safety.

One year ago, my sister's premature baby was having seizures. We never knew from day to day if he was going to survive. Her husband was frantically trying to earn his Master's while living on a pitiful little stipend, 17 hours from the rest of our family. They had no money for anything but my nephew's doctor bills, and Sis had to monitor him constantly (day and night) to make sure they could call the nurse if his seizure lasted too long. We were praying and fasting and scraping up money to send, but nothing we did could really solve the problem.

My kind mother took off a week during her frantic work schedule to go comfort her daughter, and to see the baby once, just in case he were to pass away. While there, she developed a very painful and debilitating disease. No one was able to take care of her there, and I was a thousand miles away, completely useless to my mother or sister. Luckily the disease was treatable, but it will follow her around the rest of her life and took precious time she couldn't spare from either her work or her daughter in need.

I always had to get perfect grades and excellent scholarships, as well as finish in four years, or I wouldn't get the opportunity complete my higher learning. To this day, I am the only Art Major I know who graduated in only four years with as high a GPA as I had. (Though I do wish I had had more time to learn what they were teaching me, instead of having to shoot just for the grade.) Despite working my tail off for the last two semesters of my final year, it was the happiest I had ever been. Yes, my life was hectic, and parts of it kinda sucked.....but I felt like I had some intrinsic value to someone who didn't have to love me, or even like me. Even now, I'm embarrassed by how much that one simple fact affected me.

For the first time in my life, I had actually fallen in love. I had dated before and even come close to marrying one man, but I had never before understood I could love a man – especially after my terrible courtship experiences. The only things I had ever known from men were abuse, tyranny, and neglect. It's what I had come to expect from the entire gender. I had decided to give them up and pursue my career instead. (Not 'for now.' Instead.)

But I had secretly fantasized about one man asking me out for years, though I knew it would never happen. He surprised – astounded – flabbergasted me: he asked me out.

I was a little cautious because I didn't want the novelty of a man pursuing me to influence my judgment about the relationship. It was the first time a man had shown genuine interest in me. In fact – he gave me a lot of 'firsts:' First time a man asked me out without coercion. First time a man held my hand. First time I had a zing up my spine whenever I thought about him. First hug. First time someone had shown interest in my general well-being without expecting something in return. Heck – first time a man had ever asked me questions about myself! But that wasn't what made me love him.

I won't bore you with all the silly details, but I will tell you that as I grew to love him, I prayed and fasted and, (to my amazement,) kept getting the 'go ahead.' Even as my life started falling apart in other areas, this one aspect felt right. I graduated with my BFA, searched and failed to find a job, attempted to hold my family together, and cried at night – but my relationship felt right. He felt right.

Well, one year ago, this perfect man decided to let our relationship end.

For many reasons, I don't trust men easily, and I freaked him out a couple of times trying to explain why. I'm sure this was a major contributing factor to his decision. But he never did give me a satisfactory explanation. I was hurt and angry and confused and hopeless. More than anything, I felt he had ignored the subtle promptings from the Lord that I had felt. But I was polite. We parted amiably and I returned to the broken half of my life.

I thought I had done as well as any woman could, regardless of their situation. I hadn't pushed him, but tried to keep pace. I didn't demand too much time and suggested inexpensive dates. I had tried to learn everything about him that I could, and the more I learned, the more I loved him. I kept a clear head and assessed the relationship from a separate viewpoint and tried to ignore 'twitterpation.' But he caught me off guard, because the day I had admitted to myself that I really did love him was the day he told me to leave.

I know there is no way he could have planned the timing, but there is no way he could have chosen a worse time if his goal was to hurt me.

It's strange to look back on this all now. Funny, even. Because as bleak as I thought my life looked then, it paled in comparison to what happened two days later:

One year ago, we discovered that my brother had left the church, and kept the fact hidden from us for 14 months.

This might not seem like a big deal to many people, but to us, it was the straw that broke our family's back...and a 20-ton-straw at that. My mother, who blames herself for every little flaw in any one of her child's lives, collapsed into tears at least twice a day for the first month. My father's anger flared and he took it out on both her and me, then ostracized my brother by sending him reams of doctrine, (the Hell-Fire-and-Damnation approach.) My sister was terribly offended that he hadn't confided in her and we were all disappointed with him.

I was especially shaken because, lacking a half-decent male role model in my father, I had always looked to my brother for the example of the man I should marry. Rob was kind, hardworking, competent, a loving husband, and a kind father. But now he had cast off the promises he made to his beautiful wife as if they meant nothing, and forced all who knew to keep it quiet so he could 'prove' to us that our religion was superstition. (If we didn't know, then obviously it wasn't revealed to us. I think he failed to consider our current situations.)

If the man that I felt was the epitome of men (certainly not perfect, but the best there was to be found) could just do that to his wife and children without any thought or regrets......then what are the kind of men I attract capable of?

I was hurting. But my dad was hurting. My sister was hurting. My sister-in-law was hurting. My mom was really hurting.....I had nowhere to turn. (Why must every trial converge on one time?) My poor best-friend got the brunt of it, but I tried to limit taking advantage of her kind heart like that. It was the first time that I couldn't just handle my own trials with only minor explosions from time to time. For the first time, what I really needed was a loving shoulder to cry on. And, for the first time, I had had one......who just left me two days previously.

So I did the only thing I could do: I became the pillar of strength for everyone else. I rocked and mopped up my mother as best I could when she broke. I listened to my sister for hours, comforting and encouraging as much as I could. I calmed my father's rage whenever possible and separated him from anything he could harm. I did my best to assure my sister-in-law that we supported her and wanted to help in any way we could.

I had no time to mourn my own losses. I buried my pain and made room for the sorrows of others. I swallowed my pride and ignored my anger.....and we all got through it.

There were times I didn't believe we would. There were wounds that were re-opened many times. Many of the trials did not disappear, but we were blessed to be able to endure them. Each day we kept breathing was a triumph, and each nightmare was overcome as the daylight rose.

And I survived.

It is one year later, and my grandfather has passed away – a blessing more than a hardship. And my grandmother is receiving adequate care as well as more attention from her family. My father is in mourning, but much less full of anger. My mother's work is once again frustrating, but her employers at least have come to more fully appreciate her. My sister's child is healthy, her husband has earned his degree. Although they still haven't found work, they have the possibility now. My brother has not returned to the faith, but we no longer have the conflict with him we once had, and his wife is hopeful he will come back one day.

It is one year later, and I still have not managed to find work, but certainly I keep busy. I have grown a beautiful garden, and cleaned out my grandma's old house for my sister's family. I have increased my portfolio and become more immersed in my field. I am no longer disappointed to awake from my dreams.

It is one year later, and I survived.

I survived.