My America, The Beautiful

 I decided to take a departure from the every day political craziness all around us and put together a collection of photos from places I have been and of people I love. Choosing pictures from my thousands left me happy and appreciative. I bet you have a gazillion pictures too. I am so grateful to live here. We have a lot to be thankful for. Thank you, Katharine Lee Bates.                                                                  

O beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! 

America!

God shed His grace on thee,

 

   

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

I Know You Don't Mean To

I have been told that I am blunt and to the point. And I have probably offended people along the way with my opinions. I am mortified and sorry when I find out I have hurt someone's feelings because I would never intend to hurt anybody. In this instance, though, I realize I might make you feel bad,so If what I am about to say resonates with you, I hope you will take it as constructive, because I know you don't mean to hurt anyone either.  Here goes:

Recently, Clark and I attended a funeral of a family friend.  Several of our college buddies were there-some of whom we hadn't seen in a long time. In our conversations, we usually get around to the fact that Clark and I dated in college, married other people, divorced our original spouses and then found each other again.  It is a sweet story, one that I am grateful for, and one that everybody seems happy about and believe me--I am super happy about-- but it doesn't stop there.  

So many times we hear the well meaning, "Oh, your lives worked out for the BEST! Everybody involved is with the right person and you have to admit that everybody is so much better off now. Your former spouses did you a favor!" And I am thinking to myself that everybody is not really better off now---just different. In our case, we were able to create beauty from ashes but the way our lives would have worked out for the best would have been a strong and true marriage the first time around. Divorce is complicated and there are definitely trickle down consequences. Besides being overwhelming in so many different ways for me, the kids, of course, were impacted. It was difficult for my girls to give up their family home and visit me in a new city for holidays. It's also hard to know how kids feel when a parent abandons them emotionally and/or physically and how it manifests in lots of different ways. I could go on and on with the downside of divorce and I am sure you know the laundry list of negatives. I don't think when you tell us that we as a couple are much better off you are wanting to engage in a debate on the pros and cons of splitting up. You are just trying to make it make sense somehow. But that's really not necessary. We have worked through it privately and I can tell you that now, today, I am neither bitter nor unforgiving. But that is not for a casual conversation. And I want to give you a heads up so that you do not continue to say these things to other people in similar situations.  It's rather like the comment to a person who just lost a close family member to death and gets the comment from a well meaning friend that they are "in a better place". I am sure the better place for the person still living would be right next to them. Alive and healthy. 

Back to the funeral conversation--what we did is we smiled weakly and agreed with the friends who told us this, because we knew they really meant well, and maybe they wanted to make themselves feel better or they thought they were giving us a compliment. Or maybe they don't want to think ill of the other folks involved so this is their way of rationalizing bad behavior. I just wish people would not put us on the spot to agree to something that we don't believe. We are not going to argue the point at a funeral or a wedding or any other public forum that would be inappropriate for that kind of reckoning. I know you don't mean to, but you are making us feel awkward. Unless you have gone through a divorce yourself, you could not understand that there is nothing superlative about a failed marriage. ... even if the later outcome is a wonderful new spouse. You are diminishing the loss we experienced and the emotional trauma that we felt when you imply that we should thank our original spouses for leaving the marriage. Please don't make me say nice things about my ex because you need to hear it.  We have cordial relationships with our ex spouses and we have moved on. But what if we didn't? Everybody's personal journey is theirs.  

  What we want you to say is:  " Glad you are together"  or  " You really look happy" or "So happy for you". But stop there!  We don't want to admit to something that's just not true, So, please, try not to put words in our mouths, and we promise not to talk about you on the way home.  

What I have in common with HRC

I really don't love Hillary, but I also think that she is unfairly judged on a number of 
issues. One in particular is that if she stayed married to Bill with his cheating ways, then she must condone that behavior.  
I have heard from people that because she stayed with Bill, she therefore "stood by her man" which in a lot of people's minds is a strike against her and women's rights.  I tend to think that it is a woman's right to decide whether it is best for her and her family to stay and try to work things out. It is tough either way when you have been betrayed, especially in the public forum. I was a child of a father who cheated, and then I went and married someone who did the same thing.  In my father's case, I scolded him (I was 14) and the outcome was that he quit speaking to me and his mother (my grandmother) disowned me, and I did not see her side of the family until after her death. Most people don't know that about my dad because he rarely let on that there was a problem. We worked things out later, but I was trying so hard in my own marriage to make things work and regain trust because I knew first hand what the ramifications are for the kids as well as the parents and grandparents in a split-up. When my ex first ran around on me, I was but 33. I did not want to give up on my family for dozens and dozens of reasons.  And those reasons are different for everyone. And he appeared to want to stay, so we tried---and 14 years later he did it again ( with some sprinkled in between probably) and tried to mask his adultery with his spending problems, but we were done because I knew. I knew because the same behavior patterns surfaced. I did not think our marriage was worth fighting for by myself. I was older, and wiser and the kids were older and even though I knew it was going to be tough (and it was) I was through being married to a cheater and the emotional drama de jour.   
Maybe Hillary and Bill love each other and they've worked through it. Maybe they have a system that works, or maybe they will split up sometime in the future. But knowing what I know from a child's standpoint and a wife's standpoint who has gone through a betrayal of the worst kind, "standing by your man" is not what I would call it. It's something we are called to do---forgiveness. And maybe it worked for them.