
Chapter 1
"I’m A Mess"
Wednesday, May 14, 2018Â
It’s late and I am once again very wide awake, unable to sleep. For hours I’ve been fighting the temptation of scrolling through in my mind all the many guys who wanted to marry me. Seven guys to be exact who’d proposed. Guys who adored me. And yet I ended up marrying a man who is in love with another woman. His father is visiting and he simply won’t stop talking about her right in front of me. Dick and his dad were talking about him taking a trip back home, just one of the too many trips back to visit “family” when I suspect, no, that I know that he is using it to meet up with her, again.Â
Dick’s first love ended up jilting him and marrying someone else that he now bitterly regrets. No one told me but that’s what my imagination has convinced me is true.
I ended up with Dick because I was holding out until I really felt like I was “in love.” Each time someone proposed, I’d accept because I wanted to get married and have children. But I never had that “in love” feeling (except once but he was “off the market” that maybe I share with you later). So I finally just gave up, tired of waiting, and decided to marry the next person who asked. After seven proposals, I was convinced I would never feel “in love” so why wait?
The next one who asked me was Dick. He seemed to have everything going for him, but as I read the wisdom of proverbs “charm is deceitful and beauty is vain." Sadly, I learned it far too late for it to help me. Dick was both charming and beautiful and oh so so very, very deceitful.
It wasn't until many, many years later that I realized that people who lie think everyone is lying to them. So after we married, Dick would often accuse me of lying, because he was the king of liars. Nevertheless, God used it for good because I felt a deep conviction about my lies, primarily embellishing stories to make what I said more interesting. Sadly, “conviction” didn’t happen until after Dick left me for one of his many girlfriends he hooked up with while we were married, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Like Leah in the Bible, my namesake, and quite possibly the cruel joke my parents unknowingly played on me now that I know the story of Leah and Rachel in the Bible, I was not who Dick wanted to marry. So like Leah, I believed that after our son was born, giving him the son that he’d always wanted, he would love me. Though he was pleased to have a son, it didn’t change his longing for the one he really wanted.Â
One son soon became five sons and our last son, my sixth, died soon after birth and after I’d lost our only two daughters. That’s when I told God that if I was going to lose any more babies, then I didn’t want to get pregnant, and I never did.
Over the course of 20 years together, Dick left and divorced me a total of four times. The last time he divorced me, he was quick to ask me out on a lunch date. No lie. You can’t make this sort of thing up. Unfortunately for Dick, that morning while in my prayer closet, God told me he was involved with Rachel. No, that’s not her real name. I hope you will forgive me for not voicing her name. It’s not that I am in pain anymore when I hear it, far from it. Today I am living a life most people dream of. I’m just not sure it’s wise since my story is based on the similarities of the love triangle found in the Bible— about Jacob who wanted Rachel but ended up with Leah. And for the record, dear reader, no, the Rachel in my story is not my sister. I do have sisters, none that I like, which is why I too wanted a house full of sons.
So this is where my story begins, on the first of many nights of regretting not waiting, for marrying someone charming yet deceitful. I began my story just after the birth of our first son, while my father-in-law is visiting.Â
Dear reader, if I have been able to grab your attention, maybe because you can relate to not being your husband’s first choice, then it’s my hope to share some of the best and worst parts of my life as a married woman. It reminds me of a classic musical:Â
“I'm Sadie, Sadie, married lady…
The honeymoon was such delightÂ
That we got married that same night.Â
I'm Sadie, Sadie, married lady,Â
Still in bed at noon.”
Just like the movie, her marriage turns out to be no “honeymoon” but a marriage filled with heartache—but please keep reading. In the end, I ultimately begin living a life with one endless series of honeymoons.
Promise
“Leah was tender eyed;
but Rachel was beautiful and
well favoured.”
Chapter 2
"To Be Fair"
December 28, 2018Â
To be fair, I didn’t really love Dick either. I did have another person who I wanted to marry, a man “off the market” and the reason is simple, Kyle was a priest. It was after Dick divorced me the first time when it happened. My sister had gotten married and Kyle performed the ceremony. Cozy, right? I’m not sure but I suspect that Dick knew a bit of my history with Kyle but he didn’t say anything. Dick knew he was the more handsome and charming and he also had great hair. Kyle did not. Kyle, however, did have what I wanted and that was a close inside intimate relationship with God. That’s what I believed all priests had, right? They had a connection to God that I’d wanted and yearned for all my life. So when I met Kyle I was smitten.
Since this may be the sinking sand foundation that my house was built on, which I confess I tore down with my very own hands, heart, and ignorance, I probably should let you in on the details.
It was Matthew who introduced me to Kyle. Matthew was one of my many handsome and rich boyfriends who begged me to marry him. Matthew was going to be traveling for work, so he left me his sports car to drive, and asked his best friend from high school to watch out for me, to keep me company. Fatal mistake. Matt, of course, would assume this was safe because, for goodness sake, his best friend was a priest! He wore black pants and a white-collar. He wasn’t handsome, he had hair that resembled a guinea pig (you know the way it kind of swirls one way and the other?), and he’d taken the vow of poverty and celibacy, so what could be more perfect? Kyle could. To me, he was perfect, the man of my dreams all because this man sold out for God. He was acutely religious and that’s all I’d wanted in a man.Â
My eyes were weak here as well because spirituality is a far cry from a person who is religious. Kyle was religious. What I saw had nothing to do with having any sort of relationship with God other than reverencing God as a spiritual Being. Even his Bible knowledge wasn’t up to par once I’d actually opened and read the Bible for myself years later, then I knew better.Â
So we met and while Matthew was out of town, Kyle began to wine and dine me using Matthew’s credit card. Priests, for the record, love wine. Long before it was posh, priests got hooked because it’s one of the main parts of the mass. So no matter, if it was a 7 or 8 o’clock morning mass, priests had at least a sip, and often, as my brother (a former altar boy turned atheist) told me, a lot more. Most priests, my brother said, would gently nudge the chalice up (to indicate the altar boy had poured enough) only after the cup was close to full. Once he pointed that out, I watched for it, to see who might be an alcoholic so I could stay very far away.Â
Back to Kyle who was both witty and smart, which was a great fit for me because my father was both. Later on, I understood what my mother told me when she realized I was experiencing a far from happy marriage— I was far too intelligent for most men. Men were always attracted to my intelligence, but I know now if you marry someone who is not as intelligent as you are, it’s intimidating and the “stupid boy” will feel the need to challenge his wife’s intelligence, belittling her, in order to make himself look better, but proving again, he is just stupid.Â
“Stupid Boy”
A perfect prayer in a desperate hour
She was everything beautiful and different
Stupid boy, you can't fence that in
Stupid boy, it's like holdin' back the wind
She laid her heart and soul right in your hands
And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans
She never even knew she had a choice and that's what happens
When the only voice she hears is telling her she can't
Stupid boy, stupid boy
So what made you think you could take a life
And just push it, push it around?
I guess to build yourself up so high
You had to take her and break her down
Well, she laid her heart and soul right in your hands
And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans
She never even knew she had a choice and that's what happens
When the only voice she hears is telling her she can't
You stupid boy, oh, you always had to be right
But now you lost the only thing
That ever made you feel alive
It took a while for her to figure out
She could run but when she did
She was long gone, long gone
She's gone
Long gone
Yeah she is now
She loved me, she loved me, she loved me
God, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry
Yeah, I don't believe
She's never coming back to me
This is the song my sons sang and played for me a few months after my last and final divorce. I wasn’t sure I heard the lyrics right but one of my son’s girlfriends whispered to me, “They’re singing about you and their dad.” Until then I never suspected they knew the truth. Sorry, but I am getting remorseful and my book is meant to be a book about beautiful and lovely things, which can emerge from a life of destruction based on poor decisions, impatience, and ignorance. Though it’s not a promise I personally clung to when God says He will “give people who mourn beauty for their ashes and something about a crown,” it’s closer to the story that I want to tell.
Promise
“The heart of her husband safely trusts in her
and he will have no lack of gain.”
Chapter 3
"Like my Father"
May 2010 – August 2013Â
My mother and I were similar but entirely opposite in many ways. For example, I was one of five daughters while I had five sons—entirely opposite not because of what God chose for us, but because we both desired the opposite genders when we were young. Both my mother and I dreamed of having a lot of children, the same. But we were the opposite in our choice of eye color. I dreamed of blue-eyed baby boys, while she not only dreamed of brown-eyed baby girls, but her father indulged her by paying to have the blue eyes changed to brown eyes. Of course, all her baby dolls were baby girl dolls with blue eyes, since at the time, that was the only kind of dolls that were manufactured.
Another way we are the same, my mother was her father’s favorite—even before her brother passed away from pneumonia. I was my father’s favorite too, but also my mother’s favorite—the opposite. Sadly my sweet mother heard her mother grieving after her brother’s death, her mother, my grandmother, always favored her son, so when he died she said she’d wished it was my mother who’d died. Sad.
Well, are you completely confused? Maybe just bored? Okay, let me move on because this chapter is not about how I am similar to or the opposite of my mother but how alike I am to my father.
In a way, I was the son my father never had, and to add to my frustration at being born a girl, I was the middle child, surrounded by girls and all the drama that goes with it. I took after my father as far as my personality and intelligence—though my mother was extremely intelligent. My love for sports cars came from my father. He was born in NYC and drove an imported, right-hand drive convertible, a classic. Only one other star had a car like it. Fred Astair. My father was on the stage and during his time in between plays, we would vacation and later move to Florida.
My father’s wit and curt comments I also inherited and probably due to spending every moment I could with him. When we were in the city, especially when I was really little, he would take a walk around the city block after he’d eaten his dinner alone in the dining room while reading the evening paper. I sit quietly while he ate and then he’d get up to take a walk. Every evening, I listen for the elevator’s ding when I’d run to his bedroom, throw open his custom cupboard, and grab his leather slippers from amongst the pristine collection of his shoes that were lined up meticulously—each with wooden shoe stays to keep them in immaculate condition.
By the time I’d get to the living room, he would be sitting on the sofa with his highball cocktail relaxing. I’d slip off his shoes, massage his feet, and slide on his slippers. He’d smile and I’d slip myself under his arm to wait until he was called in to have his dinner. My father never ate with us, neither of our parents did. Not unless we were in a restaurant, but never at home. My father was always served his meals, in courses (salad, then the main course, and finish with dessert with coffee) just as if he was still living on 5th Avenue where he’d been raised.Â
My father grew up in the penthouse and he ate all his meals in the hotel’s dining room. We, on the other hand, did not live in the penthouse, nor did we live close to 5th Avenue or Park Avenue. Nevertheless, most of my friends told me we were “rich” but I couldn’t really grasp that concept. My father and my mother grew up “wealthy” and what that basically meant is they had “old” money—money acquired over generations—despite the fact that both sets of my grandparents were immigrants and made their money in steel. So it was not entirely old but somewhat new money.
While my father ate his dinner, almost always a filet mignon cooked rare with vegetables that had to be in a separate small bowl, I sat next to him. I’d watch him butter his roll (that was also served on a bread plate using a special bread knife and his pads of butter sitting in ice in a small shallow bowl) but he never, ever talk to me. I never thought anything about it. I’d assumed even at an early age or maybe my mother had explained, that by the time my father got home he'd have had enough of conversations. We all knew not to disturb him, not make any noise. My father never yelled or got mad. Never once did I ever hear him raise his voice to my mother or anyone I can remember. He would simply discuss things intelligently, often by debating, but he’d always keep his cool and smiled knowingly.Â
Like my father, the way he handled conflicts was how I handled them. I never raise my voice in anger and rather enjoyed discussing topics, even conflicts if both parties were interested in reaching a mutually agreed resolution. I’ve always loathed and avoided confrontational people. It’s draining being involved with someone who is determined to yell and argue—I also can’t stand watching angry people on television or in movies, I fast-forward or turn it off. I still can’t comprehend why this is considered “entertainment” for anyone, nevertheless, it seems more and more of these types of reality television shows are watched by women (primarily) but men too. To me, it trains us to view this behavior as acceptable. Regardless of not viewing this as “entertainment” there are a few of these shows, based on married couples, I do watch—because only then am I able to see what goes on. Also, I watch them so I can be compassionate to all the women who live this sort of existence and because I can relate. Dick came from and learned to fight. Sorry, I’ve wandered off again; where was I? Oh, right, my father’s dinners.Â
Not every time, but often, while eating, my father would slice off a thin slice of his rare filet and put it in my mouth—being careful to include just a tiny sliver of the fat that he said was the tastiest part. My father, for the record, was very old when he passed away, well into his late 80s, which is proof that doctors haven’t a clue when it comes to diet. Maybe his purple onion sandwiches on white bread balanced the years of his red meat filets, but with all that hard butter on his onion sandwich and on his rolls every night, I doubt it.
After he was served his dessert, usually taking only a bite or two even if it was his favorite chocolate cake, he’d ask me if I’d like to go for a walk. We’d set out donned in our sneakers (tennis shoes) always turning to the right when we’d get to the sidewalk. My father would take long quick strides so I’d have to run just to keep up. He never slowed his pace to mine. We never spoke, but he held my hand and that was more than enough. Many years later, as an Olympic hopeful, my father never actually saw me compete. But I never doubted his love for me, never longed for the love of any man because I had more than enough love from my father. My only concern would be to disappoint him, even though he’d never really voice disappointment to me.
Growing up, I just assumed I would marry someone like my father. My father was handsome, he was charming but not of the deceitful variety. Maybe a better description was captivating. He wasn’t talented in everything but he knew who to go to if it was outside his knowledge or expertise. He had an endless amount of friends, many of who were outrageously famous, but like the saying goes, he never met a stranger. Everyone was an instant friend to my father. Whether my father’s friend was famous or just someone you would pass by without noticing—I became just like my father—he treated his shoeshine man, his barber, exactly the same as how he’d treat a star visiting from Hollywood. He was no humanitarian, but anyone who was respectful toward him, he would be respectful and a friend to any man. Again, like my father, he chose never to have any close friends from the opposite sex after he married.Â
My father’s father, John (who technically would be my grandfather but because he died before I was born he didn’t seem like a grandfather), married a chorus girl, Margaret. My father was an only child even though there were “siblings”—a sister and a brother my father grew up with. My grandmother Margaret strayed at least two times resulting in pregnancy, but God only knows if she had more children who my grandfather didn’t allow to live in my father’s family home. So my father inherited my grandfather’s fortune after his father passed away prematurely. His wife, my father’s mother (who technically would be my grandmother but because she died before I was born she, too, didn’t seem like a grandmother) was dependent on her oldest son who had acquired guardian for support. After his father’s death, my father, with the help of his guardian appointed by my grandfather, moved into a penthouse on 5th Avenue and began supporting his mother and half siblings.
My father really didn’t have a mother figure in his life because she was often gone from home, traveling as a sister act with her sister even after she married. Immigrating from Scotland, the “Campbell Sisters” were a singing and dancing act in vaudeville. Vaudeville was a type of entertainment before movies. It’s where my grandfather met my grandmother and changed her life, but not really. Though wealthy I suppose she enjoyed being on the stage or traveling, maybe it was the applause or the fame with fans waiting for an autograph that she couldn’t let go of. So my father was raised by the live-in staff.
Another way I am like my father, I love to invent. Not the kind of invention that you would get a patent on in order to sell, but just to solve a problem to make daily life more peaceful and smooth. Like my father, I need things orderly: Shoes lined in a neat row, meals at the same time, and often the same, familiar meals. Maybe it has a lot to do with my father and me who both had mothers who were free-spirited—we craved order to counterbalance a spirit that often meant chaos.
Even though my husband Dick honestly loved and admired my father’s qualities, in a wife they were loathed. It may have been that he simply loathed me or more correctly what he loathed was being married to me when he was desperate for his “Rachel.” I wished I’d known because in my quest for order, to eliminate fights and arguments that were so foreign to me—quarrels that were commonplace and practiced often in my husband’s childhood home so he was a master of vicious arguing—I’d reinvent myself over and over again hoping he’d like (or at least) get along with the new version of me. But no matter how often I came out with a new me, none were met with the excitement a new Apple iPhone gets. I was doomed before I’d started. My eyes were weak and I just couldn’t see that no amount of changing would cause Dick to love me when he just wanted Rachel.
Promise
“Old things are passed away;
behold, all things have become new.”
Chapter 4
"A Breeding Machine"
August 2013- December 2014
Knowing no amount of reinventing myself would turn me into Rachel, the one my husband wanted to be married to, my new plan was to give my husband sons. Each of my sisters, less one, was a breeding machine and each was blessed with sons. So I sense, but I can’t prove the fact that this may have been another reason Dick married me. Neither of us was keen on knowing the gender of our first child, so when our first son was born on Christmas, no less—I just knew my husband would love me. Love me as a mother if not loving me as a wife.Â
What Dick loved most was the idea of being a father of a son, but not much more than that. He wasn’t present during the birth—oh, he was there, but he and his friends, mixed with a few excited family members, mulled around and talked nonstop.Â
Even when I was just minutes away from heading to delivery, this entourage of his forgot I was even there in an overly crowded room. With an extremely high pain threshold, I didn’t make a sound, nor did my face give it away that I was determined to give birth naturally, so I laid perfectly still, praying and talking to my Lord and Savior, who I needed help from “big time.” It came in the form of my sister, who I heard whispering in my ear, “Do you want everyone to go?” Simply closing my eyes, I nodded my head slightly when she burst into protective mode, ordering everyone to “get out” “get out” while literally pushing everyone out of the labor room door. Soon all was quiet and after the doctor checked me, “it’ll be awhile still,” he also left and just minutes later, I began to push.
Dick made it into the delivery room, all gowned and masked up. The doctor, on the other hand, almost missed the show. He came rushing in with just his shirt sleeves rolled up, tucked tie in his shirt, just in time to deliver the shoulders, almost missing the birth altogether. It wasn’t until later I realized my answered prayer. My doctor never listened when I explained that I did not want an episiotomy but to give birth naturally. Because he’d left and was headed down the elevator when I began to push, it happened just as I’d hoped. In high school, I watched a natural birth when the mother actually walked out of delivery and oh, I wanted that. The walking out didn’t happen, but the most important bits were fulfilled, and this helped me trust God to give birth at home next time around.Â
As I said, Dick loved having a son, loved telling people he had a son and was always ready to take pictures with his son, but any more than that just never materialized. I wasn’t cherished nor sought after with any sort of loving yearning, but I was more of an acquired possession or hired help (though unpaid). Two years later, our second son was born, this time at home with my husband helping out. I’d heard how husbands really bonded with their children and wives who had experienced home births, so still feeling unloved, that was my next attempt.Â
At first, it seemed like my plan had worked. He was much more attentive to both of us, me and son number two, but when he asked to take the baby back to visit family, promising he would not leave him with anyone he didn’t know, later I discovered that on their first night there he went out with friends, leaving our son with a sitter at his family’s home, I was gutted. He hid the truth for a long time, or at least he thought he’d hidden it (my mother-in-law was eager to tell me he’d gone out with friends and mentioned Rachel’s name at least three times), I realized giving Dick two sons was just not enough to raise my place in his life and heart. So what else could I do but give it another try?
Our third son came with some fanfare. This time giving birth was a bit more interesting. The midwives chose not to attend due to the size of my second son, explaining it was high risk, so they referred me to their "doctor backup." This man loved attending births, and we hit it off since he had a strong New York accent, was Jewish and loved to discuss medical procedures with me. He’d just finished the wing of his offices where he’d built three birthing rooms and was as excited as I was to be the first to deliver there. My mother came to look after our two sons, and after our son was born, we all met my dad for a big breakfast. It was my dad, however, who did all the bragging to anyone who would listen as he pointed out his daughter “who just gave birth.”Â
The interesting part came a few hours later when the nurse came to give me my rhogam shot and noticed this hunk of a baby boy was not just yellow, he was orange. Off we went to the Children’s Hospital, where we spent the next few days. My son was under the lights in intensive care while I sat beside him. Had I delivered there like the other mothers, I’d be in bed too, but I still wouldn’t have wanted to be separated from my baby. Even though the ICU doctor repeatedly told me that my son would be brain-damaged after refusing a full blood transfusion, that’s customary when it reaches the level my son’s climbed to. Nevertheless, our personal pediatrician, who I’d come to know and respect with my first two sons, assured me that due to this son being so larger, the risks were higher with a transfusion.Â
So where was Dick during all of this? To this day, I’m not sure. My mother came to gather our sons while I was in the hospital, so that wasn’t keeping him occupied. One afternoon he came around to cajole me into going to one of our favorite Italian restaurants that were just down the street. I didn’t want to leave the baby but pizza sounded amazing. Unfortunately, I went.
On our way in, with no children in tow and looking like I was still five months pregnant, we ran into one of my previous boyfriends, who lit up when he saw me. Ugh. Honestly, I am not sure how the entire 3-minute conversation went other than explaining we’d “just had our third son who was in the hospital” and on his side, “oh, she’s just a friend” when I acknowledged the young, fit and pretty girl on his former boyfriend's arm. Poor thing, I saw her face that shouted, “we’re much more than just friends!” Not only did this encounter ruin my appetite, but Dick also was livid and again wanted details of Mark, “how long did you date” “where did you meet” “did he propose to you” “why was he looking at you like that” along with angry comments, “Leah, you could see if all over his face—they guy is still in love with you” and “tell me the truth, you two have been in touch, I know you’ve been with him.” It’s interesting after everything ended, I became aware of something. People who cheat are 100% sure they’re being cheated on. No amount of explaining that I was the one who’d broken up, that I never wanted to marry Mark, and that it was pretty much one-sided couldn’t pacify him. Nor could giving Dick three sons.Â
As you know from chapter one, I still believed that more sons would change how my husband felt about me. Somehow in his eyes, I would become more desirable than Rachel, but that was only because I was “weak-eyed”—basically blind to the truth.
“She shall be preserved
through the bearing of children
if she continues in faith and love and
sanctity with self-restraint.”
Chapter 5
"I Lied"
January 2013- November 2014
Pinocchio is a character in a cartoon that uses the puppet’s long, ever-growing nose to prove people can often see a lie that’s "as plain as the nose on our face." Unfortunately, this feature of mine was something Dick refused to tolerate. He seemed to delight in calling me out and shaming me, especially in front of my sons, calling me a liar. The insults increased when he left me for one of his many lovers, sighting being a liar as something he hated and why he left. Then to my shock and horror, I discovered it was also something God hated.
So just as Rachel sought her God and He heard her prayers, I told my Beloved I needed Him to fix me. Almost immediately, I began being tested to see just how much I wanted to stop, but in a matter of weeks, He healed me from so many varieties of my lying.
My test came from protecting someone's feelings. When she called me out, I was (brutally) honest and ultimately lost my friend, but like not hanging out with drunks if you want to be sober, it was a friendship that needed to be abandoned.
So, my sin of choice was an exaggeration, learning that by adding just a few embellished details, I could keep my audience laughing or engrossed. My favorite brother, Frances, always entertained my parents; without realizing it, he added details that were more imaginative than fact.
My other variety of lies was using a short, untrue statement to pacify the anger or frustration of someone of influence. I'd learned this lovely trait from my kind, meek mother who couldn't face having to explain her unnecessary purchases. So she'd say and trained us to say when my father would ask, "Is that new?" to reply, "Oh, I've had it," which makes no sense as I'm telling it to you. Nevertheless, it worked to pacify his concern, so we always used it.
Believe it or not, when I married, I was determined never to use a pacifying lie, probably because I had linked the lie to the financial collapse my parents faced in their latter years. I also decided not to use it when I fell quite short of who Dick expected me to be as his wife.
In order to heal, let me explain that Dick's favorite and most cunning shaming happened through what was not really a lie. Instead, it was just my forgetting details and never being corrected. I'm not sure it was planned, but it felt like he was saving the accurate details for a huge scene with an audience as proof that I was a horrible liar who couldn't be trusted.
Let me give you just one example. I spoke fondly about a teapot I told my sons I'd purchased where Dick proposed to me. Years later, as proof I was a liar, he told the embarrassed crowd it was where my brother's wedding reception was held. Sick with shame, it wasn't until later, when we were alone I asked him why he hadn't corrected me years before when I said where it had come from. He again called me a liar and said I'd known all along. Little did he know that this served to push me to find solace and comfort in the man who knew the truth, who could heal my heart and rid me of the shame I felt. Even when a friend or foe or someone you love is unsafe, I found the blessing of frequent insults and once comforted how they made me stronger spiritually and intimately closer to the One who never left or had forsaken me.
After my healing was complete, my Husband surprised me with a bonus. He revealed things that Dick had convinced me I’d lied about, things that never happened, things I made up—robbing me of memories and experiences I began to believe I had made up. Healing relationships with my own siblings, from time to time they'd talk about something and it was like being woken up from a dream. Probably the most cherished memory that was "once lost, now found" was when my father was asked to attend and walk the red carpet with a Hollywood star and he took me along. Even now I can't believe how many years Dick had convinced me it never happened, but my One and Only had kept it safe in a bottle along with my tears.Â
Another discovery is the truth that people who lie are eager to call other people liars. Sadly for Dick, whether or not he hated lying in me, it's part of the package when you choose adultery over being faithful in marriage. There's really no way to commit one act without the other. I'm sure he hates it as much as he hated it in me but how thankful I am he called me out on it because of all I gained.
“Therefore I am well content with weaknesses,
with insults,
with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties,
for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
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Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.” I68