TheBanyanTree: there is no subject

[Pam Lawley]

Disclaimer:  I don't really remember what my main point was when I started
typing this hours ago!  I've had a few stops and starts and I think I've
wandered over several subjects.  Maybe I was just writing to write....  So
before you get started reading, just know that I have no story here, no
clear path.  I'd just delete the whole thing, but that seems like a big
waste.  So - you've been forewarned!!

--------------------------
I joke about collecting ex-husbands.   It's probably not that funny...

Where to start, where to start???

Almost two years ago I got a new co-worker, and I pretty much fell in love
immediately!  She was 34'ish, happily married and step-mom to a teenaged
girl, with a four year old boy and another on the way!  Babies!!!

Before she left on maternity leave I had our team throw her a baby shower,
and I kept it really simple!  I collected money from everybody, bought and
wrapped gifts, and brought in cupcakes!  We all gathered at lunch and
watched her open those gifts, ate a cupcake, and went back to work!  Super
simple - but effective!

We kept in contact while she was out, met for lunch so I could see her new
baby, and as friendships do, just grew closer as time went on.  And she
taught me all about Brandon, baby Oliver's big brother.

Brandon was born with lissencephaly which is a brain disorder with varying
degrees of debilitation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissencephaly)  He
doesn't walk or talk, and also suffers from cerebral palsy.  I thought it
was horrible that he was born with two diseases, but only learned recently
that the CP is a result of the first!

Anyway, I am pretty ignorant about disabled'ness.  Shortly before meeting B
I'd made cupcakes for a wedding which was in the couple's backyard of their
home.  In that home was the bride's young daughter - totally
uncommunicative and in a wheelchair.  I had NO idea how to - or if I
should! - interact with the young girl!  If I talk and say 'hello' and she
doesn't respond, well... The family talked to her but I was just SO
uncomfortable and unsure!!  I made sure to not get too close so I wouldn't
have to - yeah, I pretty much just ignored her.  I'm not proud of that, but
there you have it!

Consequently,I started asking Leanne questions so I wouldn't be so ignorant
anymore!!  I asked a LOT of questions!!   And I've spent a lot of time with
him.  I have a long way to go, but I don't feel quite so inadequate
anymore.

Because of Leanne and B my little world has expanded, and that's why last
night I completed my second 'Great Glow Run' - a 5K sponsored by the Easter
Seals organization.  No, don't get excited, I didn't actually "run", I
walked!  My daughter and I both went last year with my Great Dane Annie,
but this year my daughter was sick so it was just me and Annie.

("5K" sounds so accomplished to me!!  "3 miles" sounds so much easier!)

Because we'd participated last year, this year was just a no-brainer and we
signed right up.

And I forgot about Alyssa.

This is where the ex-husbands part comes in...  sort of

I married my children's father because ... well, I was 26 and thinking that
nobody would ever want to marry he - and he apparently did!!  I had a
mental check list going and he got a tic mark in every box!  True love!!
 It was not a match made in heaven and it managed to last about five years.
 I was relieved to see him go.

T
About five years later I married again.  He was almost 13 years younger
than me and we 'dated' for five weeks...  I know, I know!  NOW it sounds
crazy, but I was "madly and passionately" in love then...  THAT marriage
only lasted for about five years as well, but for totally different reasons
- and I was NOT happy to see him go.  In fact, I was pretty devastated and
it was the darkest time of my life.

It was ugly and messy and we didn't speak for a long time.  And then we
did.  By then he'd remarried and had a little baby girl.  We made our peace
and were comfortable... he was back in my kids' lives again (he loved my
kids immediately and that was a HUGE part of my attraction to him I
think!).  We spent time together as one big family, I spent time with and
considered his wife a friend, and we all spent a Christmas together with
his dad who was visiting from California.

And then she took her baby and ran off to Texas!  That's all a very long
story, but to sum it up, HE was now the one devastated and living through
pretty much what I had lived through when he left me and I found no joy in
that whatsoever.  He saw the irony in that too, and apologized again.

I came to a place where I recognized that he was not the man I married, and
in fact, was not even the man I had divorced.  I'm sure I wasn't the same
either!  While I knew that we could never be together, didn't even harbor
any secret daydreams about it - I thought he was just a very sad man -
there was still a connection there between us.  We both knew that we an
ally in life, and the other was only a phone call away.

A couple of years went by and I remarried while he worked the legal system
trying to find and get his daughter back, and then he remarried and had a
new baby boy.

My kids would spent holidays juggling between me, their dad, and Todd. My
son worked with him at a local bar.  Todd was the head of security, and my
son was a bouncer.  We saw each other occasionally, but I only ever saw his
wife a couple of times in passing.  He and I were friends on Facebook and I
was able to oogle pictures of his adorably pretty baby boy, but I was
always a little careful and reserved, making sure that his new young wife
wasn't put out by this ex she didn't know commenting in any way
inappropriately.  According to the kids, she was kind of 'stand-offish' and
they didn't think she was especially friendly.

If we ran into each other we chatted away, and in fact, when his wife was
having a birthday he told my son he wanted him to make a cake!  My son came
home and told me, "Todd told me he wants me to make a cake for Alyssa's
birthday so you have to make one.".  LOVE my son, and because baking cakes
is what I do, I happily made this one!  It took a few weeks to get my cake
taker back, but Todd personally brought it to the house and thanked me
profusely telling me how thoughtful and kind I was.

There stood my second ex:  a man who'd once had half a dozen tattoos
(including one of my name in cursive on his left arm which he'd had a
single line tattooed through after we divorced!) now had dozens tattooed on
both arms and both legs (including now, both of my children's names), both
of his kids' names, a motorcycle engine, a big "N" with an arrow  up which
was kind of his 'logo', and all kinds of crazy stuff that I was always
curious to look at!; his hair shaved to just a short mohawk - again! - and
his face shaved of its recent beard... a not-so-tall but huge bear of a man
who was nothing more than a teddy with a violent streak hiding right
beneath....  We had both changed so much but still my heart did a little
flip to see him.

And that was the last time I saw him.  Within a couple of weeks he was
dead.  He died a hero's death in this little town, when a disgruntled
eighteen year old who'd been tossed from the bar got pissed, went home, and
came back with a gun and started shooting up the place!  Todd, the most
conservative Republican, defender of the 2nd Amendment and card-carrying
NRA member for life that I ever knew!  I've thought often of the irony in
THAT too!  (*http://tinyurl.com/o5odrgf <http://tinyurl.com/o5odrgf>)*

My daughter came to tell me and we went immediately to go see Alyssa, his
wife.

Because Todd had tried an 'older chick' and that didn't work, he was now
married to a younger chick and she was my daughter's age!  Within a couple
of years she'd gone from single to married, a mom and widowed.  The mom in
me just went into overdrive.

Over the next months I kept in contact.  I texted often asking if there was
anything I could do.  In fact I TOLD her, I am going to stalk you until
there IS something I can do!  When something bad happens folks tend to come
from everywhere offering assistance, but then time passes, life goes on,
and the offers stop.  I didn't want that to happen!

And so, over the last eleven months, we've all become our own little
dysfunctional family!  Alyssa got out of the Corps the next month (that was
planned) and stayed here because she had no desire to move back home to
Minnesota.  We've spent holidays and birthdays together, (they came to
Thanksgiving dinner and then my current husband watched little Asa while we
went Black Friday shopping!),
and a few weeks ago, when her birthday rolled around again, I made another
cake for her.... it just seemed to me, to represent coming full circle.

Which was why I was disappointed in myself when Alyssa saw the link for the
Glow Run on Facebook and said she wanted to go, and I realized that I
hadn't thought to include her to begin with!  (And you thought all this
rambling had no good point!)

So we got her registered and last night, after some confusion about the
weather and believing it was going to be a no-go, we all met and picked up
our packets! Leanne and her husband and all three of their kids, her dad
and step-mom who were visiting, another couple who they were best friends
with, me and Annie, and Alyssa and Asa!  We were glowed up and ready to
walk!

We let the real runners, and then walkers, get out of the way, and then we
with strollers, a wheelchair and a dog, took off!

The 3.1 mile trek started at the park on the waterfront in downtown New
Bern (it's an historic city, and actually the first capitol of North
Carolina!), and wove through old neighborhoods with antebellum-type homes,
newer condos on the water, more down-trodden neighborhoods, around a very
old cemetery, and back to the park.

We didn't all stay strictly together... we'd come upon congestion and go
around, get separated, meet up, cause congestion for others, etc...  Along
the way, in all the neighborhoods, we'd encounter folks sitting out on
their porches waving and calling out, cheering us on!  And then we passed
big ole house and heard somebody call out, "... and there goes Pam
North!...".

It was closer to dark than light - this WAS a "glow" run after all! - and I
couldn't see who'd yelled out, but I cringed a little inside for Alyssa to
hear that!  But she laughed it off and said 'hey!, I'm the North here!',
and we kept on going, trying to remember which house it was so I could see
who I knew from years back!

Coming back we left the road and got on the sidewalk so we'd be closer to
the house, and it turns out that it was a guy who had actually been the
Maintenance Officer of the squadron that Todd and I had met and married in!

He saw us coming back and was already apologizing for calling me 'North' -
he knew I wasn't that anymore!  I made the same joke I always do about
having a LOT of last names to choose from, and then I introduced him to the
current Mrs. North and Asa, and we walked on.  And yes, I saw irony in that
too!!

It's been a crazy year...  When I made that cake a year ago I hoped that
she wouldn't find out that *I* had actually made it, and be upset in any
way.  After Todd died and people started spreading out, I made it a point
to have lunch with her a few times a month to keep in contact and check on
her.  When she moved we were there to help.  We chat often by text and
Facebook even if we don't see other.  I think she's very friendly and I
like having her and Ace around.

But I wasn't ever sure what was going through her head about me.  I know
that Todd never spoke ill of me.  In fact, as I've heard often, he spoke
very highly of me and the good person I he thought I was.  But still. I
*was*  (am!) an ex!!

And then a few weeks ago they came to dinner and she brought me a gift.
 She's very self-sufficient and crafty, and she and Asa had made a
'butterfly' picture using his footprints!  FOR ME!

I never knew if she was just tolerating this chick because, or what.  But
it would seem that in the horribleness that has been these last eleven
months, a friendship has been born!  That makes me very happy and I like to
think if Todd had been able to plan, he would have planned it like this.

Three days after Todd's death my son was sworn in at a local police
department.  It would have been a moment of pride for Todd had he been
alive, but at the celebration that day were half a dozen of his closest
friends, supporting his son in his place.

Meanwhile, my daughter, now 25 herself, has told me a few time while
watching her friends lives, that she doesn't remember a single time that
she ever saw her dad and I fight over anything having to do with the kids.
 We didn't fight over holidays, vacations, visitation.  Through the years
we've managed to remain mostly friendly, and I even fixed him up with his
current wife!  ha!

So I've managed to collect a couple of exes in this life where I never
planned to marry so many times, but it hasn't turned out too badly.

Pam