TheBanyanTree: there is no subject

[Sally Larwood]

Where's the like button?

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 31 Mar 2014, at 6:10, Mike Pingleton <pingleto at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Pam, you're like the sun, and all its little moons and planets are like
> your family, captured in orbit around you.
> 
> Love and cake are the binding forces.
> 
> -Mike
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Pam Lawley <pamj.lawley at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 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
>>