29: & The Beat Goes On

CHAPTER 29

& The Beat Goes On...

I was well into my first marital, or martial?, month with Joe when the reality of my choice of I Do cracked through my system like a depassioned earthquake. His Third Reich aura shoveled mountains of fear and intimidation upon my desire to talk with him, to be loved by him. To even be noticed other than as a silent (yet supportive) servant.

I felt: Oh, God! I married my mother!

With wedding cupcake crumbs still on his mom's floor, I was awakening to what I'd gotten myself into in the name of love, home and apple pie. I promised my life “'Til death do us part” to Mr. Snowman, a very angry guy, an iron willed controller and a boiling pressure cooker.

His initial carefree joking, seeming openness and brother like love was quickly replaced by a My-Way-Or-Else! The Task Master. A Dr. Heckle & Mr. Hide-FROM.

Subconsciously, I chose one more unhappy camper I'd be senselessly struggling to cheer up; unsuccessfully encouraging to move over to the sunny side of Life. One more partner I'd be begging and struggling with for feedback, talk, love, approval, and cuddles.

I had wed the predictable comfort of uncomfortability.

Yes. Life was miserable, but familiar.

Financially, we were dirt poor when we married which the Pollyanna in me viewed as: No problem. A challenge. Hey! We got nowhere to go but up.

Wrong!

I wasn't looking at where I was standing, which was on the edge of a marital abyss, asking to get toppled as soon as he was served enough, as soon as his career of technical artist was aided enough by my in-house unpaid volunteer work as attendant, bookkeeper, presentation advisor, paint brush cleaner and studio floor scrubber as well as housekeeper, cook and keep-silent butleress.

I'm now amazed at the eagerness with which I grasped my role as full-time servant. Possibly, because I knew no other way of strife since birth. Uncomfort zones easily seduce our senses when true comfort and love is an unknown quality.

To insure I was placing not the tiniest speck of weight on Joe's life and race for success, I sought to be the perfect Anony-Mrs. I asked for nothing: no companionship, clothes, or cough medicine. I made sure all our limited funds were routed directly to his career coffer. Thus, fooling myself into thinking: If he got the success he wanted, he'd be happy. And, if he was freed of his frozen wrapping, he'd warm up to Life and then love me.

To accelerate this farce, I put all my wants in cold storage along with personal dreams, and constantly insisted I needed very little to make me happy. Joe generously complied.

I still shiver when I recall our first winter together in Binghamton, then that upstate Salem-like pot hole on the globe, trudging through knee-deep snow: he in warm wool clothing and snow boots; me in a too-small cotton jacket from a thrift store and wet high heels in need of lifts and more soul.

Hearing me sneeze and shiver my face in the short collar, Joe turned to me saying: “Maybe next year I'll get me a new sheepskin, heard it's the best. Then you can have this wool jacket. But, for now, I don't have the extra cash to get you boots or gloves, after all, my art boards are important than you are … it IS for us, babe”

I bought it — the line that is. My not-quite-paralyzed frozen jaw was barely able to mutter: Oh, that's OK, honey. We'll be great! It'll all work out!

As I recall my mad pursuit toward the love mirage, I'm now prone to add an extreme to that warped optimism: “No problem, honey! I'd do anything for you. Freeze my tootsies off. Get pneumonia. Die in this snow drift. Anything, honey. After all, I was born to grovel and I'm well trained for it!”

MEANING:

I can't believe, when I look back to the love seeker I once was, how I could have been so disoriented.

Wrong Way Harrigan had nothing on Wrong Way Me!

I also can't believe how I kept my spirits so high in the quake of such low goals. How I mesmerized myself to think there was a loving light at the end of that lunacy tunnel. Had frost bite devoured my little gray cells?

Due to blindly focusing on the Celebration For Striving that surely must be the reward for all this sacrificing, had anyone then told me our marriage was locked onto a downhill stumble, I'd have denied it. I'd have told the Truth Fairy to pack up her wet blankets and get lost.

With my reality built from Hollywood happy-ever-after blendings, I deluded myself into believing that somewhere in our future, there lurked a glorious horizon, if only I gave more, tried harder and asked for less.

Indeed, something incredible was lurking, more than I ever nightmared.

In line with our pre-marital conversations, our soul goal was for Joe to create his own successful drafting/rendering firm. And Dotty, his coddling mom, constantly jumped into our private life to cheer lead his game plan.

By refusing to unstrangle her apron strings, she chose never to see, nor address, us as a couple. Rather, she saw Joe and I as two opposing teams. Her new sport became: Rooting Joe. Booting me.

She quickly added another role to her docket as Joe's coach. Her psychological pep talks would have made the Gipper seem like a whimpy worrywart.

Her strategy was to repeatedly tell me I had no talent whatsoever as an artist, cook, housewife, or potential mother and that I'd never amount to anything, so I ought to be grateful Joe married me. And, I better work harder if I was ever to be a good wife, forsaking even more for his career.

By steadily feeding me every toxic tidbit in her arsenal, by poisoning my mind against myself, I hung in as a dutiful cost free errand girl and dishwasher. I not only did the windows, but also stayed outside to let her and Joe maintain their togetherness. I asked Joe for nothing and I expected nothing.

And that’s what I got.

Why did I allow her carte blanche entry into my mind? Simple. I was, again, looking for love in all the wrong faces. Having struck out with Ashley and still blaming myself, I wanted to make our relationship work; to give everything I had so she would accept me and be my mom and family.

I even gave up my sanity and integrity.

I renamed the pain I felt from her as just me being too sensitive. Surely, she wouldn't deliberately hurt me. No way! Impossible! Ashley might, but this was a regular real mom. I so wanted her to be different. To be nice.

Ergo! To make her right, I saw no other recourse than to make me wrong. However, this illusion was getting harder and harder to sustain. It ain't easy to keep a house of joker cards standing erect amid a smotherhood mom-soon.

It wasn't easy when we were summoned to dine with her and I could predict how the table would unfold. Joe getting steak and fresh veggies. Me getting leftover macaroni. And, it was getting harder to swallow the candied entree of: “We have to keep up our young man's strength, you know! More sirloin, Joey?”

It wasn't easy, but I conned myself to think:

Nothing worthwhile comes easy. I equated my marriage to my kidhood. Love = Struggle. However, I forgot a main truth: No matter how I struggled in the past, love was never at the finish line. By ignoring the pointless idiocy of the game I volunteered my heart to play, I hung on hoping for a way to win. In time I learned:

No matter how tenaciously we hang onto an eroding bluff, a fall is inevitable.

Joe's first career move coincided with his desire to avoid the approaching military draft. As we bid our farewell to his small town country mudhole, his family showed up to root us down.

His older brother gave us his counsel as he guzzled more Milltowns and cheap scotch: “Life's a fuckin' downer! It ain't worth livin'!” After pitching these words of wisdom into our luggage, he plopped into a broken chair to watch his Casper the Ghost reruns.

My smother-in-law tossed in her two sense: “Never forget, Joe, if you fail, you can always come home to mom… but leave here somewhere else”

Oh, swell! Not quite the Donna Reed I dreamed of.

She then added “Don't worry. I'll come to visit you real soon and stay a few weeks at least to get you settled.”

Double: Oh, swell!

Thus packed with the family's guilt for leaving the fold, we took off into the wild blue wonder for Toronto, Canada. Heading straight into the early dawn with great expectations. Joe: To seek his success. Me: To hopefully discover a new chapter in life, while sighing with gratitude for my release from the family's brigade of heart beaters.

I silently envisioned the possibility of Joe opening his emotions now that Dotty wasn't around to supervise his privacy. The idea of having a little place of our own, spurred me to dream that I might discover more to lovemaking and sex than the rare quickies Joe gave me, which he justified as his way to relieve the tension he was under with his career.

As we drove, the radio should have aired a symphonic rendition of: To Dream The Impossible Scheme.

We made it through the border and soon gained Landed Immigrant papers. The one bedroom apartment we rented was a challenge to my decorating imagination, as I was given only a few dollars to fill it.

No problem! If I could decorate the Trash Motel of kid-hood in my mind, I could make this house a home. Well, at least, make it look like a home.

The wrappings may have improved, but the inner package of our union was decaying so fast that I doubt there was a spiritual Lysol that could have quelled the deathly stench.

Before the advent of submitting our second rent check, our next family move was quickly obvious. I was pregnant. Disarmed by sexual ignorance, upon hearing the news my brain held a silent shouting match with my ignorance:

How did this happen? You're kidding! It can't be real. But it's great, I think. Wow! Me a mom with a baby to love…& hopefully love me, maybe.

I was so overcome by shock of this miracle happening inside me, serving the body for another soul, a baby to cuddle and care for who might fill the giant emptiness of my life to date, that I was oblivious to the whole family picture into which this baby was about to dwell.

Thinking a baby might open Joe's heart, force his mom to put her Guilt Gauntlet down and welcome me into her arms with her first grandchild, by seeing this little miracle as an across the bored peace bringer was asking too much. No baby should have so many burden blankies.

The tip off to reality should have been Joe's reaction to our baby-to-be: “Great! Now I can get a draft exemption. So, if we get kicked outta Canada, I won't have to get one of my toes amputated!”

Call me crazy, and I do now for being so deaf then, but I couldn't figure what the baby had to do with his keeping his toes. In time I did. It meant he'd be undraftable by virtue of being head of family, or whatever his role was in our foot-loose life.

Joe soon learned that Toronto did not lack the artistic talent that his home town did, which translated into: the arms of commerce did not desperately open, grateful for his work and eager to stuff his pockets with unlimited cash.

Our savings had dribbled down to barely enough to fill the gas tank to head back south to await the birth of our child. I was brimming with so many mixed emotions.

At least on the first trek, I traveled on my illusions of finding Apple Pie Land. Now, I knew the reality of our destination. It was a long trip bolstered only by my emotional exhilaration over being a baby-holder. A mom-to-be!

No matter how raunchy, muddy, depressing and primitive life would be in our new/old hometown, I was determined to not let it infect the happiness I felt. I was jazzed as never before. As we drove through the grey, dismal towns slushed by winter, I began writing little notes to our baby within me.

I vowed to save them all to give the baby when (s)he grew up. Sort of a pre-birth documentary of my joy. I'd written so many journals in the past for my whys only, it was thrilling to know I was now corresponding to a real person-to-be.

When we arrived, it was easy to see that nothing changed. Our baby news was greeted with overwhelming apathy laced with hostility. Joe's grandmother capsulized the mood:

“Oh, my. What a dreadful, stupid thing you did, bringing another child into such a horrible world with all the misery it holds. I feel sorry for it already.” Oh, well …

By choosing to have a natural childbirth as I read about, I instantly incurred my smother-in-law's wrath. 'Til then, she had milked great guilt mileage out of reciting the grizzly details of her birthing war stories to her sons and whoever was within heir range.

If it wasn't for my concentrating on that blossoming spark of sunshine within me, I'd have flipped out. Reality was rapidly ripping my illusions into dreads.

Night after night, my heart kept me awake, repeating the same questions: Is this a family? Is this what I missed in my kidhood? Does family equal nothing but arguing, bitching, guilt, revenge and people strangling each others' joy?

For the child within, when (s)he's born, will I be bringing her into what they call a “normal” childhood? Is this the set-up people lament about when speaking of my never having had a “normal” kidhood?

Is what I perceived Joe and his brothers having been raised in, truly a “typical” kidhood? A dad continuing to legacize his angers and endless roster of prejudices onto his boys? A mom lecturing morality while not living the perfection she extolled?

A mom who had an affair with a married fireman, then left her husband and boys for her local flame, a charmer whose pet name for her was “Horseface”? Who now runs around on her, starting more local fires in lonely women's lives while she still controls the lives of her ex and boys, the oldest being a desolate, jobless drug and alcohol abuser who thinks life's “a fuckin' downer”. A middle son aka weekend drunk and degrader, hating women as much as he hates Jews. And Joe, the youngest, a self-centered iceberg & my 1^st husband.

This is family? This is what I missed? Oh, please, dear Life, don't tell me there's no Donna Reed!

In one way, sleep became an escape from the day drones where the only entertainment was housework, cooking and cleaning up after the Bigot Boys — yes, we were back at the shack, and I was back at watching them watch away their time with more Casper or 3 Stooges reruns.

I never painted during that spell because, as Dotty told me: “Better not waste those valuable supplies on your silly scratchings. Joe needs them for his work! He's the talent, the money maker in the family, not you. And you'll need all you can get now that you went and got yourself pregnant!” Wow! Guess she wanted me to be the second Immaculate Conception!

Hey! Didn't she read any sex education books either? Did she think this was a solo sex venture?

With the pace of those days, quickened only by the lure of endless shack cleaning, I clock-watched, hoping the hands would sprint faster around the dial toward sleep time.

But the silent nights never brought the detour from the everyday Valley of the Dulls, never desensitized my mind nor my daydreams. It only made my questions ring louder. It intensified my doubts about the sanity of holding onto this impossible quest for love. The night's silence forced me to take a hard clear look at the mess my distorting imagination had gotten me into — this time by choice.

Though smack in the midst of a large family, a position I long prayed for as a kid, I never felt more painfully alone.

As it always does, time passed. I practiced my natural birth exercises and read every book the library had on the topic. With what I gleaned, I was well prepared to give birth in a rice paddy or an Aboriginal hut. But, I wasn't ready for Dotty's escalating hostility and disapproval for my birth plan.

I recall that shortly after Joe and I had moved into a cheap place of our own so he could have more room to work, Dotty surprised me by unexpectedly dropping by for morning coffee. I was about 8 months pregnant at the time.

Seeing my library of natural childbirth books on the table, she dowsed my joy with one more threatening forecast of my impending delivery: “If this baby dies because of your stupid choice to have it natural, without drugs, it'll be your fault if the baby dies! You will have killed my first grandchild!”

I suddenly longed for Ashley's speechless persona.

Ultimately, Tanya was born! Naturally and beautifully! A glorious bundle of healthy, happy, brand new life! Having already grown to adore her as she grew within me, seeing her felt like a reunion with a long unseen friend.

Time would tell that it was a good thing I savored every moment of her babyhood. She became my soul focus, as Joe distanced himself even further from me. He wanted no part of her unfolding baby years.

He was turned off by the idea of more “nuisance takers” and raced off to get a vasectomy shortly after her birth when he was about 20, despite the steady stream of panic buttons his mom pushed to scare him out of it.

As that was a first time I witnessed Joe going against his mother, I thought there was hope for him to outgrow her clutches. Wrong! It just showed me he was as stern and self-serving as I was quickly discovering.

I realized his compliance with his mom's wishes was only because he agreed with her and gained extra freedom by letting her seem responsible for his choices.

I also saw how he agreed with the ceaseless critiques she leveled against me, gaining the pleasure of not having to spend his energy to express them, while being able to sit in the audience as she took target practice.

I balanced the intensifying tummy-twisters her attacks churned within me by cherishing every joyful moment of Tanya's baby years. Sure, they weren't all sweet and comfy. There was endless floor pacing, sleepless nights, countless diapers to change and wash, constant nursing of an always hungry baby, not a moment when I wasn't on-call as Joe nurtured his sleep, privacy and career. Also, I soon discovered, having a family does not necessarily mean having handy, loving baby sitters.

During the first 2 years, I fantasized about having 20 free minutes for the pleasure of a long hot shower without worry of Tanya crawling or waking with no one tending her, even though the house was full of relatives.

Those early years were rough. I'd have needed a lobotomy to say it was a gentle breeze. But, I never regretted her.

Even as I cuddled her in the old barn rocker we got from a neighbor, singing her renditions of Joan Baez' greatest hit lullabies in the wee hours of many mornings, I kept a pad of paper nearby for the journals I wrote her. Expressing the total love and warmth I felt. Describing the pink innocence of her little sleeping face, her tiny fingers grasping my robe.

When lack of cash forced us to relinquish our apartment and move back to the country hut, Tanya gave me focus, even though we inherited the cold bedroom off the kitchen, which meant Joe got one of the pushed together twin beds, Tanya the other and I got the middle crack, if I slept at all.

Waking up for so many nights on the icy linoleum floor probably was an omen of the near future, but I didn't see it then. I'd given myself an acute case of Tanya tunnelitis as the surrounding territory was getting too rocky to negotiate.

Eventually, we saved enough money to move back to Toronto. And, I'm so glad I glutted on loving her as life was about to put me on a high assault diet.

With all the time Joe had free to perfect his skill, this time the city's arms greeted us with more opportunity. Now I thought, clutching onto the last fragmentary shreds of my illusion, our marriage would have to get better. Wouldn't it?

Throughout the few years after our wedding, I never again experienced a replay of that ominous vision of the kingdom ruled by my assassinated brother aka Joe. Instead, another vision reeled in my head as I slid from wakefulness to sleep.

In it, I felt myself sweating in long black garb with lead heavy shoes, plodding through a cold scenario. I sensed it was Salem. I felt alien to its oppressive atmosphere, and wanted to kick up my heels, if not for the hell it would have evoked in the name of their version of God.

In this repeated vision, the town morality dictator, Elder Jonson, came to call and haul me into the town square. He declared me a witch and like a Greek chorus, the town sang his lead. Art sketches of mine had been discovered and since pleasure was verboten, Jonson incited the town into voting me the week's guest of dishonor at their upcoming Satanic Bar-B-Q.

There was a great uproar as I was ordered to be yoked into a wooden neck locker while the town folk tossed me a salad of rotten veggies smack into my face.

Later that night, Jonson struck a pious pose and told me, and the lingering veggie tossing audience, that I'd be torched & hung by midnight.

Hey! Let the Bar-B-Q begin! If only Emeril could have come to my rescue!

Though angered at the injustice in this vision, a calm relief rushed through me as I was served my stake. I sensed they were doing me a favor of release, despite their gloating over their power to extinguish my mortal life ... de-Earthing rid me of their oppressiveness and freed me to leave the planet to mingle with the Godian energies.

As the torch was lit, Jonson came forward to light my fire. I chilled as I looked into his icy cold eyes. I should have hated him, but I didn't. I did not forgive, nor pity him. I just conceded to the level of life he chose. Within, I thanked him for causing my exit from their pious imprisonment of fear.

As I looked into those eyes during the repeats of that vision, through time, they became more familiar. I knew them beyond my knowledge of him in that era. As I looked, I felt great sorrow for his actions as he knew not what he was doing to his own soul. His evolvement. His karma.

That vision haunted me. I begged for more data on Elder Jonson. One night, the vision chilled in freeze frame. The face became that long ago kingdom's dominating brother.

Again, it was Joe.

Oh, great! Now what? Which way do I go, Nanny, which way do I go?

Joe was accruing a list of clients for his work. Money was coming in, though I was still told to rely on thrift stores and Salvation Army for whatever I needed as a wardrobe.

Joe, however, moved up to custom tailored togs for his “needed” image, or so was the story he fed me.

But, swallowing that trash talk was becoming more difficult as I chose not to read the signals our life was drastically riddled with, including day and night dramas of Joe telling me we had to give Tanya up for adoption because he needed more room to work.

Very long story very shortly told, I was told to get out of his home & his mother would take care of our daughter. I was “needless”.

But, as he added, even though I was getting in his way, he still expected me to drop by to clean his art studio, scrub the floors and launder.

He said it was the least I could do for all the years he fed and clothed me and gave me a roof over my head.

His words were shot with such unexpected speed, like a crazed sniper, that it was impossible to balance my emotions steadily enough to compute what was really happening.

While in the midst of these recommendations, Joe was simultaneously on an emotional pilgrimage toward a forum wherein he could satisfy his desire to certify his inflexible need to be right, without challenge; to secure a social haven for his emotional coldness and need to be above reproach.

He impetuously started hanging out with a new group that was most eager to bring him into their fold. They did so by offering a zealous membership into their Holier-Than-Thou-&-All-Others Club, the Jehovah Witnesses, which was a far prayer away from his devout atheism.

Suddenly, he was eager to talk not with me, rather at me. Now he had prescribed Club approved pre-written answers and statements for every question I asked. He turned into a religious robot. Sure, our at-home ambience had iced into frost fright, but now there was no chance for the home fires to ever kindle.

The experience I gleaned on programming clubs from my trek through Catholic Campland was amply challenged by this new onslaught. The marketeering was the same, only the product's name had changed. I was now expected to buy their truth that Jehovah was the real, one-and-only king pin of all gods.

Once again, I sought to Walk My Talk by explaining my love for my Godian belief and my disinterest in financing, emotionally or monetarily, any religious industry.

My kidhood reruns began as I was told of my blasphemy, my sinfulness in denying the right way, which was, coincidentally, their way. Also, the “only way”.

In time, the business we built began to show deep foundational cracks as clients were not thrilled with getting art work wrapped in his Jehovah lectures and being told that they had better mend their evil strays by joining his club or risk eternal damnation in the Armageddon due any day.

Life became a convertathon bouncing between forces to save my soul while hearing I was beyond their salvation. Not 'til later did I see the farce thru their pleas.

Pleas for me to dump my beliefs lest my “sinfulness” cause Tanya's eternal demise in the fires of hell due to her not having a Jehovah mother when their Big Boy comes to Earth to snatch and save his chosen 144,000 members.

I was tempted to ask: since their worldwide count was higher than that, who were the “chosen 144,000”? Were the “chosen” to be based on sales quota of recruits or what?

I silently thought, if over the centuries, only 144,000 of you shall be saved, then why are you out everyday going door-to-door recruiting more people to become Jehovah? Aren’t you lowering your odds of divinity & bliss?

Naturally, I said nothing. Who would listen?

I heard measureless directives to get lost because my Godian philosophies contaminated Joe's and our daughter's lives. I was told to disappear without trace.

I had more doubts and questions over their tactics than I had for my earlier club experience. I must say they did let me voice them, at first, but I was constantly amazed by their machine gun speed for retaliating with prescribed answers.

I soon learned how power could warp in their control.

Red flags hoisted like a medieval regatta as I was told of how their members must sever ties with their mates if they refused to see the light — their light. How kids must remain with the Jehovah parent so as to increase their flock. And, how their club's legal clout insures the child transfer. On and on, those red flags unfurled.

At first, the idea of our marriage breaking up didn't ring real for me. Even after Tanya's birth, the concept of being married all seemed so ambiguous. Joe cut all possibilities for warmth and affection from our togetherness. My role in his life was restricted to being his all-around flunky. I hung in as there was nowhere to run with Tanya. I had no birth family to seek comfort with.

The frosty coldness of fear caked our place so thickly it made me wonder if Joe had attended the same parent prep school as Ashley. He was so comfortable in the role of judge and jury. So effortlessly able to cut compassion from his program.

The more I stared into his eyes, the more I saw him topped by that high buckled Salemite hat and black sweaty garb from those very old days and ways, now resurrected as new.

My bed became a slab of foam in the hallway outside our bedroom so as to not impose. I lived in terror of Joe's laser stares. He became a walking firing range of righteousness. I trembled at the idea of him finding a carrot that had committed veggie suicide in our fridge lest he lecture me for negligent wife-ing.

True, this group had no battle cry toward lefties. But, my art work and interest in astrology became a main focus for the tribunal. Proof that I was definitely ruled by the devil!

Here we go again! Was I living a road show of my past? And, for how many pasts — from that Kingdom to Salem to only God knows where? Though in this episode we weren't in Salem where he could stake his claim on my life, this time our daughter's future was at stake.

Joe's posse, once having sentenced me to damnation, now encouraged Joe to distance Tanya from me by storing her with his mom and taking legal custody of her in the name of Jehovah. And so he did, leaving me after a few years with my thrift store rags, my journals and artwork.

They specifically voiced their aversion to my art as the eyes I painted were “too real”, which to them was surely the work of the devil. In leaving, Joe left me a tip for my time spent with him: a stack of Watchtowers, $20 plus his written assurance that I was destined to “burn in the fires of hell” for not grabbing my last chance for salvation.

Wow! He was still carrying a torch for me! But not the kind featured in Harlequin romances.

The aftermath afforded me the opportunity to travel as a bag lady for many months through Toronto's wintry streets. This vivid passage deepened my empathy for the madness humans can cause fellow humans in the name of their god.

As well, it caused me to broaden my awareness of the bag people I saw roaming the streets of Manhattan when I was a kid. My viewing was now behind the rags rather than from within the crowds who zap the homeless into invisibility with their do-not-get-involved apathy. I saw how easy it is for any of us to be devastated by a quirk of fate.

I sought refuge by sneaking into the basements of several neighborhood rooming houses and deserted alley ways for warmth and possible sleep. I knew of no shelters for women then in Toronto, and doubt the need was acknowledged then in that city.

Throughout, I was haunted by wondering if Joe and his posse would ever really love Tanya. Would ever hug her. As well, I felt our daughter was most likely to be programmed to hate me and believe I was a vile woman who shamelessly deserted and discarded her; a witch who never loved her.

Child abuse hides behind so many names and games. Was this one more playing field?

I had no personal family to seek help from nor did I know anyone in Toronto well enough to ask advice. Even the police told me the situation was hopeless as it was legal: the abductor was her dad and I had no papers to prove custody.

After many icy months, I boot-strapped myself up to the first rung of social respectability with the help of an angel who gave me some clothes, a place to stay in one of those rooming houses, a phone number to receive job calls at, and most of all, belief and moral support to help me find a door out of despair. Someone believed in me and gave me a chance to help myself. The idea of chosen family planted its first significant seed in my heart.

Soon as I could, I sought help from a lawyer. The wrong one. I later learned he was called the Auctioneer by many ex-clients. He was well known for selling out to the highest bidder, especially opposing counsel.

The opponent, my soon-to-be-ex, was backed by his posse and cult's massive legal squad and thus won the auction. Though I was becoming semi-street smart, I was then law-dumb… not now.

I was told that going to court was “unnecessary”; that lay people aren't allowed to read their own court documents; that all my opportunities to gain access to our daughter were moot; that there was no reason for me to bring in witnesses against Joe's character, even if I could find them, as that was a no-no in family law; that I didn't have enough money to pay for my day in court; that my lawyer would do whatever fudging was necessary to get me a divorce; that the papers he had me quickly sign were not worth reading as they were just the usual red tape legal mumbo-jumbo, nothing to do with custody. And, I dumbly bought it.

I should have watched more Perry Mason shows. Maybe I would have questioned more than I did. Maybe I wouldn't have let his intimidating title of The Lawyer get in the way of common sense. Maybe I'd have gotten another opinion. Maybe, maybe! Heck! For many years, I nearly maybe-ed myself into a spastic grave.

Truth was I couldn't afford another opinion. I was barely making enough to finance my daily diet of two bran muffins and a cup of java per day at Fran's Coffee Shop. God only knows why, but I gave into the over-whelming pressure.

Sure, it's easy now to tell myself: You were a jerk! You should have tried harder! I could hate myself, but I can't. Without any self-deluding doubt, I know I exhausted my options at the time. I still recall the bone chilling sensation of being totally out of control. Abandoned. Up the creep without a paddle.

But, regret can't change what happened. And as yet, I'm unaware of any formula to get our hindsight ahead of us. If I could have found the formula, I might have earned enough cash to have bought the Auctioneer and supported Tanya and myself. As Joe once warned before his conversion: “If you ever leave, I'll never help you. I'll disappear and you'll be stranded. Don't expect anyone in my family to help you.”

I retreated into a private time span of day and nightmares, racing to every little blond girl I saw, hoping it was her.

Tanya's “Mommy!” cries laced through every dream from which I bolted awake to answer her phone calls that never rang.

Then one day, I let go and pulled the plug on my guilt. I stopped struggling to rewrite what was carved in granite. I realized I had to become the best I could be to survive. As motivation, I figured if Tanya were ever to make contact, I wanted to be ready, emotionally and financially.

Though, I still hold onto that dream, I no longer have any attachment to when and if it ever happens. No attachment to whether she believes or disbelieves what she's been told to assume about me. And I'm not kidding myself. She may want to have nothing to do with me. And if so, so be it. I still love her as-is.

Surprisingly, what comes to me as I type this tale is my lack of anger at Joe, which is probably why I'm able to write about this for the first time without the shakes or inner rage that had swelled from the deep crevices in my heart for how he handled our union and split. I figure he did what he felt was right at the time. At least, that's what I'm choosing to believe for my own piece of mind. Not that I agree with his choice. I, too, had choice — I just didn't know it.

That devastating time could have saddled my heart with substantial cause for dragging massive sorrow sacks through the years. I could have used it as an excuse to cut myself off from all kids. I could have turned the future into a proxy target for my past loss.

I had many options if I was looking for a copout. But, I guess our true spirit always surfaces with the strength of our soular buoyancy. Ergo! I never let the kids I've met receive less from my heart than I am able to give. My ability to love remains unsinkable.

By not seeking revenge for my past I never punished my future. My experience opened my heart to what I allowed myself to endure when I still toted feelings of unworthiness from my kidhood judgers.

When Joe, his mom and the posse kept repeating that I was a bad person, part of me believed it. When they told me I was incapable of being a good mother because I didn't buy into their group, I fell under their sell.

When Joe cut all ties to any intimate affection, it was so familiar with how Ashley acted, or didn't act, that I figured maybe this really is life.

Maybe this is my fate. I am unlovable… though that did not convince me that I could not still luv others!

When Joe and the posse threatened to take Tanya from me and I felt the horror of that loss, it seemed like I had fallen into a deja-who dive.

This chill surfaced when I re-called Ashley's curse of long ago:

“If you ever have a daughter, I hope she destroys your life and makes you as miserable as you've made me!”

THOT:

Though the initial abuser may be gone, how the memories can linger wrong.

I had thus officially become my own abuser by believing their cult crap. By giving Joe rulership over the caliber of my life, I gave him and his posse control over my value as a woman. No wonder it was so easy for them to sell me their verdict. No wonder it was so hard for me to read between the lies.

True, when their spiritual issue of my worth was force-fed, I didn't eat. I'd never buy group over God.

Even when they cleverly aimed at the side of me I was most ill-equipped to defend: my Earthly self-worth.