Widows, Zombies, Unconditional Love

Michael, my husband, and I had as close to a fairy-tale love as you can get in real life.  We fell madly in love with each other, almost at first sight.  We had a deep respect for each other that allowed us to cultivate the new exciting infatuation we held into a lasting meaningful love that could, and should, have lasted for decades.

But, the injuries my husband experienced on that fateful night in January 2000 (see:  'Til Death Do Us Part), changed everything.  I'm coming to the realization that I became a widow that night.  That's right, technically, my husband died fourteen years ago.  The man he has been since and is today I am still very much in love with, which of course is what is making my acceptance of the next chapter in my life so difficult.  You see, although I lost the man I married; the man I had only been married to just short of three years, so long ago, I have had the capacity to find happiness in the smallest things.  I have had all my memories of not only events but the emotions that accompanied those events.  My husband has not been so lucky.

The trauma that my husband experienced changed the entire chemistry of his brain.  When he woke up from the coma, he was not the same person he was when he woke up and went to work three days prior.  I have known this for years, in one way or another.  But because of my memory of life with him prior to the accident, I had the benefit of the love we once shared to help me fall in love with him all over again, and again and again over the years.

It hasn't been easy.  There is a saying that certainly rings true here.

"Sometimes the strongest among us fights battles that nobody knows about."

I have spent years protecting my husband from ignorant speculation.  For years, I have made excuses to those who got close enough to see that something was off, but who just didn't have enough information to understand.

For me, the past fourteen years have been a time of unconditional love.  I have been called names.  I have endured Jekyll and Hyde mood swings.  I have learned more patience as I have waited for my husband to recover from 1-2 minute episodes where he would stop dead in his tracks, remain silent like he literally left the building, and then pick up right where he left off like nothing ever happened countless times.  I have become the unwaivering caregiver of a man who couldn't remember where he put his wallet, his keys, his calendar; who couldn't remember how old he was, or where he was going just two minutes earlier.  I have been told, for months immediately after the accident, cruel things like:  "I don't know you."  "Why don't you just leave me alone."  "I don't want you here, you aren't my wife.  I don't have a wife."

But I never left.  My love for him never faltered.  In fact, it grew more deeply because I knew better than anyone how much this man has overcome.  He is an amazingly strong man.  And one of the most selfless men ever to grace this planet.

Selfless, I claim, because his experience of the last fourteen years has been quite different from mine.  When he woke up from the coma, although the shell was the same (although very badly beaten up, but those injuries were not life altering as much as the TBI), he was empty.  He found himself in very rare position of having to recreate himself.  I was a widow when he woke up.  When he woke up, he was a zombie.

I'm not going to pretend to understand everything.  But my husband has gone most of this time feeling like he was just being controlled by a puppet master.  He went through the motions, did what he was suppose to, was told, or had to do.  But so much of who he was, was lost forever that night.

When he started treatment for the depression, and started getting help for the TBI this past December (2013), he started feeling emotions again.  I don't know if he never had any emotions over the course of our marriage since the accident.  I feel that he did.  Unfortunately most of those he does not remember.  His short term memory is such that it is difficult for him to remember emotions.  Things that he can touch; concrete items, or things that he can repeat over and over in his head to help him remember, has come easier for him.  But the abstract concepts, especially how he feels about something has been harder for him to grasp and hold on to.  I actually haven't had a chance to talk to any of his doctors since they have done the MRIs and CAT scans through the TBI clinic, but knowing this, I would assume the damage that I've been told the doctors can see on those tests would be focused in the areas of the amygdala (which is responsible for the formation of emotions and is also partly responsible for the "fight or flight" response--think PTSD) and hippocampus.  Both of these areas are located in the temporal lobes of the brain, which are located behind the eyes and would also explain the issues my husband developed with his eyes since the accident.  (sidebar:  yes, it is much easier to understand all of this with my biology background).  The temporal lobes are in charge of short term and long term memory storing, thought-processing, language learning, and mood stability.  Once the hippocampus is damaged the brain can neither store new experiences or retrieve old memories.  Starting to make sense?

Getting back to his experience.  I still wonder how much of his perceptions or actual memories play a part in this, because like I said, my experiences have been different, but he believes that he was never truly happy since the accident.  That he never regained who he was, and because he woke up in a life that he didn't remember creating, he felt obligated to go through the motions, much like a robot, or in his words, a "zombie".  This perception of his life is very real to him. And I respect that.  I hate that he feels this way.  But I can see where he is coming from and completely empathize with how he must feel.

But things are different now.  The doctors at the TBI clinic have had him in extensive therapy to try to "retrain" parts of his brain, and he's been on medications to help the severe and chronic depression that he developed from going so many years without feeling in control of his own life.  For the first time in a very long time, he has the capacity to feel happy.  He wants to continue to be happy.  He wants to continue to enjoy life and find more than just "comfortable", which is what we had.

I want him to be happy.  But he is a totally different person from the man that I married.  Our experiences make us who we are.  However, most of us always still have our core self.  My husband lost his core and has had to recreate a new one.  And unfortunately, he doesn't feel that the love for me is the kind of love that he can sustain a happy marriage with.  I don't completely understand, yet, why this is.  Hopefully eventually I can understand better, because I think that understanding will help me to let go and move on.

I have no doubt that he loves me.  He loves me deeply.  He's done things for me that no one else would have done.  Things that were both selfless and full of caring.  Sometime in the past fourteen years, he did grow to love and appreciate me very much.  He knows and understands what I have done and sacrificed for him.  And he knows that I would happily continue to do so, if given the chance.

We both agree that if he had not had the accident; or if he had gotten proper treatment long ago, there is a very good chance that we could still be mutually (that's the key word here I think) happily married.  But, we can't change the fact that my husband's brain chemistry is totally different.  He is a totally different man.  And although I have grown to love him more and more over the years, and remain in love with him, he just is not in love with me.

It hurts.  It hurts down to my core.  I feel, as I always have, that God made me with him in mind.  We have had a good life together.  And he says he has some good to take from the situation.  But he wants, and needs, to move on.  He wants a divorce.

It's all very difficult to understand.  I have lived it and am right in the middle of all the pain and mess, and I have a difficult time understanding why he can't continue to be married to me.  Afterall, now he finally has the capacity to be happy and enjoy this family that we have created together.  And I think that is the hardest part for me.  That he held on so long, because he loved me and the kids that much, when he couldn't be happy due to his TBI/PTSD/depression, and now that he is getting treatment he is letting us go.  But I think when it boils down to it, although he doesn't blame me for all the pain he experienced over the years, he does associate me with it.  And that, I think is painful for him.  Too painful for him.

He has assured me that he doesn't blame me for anything and that, in fact, life without me during that time would have been too painful to endure.  That I was his one bright light among darkness and that he will always love me and be grateful for the unwaivering, unconditional love I have always showed him.  And he says that our marriage, other than the pain and depression, was MORE GOOD than bad.  This does help me find solace.  It helps me know that those things that kept me going during the difficult times were real.  Helps validate my feelings and hard work that I put into everything.

Michael and I are hoping to remain best friends.  We certainly have that.  Always have.  He remains committed to taking care of me and the kids, and he promises that as long as he is able, I will not want for much, if anything.  We are still working out the logistics and details.  And I'm still sorting out my feelings.  Yes, I'm devastated.  My devotion to family and marriage is the strongest.  My commitment to him has never lessened.  And my world has been completely turned upside down.  But he is helping me get through it.  I cry on his shoulder alot.  He holds me alot.  And yes, there's been some less pleasant conversation where the anger we both feel at the situation comes out.  But things will eventually work out.  Will we come full circle some day and end up together?  I don't know.  I don't know what God has planned for us.  Right now, it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  But no matter what, we will be best friends, confidants, and co-parents for the rest of our lives.

A Journey of Matrimony

My Story: ‘Til Death Do Us Part

A Journey of Matrimony

 

            My story begins when I was eighteen years old.  I was in college, on a full academic scholarship; studying biology and chemistry.  I worked part time at the bookstore in the mall and had a work-study job at the campus radio station (NPR).  Neither job paid much, but it paid what few bills I had as a teenager going to school full time and still living at home.  I had just a handful of friends, but those where like family to me.  Romantically, I really wasn’t interested in dating. 

            But all of that changed one day as I was shelving books in the Science Fiction section of the bookstore.  As Anne McCaffrey (or was it R.A. Salvatore?), graced my finger tips, I did what I always did as I noticed a customer tickling the shelves next to me—I asked him if there was anything I could help with him.  After all, we never knew when we might be mystery shopped, and I didn’t want to get a bad “grade”.  The customer made a joke about trying to stay broke, I responded by confirming that he picked a good spot to do so, and a conversation about books, coffee shops and music transpired.  He had to go pick his mother up from work and I had to get back to work, so after a tantalizing conversation, we parted ways.

            A few days later, the customer came back into the store.  He apparently had been looking for me, but I hadn’t been scheduled to work.  The KISS reunion concert was coming to town, and he had tickets from the local radio station.  He had painted some art pieces and given them to the station for decoration, and as a result was gifted tickets often.  I agreed to go to the concert, but in my haste, had failed to realize that I barely knew this guy!  So, I ended up calling him and asking him to go out to get to know each other before we went out of town with each other for the concert.

            That first date was great!  We met at the mall, and decided to go to Taco Bell and then a movie.  Conversation came easily with him, so easily that we actually lost track of time and missed our movie and had to go to a later showing.  I started to realize that there might be the potential for a great friendship here, because talking had never been so easy for me, especially with a member of the opposite sex.

            Over the following week and a half, before the concert, we went out a couple more times, but more than anything we spent hours and hours on the phone talking.  We easily averaged 4-5 hours on the phone every day.  By the time the concert came around, we were really good friends.  This was just a short two weeks!  And a week after the concert, just three weeks after meeting, the customer in the Science Fiction section of the bookstore, proposed to me.

            I couldn’t have asked for a better proposal.  It was private, just him and me.  He had made a tape—for you youngin’s, who only know about mp3s or even CDs, cassette tapes are really old school!—of soft-pop 80s music, had the room full of white gardenia candles, got down on one knee…the whole shebang!  Our “song” played in the background as he asked me—“Angel Eyes” by The Jeff Healey Band.

            Michael knew how important my schooling was, and so we had decided to have a long engagement, not setting a date until after I was set to graduate.  However, when we broke the news of the engagement to family, they were none-so-pleased.  I don’t blame them.  Now that I’m a mother, I understand completely if my daughter, or son, came home after just three weeks of meeting someone and announcing that they are engaged, I’d probably react the same way.  But we knew it was for real.  It’s against all logic, but he was my “one and only”, and I was his.

            Our plans for a long engagement soon changed because it became clear that our family would continue to try to break us apart.  After six months, in April 1997, we eloped to the Justice of the peace at the local courthouse, with plans to have our marriage convalidated soon.  I was just nineteen years old; Michael was twenty one.  But we were madly in love and the best of friends.

            Right before we got married, Michael was contacted by his Army recruiter.  Before we met, he had looked into enlisting, but because he had congenital anosmia, he was requiring a waiver from the Surgeon General.  That waiver had gone through.  The following six weeks was a whirlwind as we prepared for him to go off to Basic Training.

            Although we spent the first year of our marriage apart due to his military training and my need to finish my degree, we talked on the phone as much as possible and used that time to continue getting to know each other.  Everything we learned about each other over that time, only solidified our love for each other.

            Once I joined him at Fort Bragg, we were the happiest we could be.  He did work a lot, but when he was home we played cards and watched movies.  We genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.  It wasn’t long, and we started building a family.

            We had our ups and downs, but our love always helped us navigate back to each other.  In January 2000, after finding out that we were pregnant with our second child, I decided I wanted to take a trip home back to Texas.  We decided to use up some of the leave hubby had saved up, and were planning on taking thirty days to go home and spend time with our families.  However, during that time that we were planning to be gone, Michael’s jump status would expire and he’d be due to make a jump.  You see, when you are airborne, you are required to make a jump at minimum every three months, otherwise your status would change and you would loose the hazard pay.  But Michael’s NCO (boss) made arrangements for him to jump with another group.  It was going to be a nighttime, mass-tactical jump.  One of the more dangerous jumps.  But I had all the confidence that Michael would be fine.  He was well trained, had several jumps under his belt already, and didn’t play around.

            The night of the jump, Thursday, when the time I expected him to be home came and passed, I started to grow worried.  Finally, I got the dreaded phone call from Michael’s Commander.  There had been an accident.  We only had one car at the time, and it was at the company.  So I still had to wait six hours for Michael’s NCO to come onto post for work in order to pick me up.  Fortunately, my neighbor, who was coming in late that night from a fashion show in Raleigh, NC that night, saw that I was still awake and sat with me while I waited. 

            After getting the car, I drove up to the hospital.  When I got there, Michael was still unconscious.  He looked terrible.  He was black and blue.  As I sat there by his side, I couldn’t imagine how bad it really was.  I hadn’t been told much at this point, and thought he was just sleeping.  But, he didn’t wake up, at all that day.  I had to leave and take care of our daughter, who was only 11 months old at the time.  But I made plans to return the next day. 

            The next day, not expecting anything but to see my husband and take him home, I dropped our daughter off at a friend’s house, and headed up to the hospital.  Michael was still asleep.  I stayed with him as long as I could, but had to go be a mother to Anastasia after a few hours, so I returned home with her.  This went on for three days. 

Finally, on Sunday morning, as Anastasia played quietly at my feet, beside her daddy’s bedside, Michael woke up.   But it wasn’t the happy, he opens his eyes, looks over to me and smile moment that I had dreamed of the past three days.  When he woke up, he had a look of terror on his face.  He barely glanced in my direction, and before I could react, he was jumping out of bed, pulling all his leads off and bolting towards the door screaming.  It took several of the orderlies to restrain him.  After they restrained him and calmed him down, the doctor came over and started asking him questions.  This was when reality really started to kick in for me.  I still had no idea how much my life was going to change, but I grew scared.  He didn’t know that he was in the military.  He didn’t know that he was in North Carolina.  He didn’t remember his family.  He didn’t remember me.  His wife.  The mother of his child, with another child on the way.  What child?  He didn’t remember Anastasia.  He had complete amnesia, as rare as that is, my husband had it.

He went home with me because he was told it was okay, that I was his wife.  Over the course of the next few months, I constantly worked with him.  Showed him pictures of family, my family, things we had done together, his friends.  Basically teaching him the parts of his life that he had shared with me prior to the accident.  It’s a good thing we spent all those hours just talking, getting to know each other!  It was hard and it was so anxiety-filled.  I yearned for the life I had lost so suddenly.

By the time Michael came up on PCS orders to Fort Polk, as far as I knew most of his memories had returned.  It seemed to get easier and easier and memories started coming back on their own, without my help.  But there was still something different.  You see, he hadn’t only forgotten who I was, our life together, our dreams for the future.  He had forgotten that he was in love with me.  I think his love for me grew over time because he saw how much I was doing for him.  I was his rock.  Between the gratitude he held for me and the knowledge that he was “suppose” to love me, a genuine love did develop.  But it was never the same as before.  The passion was gone.  We were friends, almost out of necessity.  And I was still madly in love with the man I married.  But he was no longer IN love with me. 

I tried and tried, but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t seem to get him to fall back IN love with me again.  I tried everything I could think of.  After moving to Louisiana, I even did things that I never would have before, and regret doing, in an attempt to gain his love.  Over time, we grew comfortable.  We were married with two beautiful children.  Our family worked and he did love me….but it still wasn’t the same as before. 

After 9/11 and nineteen months of constant deployments, Michael decided he wanted to change his MOS.  He did what he had to do and we got orders for Fort Belvoir.  By this time we were pregnant with our third child. 

Fast forward a bit because the next four years or so, the fact that I felt like there was still a piece of my marriage missing was put on the back burner due to the need to care for the special needs of Connor.  The roller coaster that was Connor’s medical journey was difficult because, although I had my best friend, there was still a distance between the two of us.  Physically, Michael really stepped up to the plate.  I would not have been able to take care of Connor with out him.  Michael is a FANTASTIC father.  And for that I am forever grateful for.  But, had he grown to be “in love” with me again?  No.  At this point, I had lived close to eight years with a man that I was completely, head-over-heels in love with, but didn’t return the sentiment.

But the time came when the Army started looking at Michael.  He had been stagnant in his career for almost five years, the possibility of another compassionate assignment at Belvoir was slim to none, but Connor’s needs could only be met here in the MDW area.  So after a lot of research, soul searching and planning, Michael left for Korea.  The hope was to boost his career and find a way to come back to the area.  But, when he got there, as with many promises made in the military, all of our plans fell through because none of the promises made to us were kept because the job he was suppose to be able to come back to after Korea was done away with.  Suddenly, we were being told that he was going to have to stay in Korea indefinitely and not be able to return to Belvoir, or his family.  Couple this news with being worked like a dog; working 20+ days with no break for 18+hours at a time, only to have one day off and then do it all over again.  Communication back home was difficult due to the time change and the fact that I was pretty much doing the job of five people by myself. 

Michael grew depressed.  He started drinking again, a habit he stopped cold turkey the day he met me.  And some of my friends, some of his, started exchanging in inappropriate conversations.  I had no knowledge of this at the time.

After seventeen months in Korea, he left and went to Missouri for the prime power school.  This was what we had been needing.  He was changing his career and would be able to stay in the DC area so that we could be a family again.  But some habits had been created and continued.

Finally after two and a half years, Michael finally returned home.  My concern for whether Michael “just” loved me versus being “in love” with me had been shadowed by my desire to just have him home with me again so we could be a family.  After all, he might not be passionately, madly in love with me, but he did love me.  He provided for me and his children, and we were good friends.  I had grown content with what I did have, which is more than many women.

The first year Michael was home was great.  We finally had our marriage convalidated, got pregnant, and hubby’s career was finally moving forward again.  But bad habits die hard, and right before Christmas, my life fell apart.  I found out about all the conversations he had been having in Korea and Missouri, and found out that they were still going on.  I could no longer ignore the fact that something was missing in our marriage.  And the side note that many of the women he was talking to were my friends too.  Suddenly I found myself with the loss of quite a few friends, and not feeling like I could trust anyone. I was completely alone.  Isolated.  It was terrible.

A lot of good came from the devastating news that my husband had been sharing a part of himself that he would share with me.  We started counseling.  Things were pretty good.  He realized how much his behavior hurt me and vowed to stop.  I started seeing some promising behavior to make me believe that maybe he did love me in a similar way that I loved him.  And we were talking and sharing again.  I learned about the drinking and the depression that he suffered while apart from us.  We were moving in the right direction.

But that was short lived.  It seemed that shortly after the counseling ended, so did the ‘honeymoon”.  Declan was born about this same time, and so again, the “issues” were put on the back burner.  Not to mention, over the past thirteen years, Michael had grown very good at not talking with me; not sharing with me his feelings or what he was really going through.  I really had no idea.  NO IDEA.  So here we are, finally at the present.

When Michael returned home from Korea and Missouri, he stopped sleeping.  I knew that he had gotten into the habit going to bed with me, but then waking in the wee hours and not going back to sleep.  This was when many of those before mentioned conversations would take place.  What I was not aware of, was just how bad it really was.  I knew he had bad dreams.  So do I.  After all, life has thrown us a few scary loop-de-loops.  But what I wasn’t aware of was that for some reason, when he came home something clicked in his brain.  He was remembering traumatic experiences from his past in the way of his dreams.  Things that I didn’t necessarily know about, or at least didn’t know the vivid details of, but honestly wouldn’t have “helped” him remember in the first place.  He was waking up soaking wet from sweat, even peeing and pooping on himself, he was so terrified.  The night terrors were coming on almost every night.  They were relentless.  Depression started to set in.  I knew he was having bad dreams.  I would wake up and help him change the sheets.  I washed them.  I’d ask him about it and all I would get is “had a bad dream, go back to sleep.” I had never been around anyone who was depressed, so didn’t know what to look for.  Life went on.  I had already spent so many years feeling like I was just a convenience to him, by washing his clothes, cooking his meals, taking care of his children and house, etc.  What else was new?  After all, I said “until death do us part” and “through good and the bad”.  I meant it.  And I wanted to keep my vows because, I was in love with him. 

Last fall, my husband was verbally attacked by our son’s baseball coach.  The coach is a real jerk.  He curses and calls the boys names, and had no understanding for special needs children.  He was out of line with Bryan, and really showed his rear end towards my husband.  Unfortunately, although the coach was in the wrong and the assistant coach was his “buddy” and lied about my husband, the coach is also an officer.  Despite the fact that the coach got up into my husband’s face, had to be pulled back so that he didn’t hit my husband, cursed and insulted my husband and all my husband did was disagree with the coach’s decision to pull our son out of the game (coach was angry that the team was loosing and took it out on Bryan), my husband was asked to go through anger management.  Ironic I know.  Imagine if you will, two men.  One is standing still, arms down by his side, not saying anything.  While the other one is getting within inches of the calm man’s face, cursing, yelling and insulting him.  And the man who kept calm is made to go to anger management. 

But, God works in strange ways.  Mandated anger management has turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to my husband.  Although it was agreed by the moderator of anger management that Michael didn’t need anger management based on the details of the situation that prompted it, it has opened up a flood gate that is long over due.  I’m not sure of all the details, but things moved very quickly.  Finally, after fourteen years of suffering, Michael is finally getting the treatment for his injuries that he sustained in the jump accident in 2000.  In fact, just today (Feb 6, 2014) the doctor he saw today apologized for him not getting treatment until now.  He’s been diagnosed with TBI, PTSD, depression and insomnia.  He’s at the TBI clinic practically every day of week.

So what’s the problem?  Where do I start?  The inappropriate conversations had stopped. That is, until the second week of December, when he had one of these conversations again.  Since then, that person has no contact with my husband.  But I’m being told that that behavior happens when the depression is bad.  Add that to the fact that I’m dealing with the fact that my husband is going to be on anti-depressants probably for the rest of his life.  I get to constantly worry about his “go to” when the depression is bad.  Yay me.  And now, if he forgets to take his meds, or decides that he doesn’t need them, 90% of the people who do this commit suicide within 48 hours.  I get to live with this too.  Great.  As if being married to a man who is accident prone isn’t scary enough, at least I knew I had insurance just in case.  But suicide is a game changer. 

And then there’s this…..after he was on the meds for about two weeks, things were GOOD.  He was happy.  The happiest I have seen him…well, since before his accident honestly.  He was attentive to me.  Talking and sharing with me.  Being affectionate.  Seriously, I was getting spontaneous kisses for the first time in years!  I loved being around him, and he seemed to like being around me.  Actually, he seemed like he was IN LOVE with me again.

But that didn’t last.  The past week or so, although he’s been taking his meds, he’s pulled away again.  How am I suppose to deal with this roller coaster?  What I’ve been yearning for for SO LONG is dangled in front of me for a week or so, and then suddenly taken away, and I’m suppose to “understand” that it’s the PTSD and depression, or TBI?  I’m suppose to continue to be the strong one.  The one that keeps this family together.  The one to “take care” of him, even though I do not get taken care of.  For example, guess who is going through a really hard time dealing with the fact that my father is in the hospital and not going home, ever again?  Yeah, but I haven’t gotten any support from him.  No empathy.  I’m used to it.  Although I will say that during that week or so that Michael was “happy”, I confided in him a concern of mine dealing with Declan not sleeping and the prospect of more children.  Something that in the past he would have brushed off, failed to validate my feelings, even made me feel small.   That ONE time that he was empathetic, got down on my level, told me that I wasn’t being silly, that it was a real concern, but that it was going to be okay…all the while hugging me and sincerely caring…..I WANT more of that!  But I have to live with the fact that I might not.  And why?  Because after three short years of marriage, my husband was taken away from me.  And I haven’t been able to get him back.

I love him with all my heart.  And I promised God that I was in this for the long haul…in SICKNESS and in health, for POORER or richer.  I guess this is my temporal punishment?  But knowing this doesn’t always make it easy.

What makes a good teacher?

So, it has come to my attention that apparently it is the opinion of some that I am "spoon feeding" my kids when it comes to homeschooling my kids.  When I first heard this, I was feeling very defensive.  I was angry.  I was ready to fight.  Not exactly the most Christian reaction, I know.  I've given much thought to why someone might feel that way, and in what I presume to be a negative way; why I reacted so strongly; and I've reflected on how I'm handling homeschooling my kids.

There are some things that I need to work on.  I need to be more patient.  Okay, I need a lot more patience. *chuckles*  Especially with Bryan.  I had very high expectations with him, and well, he's not living up to my expectations.  I should have kept the same philosophy for this as I try to everything else, and I didn't.  Afterall, the teachers had been telling me that Bryan would be a "straight A" student if he only did the work.  My experience was that he would barely do his homework if I knew he had it and wouldn't even bring it home if he thought I didn't know about it.  So why did I expect much more from him with homeschooling?  But now that I have lowered my expectations a bit, hopefully I can be less frustrated and more patient.

In thinking about why someone would feel that I were spoon feeding my kids, I realized that honestly, if anyone who has actually watched me work with the kids on a consistent basis, and still thought I spoonfed my kids frankly didn't know what they heck they were talking about and didn't understand what teaching was really about.

I did not choose an easy curriculum for my kids.  It's a very involved curriculum that requires many more hours of work than most homeschooling curriculums. My kids average 5-6 hours of hardcore academics everyday.  That's not including PE, Art, and Music.  The reading comprehension is a bit tough, even for me at times.  The English curriculum, is actually teaching my kids how to diagram sentences, as well as parts of speech that are much more detailed than what the public schools teach these days.  The Catechism is more concise and detailed than any of the CCD classes have offered; in fact I'm considering not sending them to the CCD classes because of the misinformation and inconsistencies they've been taught up until this point.  Anyway, I am not sure why, but I felt compelled to share that.  Take it as you will.

Now, I have to ask, what is a teacher?  Or more importantly, what makes a remarkable teacher?  Is she someone that rushes through the curriculum, with the main agenda being to touch on everything, with little concern on whether the student gets the information?  Afterall, that's how our public school systems are set up.  A teacher in a public school must cover a predetermined amount of information, and undoubtedly, some of the children do get left behind.  Or is a teacher, a truly remarkable teacher, one that gets to know the student, his stregnths and weakness, and tries to accomodate those to optimize the learning?

So what does spoonfeed teaching mean?  Am I giving the information too freely?  How is that possible when I am the teacher and he is the student?  First of all, my idea of spoonfeeding, is what I had when I was in school.  I rarely opened the textbook in most of my classes.  Now, I did take good notes.  But I wrote down what the teacher told me, studied it (or reviewed it before the test), and did fine.  I felt like that was spoonfeeding me.  Now that I'm going to school online, where I am responsible for reading the material and learning it on my own, it's HARD!  I have to do all the work.  Now with that said, I don't spoon feed much to Ana.  This is because she has the self-discpline to sit down, do the work, study the material and learn it.  I do help her with her history.  Some of the review questions require her to read the chapter as a whole and then deduce an answer from many points made in the text.  The kids are not used to this kind of comprehension.  It's not "spoonfed" to them by having the answers in the text word for word.  So yes, she still needs help with that.  Bryan, on the other hand, if I left him be, he's not motivated to get it done.  I do need to hound him to make sure it gets done.  And there are some subjects, like English, particularly the compositions, that he flat out will not do without me sitting with him coaxing him.  I do read alot of his stuff to him, similiar to how I'd be lecturing.  Bryan is a stronger reader than Ana, and so I'm not as concerned with him not getting enough practice reading.  My concern with him is that he be exposed to the information and that he learns it.  If that means I have to "spoonfeed" it to him, then by all means, I'm going to do it.

So with that said, is there something wrong with the way I'm handling it?  Should I just leave my kids to do the work on their own, even if I know that if I don't help them, read it to them, explain further, etc that they wouldn't get it, or even do it?  I know my kids.  I know which subjects they can work on by themselves and which ones they need a little nudge.  I'm determined to give them the best education they can get.  Am I letting them down?  That is my biggest fear, of course!  But rest assured, no matter how I choose to go about it, I'm keeping their best interests in mind and doing what I feel needs to be done for them to get the education they need to succeed.

Bring back Prayer!

There are many arguments supporting the view of citizens who favor the return of prayer to public schools.

First and foremost, prayer in school is constitutional and supports the principle of freedom of religion on which the U.S. was founded.  In banning school prayer, the U.S. Supreme Court has misinterpreted the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. A simple and voluntary school prayer does not amount to the government establishing a religion, any more than do other practices common in the U.S. such as the employment of Congressional chaplains, government recognition of holidays with religious significance such as Christmas or the proclamation of National Days of Prayer.  Furthermore, in banning school prayer the U.S. Supreme Court has mistaken the principle of “freedom of religion,” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, for freedom from religion and any observance of it.  School prayer would allow religious students the freedom to observe their religious beliefs during the school day. The U.S. Supreme Court has urged school cooperation with religious authorities for “it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs.”

Moreover, prayer in school acknowledges our religious heritage. Our country was founded by people who believed in freedom to practice one’s religion openly and who used their religious beliefs to create the backbone of this nation. Our children should be able to participate openly in this great heritage, seeking help, strength, and endurance from God as did their forefathers.   Our system of education also has a rich spiritual heritage. Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the Scriptures: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, (John 17:3); and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning."
Finally, prayer in school offers many societal benefits.  School prayer would instill moral values. Schools must do more than train children’s minds academically. They must also nurture their souls and reinforce the values taught at home and in the community. Founding father Samuel Adams said, "Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity. . .and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system."  The public school system is tragically disintegrating as evidenced by the rise in school shootings, increasing drug use, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, and HIV transmission. School prayer can help combat these issues and is desperately needed to protect our children.  School prayer could lead to increased tolerance and less bullying in school since it can instill a sense of right and wrong and a love for others above oneself. School prayer will promote good citizenship. Founding father John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." The founding fathers believed this should be taught in school. George Washington stated, "What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ."  School prayer may cause students to acknowledge a power greater than themselves on which they can rely for comfort and help in times of trouble. This will lead to decreased reliance on drugs, alcohol, sex, and dangerous amusements as well as decreased suicides.

Double Standards

So recently I found myself arguing over my opinion regarding immigrants in the work force in this country.  It turned ugly, not my doing, and so I stepped out.  I will argue with the best of them, but if the participating parties want to make personal attacks towards me, I don't have time to grace them with my thoughts. 

I have an issue when I go into Target or Wal-mart and can't find a sales clerk that speaks enough English to understand me well enough to tell me where to go to find an item; is too busy speaking about, presumably, personal subjects in their native tongue with a fellow employee to pay attention to the fact that a customer is standing there waiting to ask a question; or worse yet, that won't practically push a customer out of the way to restock an item.  All of the above, has personally happened to me many, many times. 

It was said that I shouldn't blame the employee, but the employer.  And to as certain extend, I can certainly understand this.  Afterall, it is the employeer who knowingly hires someone who may beable to pass that written English exam but face-to-face obviously can't hold a conversation, much less help a customer in passing.  And, around here atleast, it is the employeer who is of a foreign decent him/herself and hires, at best, 98% of the same decent; despite the fact that I know for a fact native-born, English-proficient people who want a job just as badly who would appreciate the job and not mix personal with business at work applies for the same job and never gets hired.

But I do blame the employee as well.  I get that there are humble, conscientious and hard working immigrants out there.  And to them, my hat is off to them for enduring so much to try to make their life and the lives of their family better.  That IS what this country is about.  But what I've described above are not the actions of humble, conscientious and hard working people.  If you have time to text on your phone or hold a twenty minute conversation in your native tongue with your friend while at work, then you have time to better yourself and practice the language, pick up a dictionary, improve yourself.

And no, I am not wrong for thinking this.  When I go to a foreign country, I am expected to try to speak in that language.  And I happily oblige.  I will most likely be very inadequate.  But frankly, if I'm going for two weeks of vacation, then I shouldn't be expected to be fluent.  However, if I were to relocate to another country, seek employment and all the benefits of that country, then I should be expected to learn the language adequately enough to do the job as well as the natives and to understand and at least respect the culture.  But those coming to this country are not expected to do so, and many of them know they aren't expected and take full advantage of it.

I mentioned respecting the culture, above.  Now just because I respect the culture doesn't mean I must take part in the traditions of the culture.  But I have no right to go to another country and tell the natives that they are wrong for doing something a certain way.  But yet, somehow, it is not only acceptable for immigrants to come here and tell me that my pledge to my country is offensive or my tradition of praying for the safety of the children on the playing field is offensive, but this has become so common place that there are actual American-born people telling me the same thing!?!  What the blazes is wrong with this picture?!

My country's entire existance seems to be melting away around me.  You better bet your patootie I'm upset.  The same people who preach that our suppression of the Native Americans and their culture was wrong, is condoning the suppression of my culture and way of life by "outsiders".  The same people that cry for the rights of the minority, are taking my rights away.  Our opinions are being squashed to not offend others, with no regard to what may offend us.  And afterall, I saying being offended by having the rights given to me by the Constitution takes precidence over someone's offense for my exercise of my rights, which consequently is their right too.

Stop the double standards, the hypocracy and the discrimination.  Completely turning the table is not going to do away with the problem, it is only going to prolong it.  In this case, resentment occurs and only helps to breed the very problems that we are all trying to do away with.  Wake up America!

Marriage

• 40-50% of marriages in the US will end in divorce if current trends continue.
• 27.6% of women who marry under the age of 20 years old will divorce (11.7% of men)
• 36.6% of women who marry at the ages of 20-24 years old will divorce (38.8% of men)
• 16.4% of women who marry at the ages of 25-29 years old will divorce (22.3% of men)
• 8.5% of women who marry at the ages of 30-34 years old will divorce (11.6% of men)
• 5.1% of women who marry at the ages of 35-39 years old will divorce (6.5% of men)
• The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
• The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
• The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%
• In 2009, the where 6.8 marriages per 1,000 total population; 3.4 divorces per 1,000 total population

Do these statistics worry you? Are you surprised? What causes such high rates of divorce?

I've honestly lost track of how many of my friends and associates have had marrital problems so severe that the marriage was seriously in danger or did end in separation or divorce. But I don't want to talk about the statistics or even the causes.

Hubby and I have talked alot the past couple of years.  It's been difficult being apart for so long, continually working on our relationship so that it doesn't die down with all the distance, and seeing so many relationships around us fall apart, even some who we both looked to for inspiration.  And we've decided that 1) the sanctity of marriage seems to be a moot subject these days and 2) people have unrealistic expectations. 

I'm not completely against divorce.  And I'm not going to pass judgement on those who choose divorce.  We all have to make decisions that we can live with.  All marriages have difficult times.  But God meant for us to work through those difficult times together.  Marriage should be "until death do (you) part".

I just think that people underestimate what they have when they have it and overestimate what they want.  The grass is not always greener.  Divorce is hard and emotional and expensive.  People want to complain about how hard life is....WELL STOP MAKING IT HARD!  or atleast harder than it has to be.  I think "problems" that arise in a marriage can usually be worked out.  And I think that the hardwork that it would take to work those problems out, is actually easier than the work it takes to get a divorce and then live harmonously, especially if there are children involved, after the divorce.

Is it just me? Or is it hypocricy?

So I vent...that's what I do. I guess you can call me a gossip.  I don't like the light that paints me in, but if we're gonna be honest, I suppose I am, only difference is I do it on my facebook, or even here, on blogger.  Well, and I don't purposely talk badly about anyone, only about my perspecive of the situation.

This isn't the first time, I've talked about my feelings on an online social network and someone got upset with me because I vented about something they did or how they made me feel.  Again, I don't intentionally hurt anyone, it's all about my perspective and how I feel.

So, about the situation that I blogged about last.  Well, it's no secret that I don't like the way the school handled it.  And honestly, I didn't talk badly about the other family, atleast not intentionally.  I have said a couple times on my facebook that I didn't feel my daughter did anything wrong, perse, and that the other child did the "crime".  Well, this has angered the other mother.  I get that she doesn't like hearing that.  No one wants to hear the truth when it's not good news, especially when it's about their own child.  And I get how it sounds like I'm saying that my daughter didn't do anything wrong.  My daughter made a bad decision when she decided to say to her friend that they needed to do something to the third party before he did something to her.  I think she gets that.  But I've always felt that she was just venting, especially considering as soon as my daughter found out what her friend did, my daughter told her not to do it and to retract her text message to everyone.  I also feel that's something that we are all "guilty" of.  EVEN THE MOTHER OF THE GIRL WHO SENT THE TEXT.  But she doesn't see it that way.

What do I mean when I said that the mother of the girl is guilty?  Well, she told me that she wanted to charge a certain someone with slander, and to even stop the other family's PCS!!  Aren't these threats?  now, did she follow through with them?  No, of course not.  I can only assume that when she was still upset, that's when she said those things to me, and then when she calmed down and thought about the situation, realized that doing such would not be a good idea.  Anastasia did the same thing.  She vented to her friend, and then after her friend sent the text message (without asking my daughter about it) Ana decided that it wasn't a good idea afterall.  We are all guilty of thinking about irrational things when we are emotional and then once we calm down and revisit the idea, realizing the error of our ways.

*sighs*  I make a lot of mistakes.  I'm not perfect.  But when I decide that I have infact made a mistake, I try to apologize.  I've apologized, ALOT, to this mother and I haven't gotten an apology for my daughter's privacy being violated without permission.  My daughter hasn't gotten an apology either, from the mother or the duaghter.

Well, it's unfortunate, but I have lost a friend in all of this.  So has my daughter.  But honestly, with friends like those who needs enemies?  Afterall, my daughter's friend lied and deceived her.  And then blackmailed her....I ended up just blocking this friend's phone number on my daughter's phone because she told my daughter that if my daughter wasn't her friend, then she'd tell my daugher's secrets to other people.  I will not have my daughter threatened like that.

So anyway, I guess I'm "talking ill" about these two people (mother and daughter). It's how I feel.  The way I see it, if the mother of the girl had not believed that her daughter "would have never sent the text if Ana had not asked her", then my daughter never would have been brought into the situation.  I felt like from the very beginning, the other mother didn't want to accept the fact that her daughter did something wrong.  When the truth of the matter is her daughter either 1) liked the boy in question and was jealous that my daughter has his attention or 2) was jealous of the time that my daughter was spending with the boy, because for weeks she had been telling my daughter that she didn't like the boy and was interfering with their relationship.  I think when my daughter came to her about "getting them before they got her", this was the opportunity that my daughter's (ex)friend was looking for and she took it.  I wish she hadn't.  I hate that all of this happened.  Maybe I should have said something to the other mom before? I am not sure I would have gotten anywhere.  You see there's so much history here...like for example that the (ex)friend's mother didn't like the boy long before this.  *sighs*  But I guess that's another story for another time.