View from the chair

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

“The heart dies a slow death,
shedding each hope like leaves.
Until one day there are none.”

Do you wonder why?  Why does she stay?  I will tell you what I know.

Surely you too have loved someone. Have trusted. Have laughed. Have experienced disappointment. Have celebrated.  Have hurt.  Have forgiven.

It does not begin with pain. It begins with affection. It begins with love. It begins with trust. It begins with intimacy.

We were not so different from you. We knew the same things you know. We knew joy. We knew disappointment. We loved the same way you do. We hoped for the same things you hope for. We worked to build lives together. We wanted the life you have.

Most of us, too, are intelligent, educated, accomplished; professional. We, too, said if that ever happened to us we would leave.

Maybe you have had your love tested. Your trust broken. Made a choice to not walk away from everything you’ve built together. Tried again to make it work.

Our heart’s death begins slowly. A single snowflake as it flutters to the ground may cause slight concern. Considered on it’s own, a larger consequence is difficult to imagine. When all the snowflakes accumulate they form something difficult to navigate, but in the center we continue to try. The accumulation over time, when the strength of the snow pack is overcome by stress, produces an avalanche. At the point we are buried, we spend all our energy trying to find the way up and out.  We,too, find love hard to leave behind.  But unlike you, we must make the choice to leave love if we want to survive.

“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves. Until one day there are none.” – Memoirs of a Geisha

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Voices of Sisters

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

 My book is in a state of half doneness as my creativity waxes and wanes. I constantly question my motivation for its existence; abandoning and re-engaging.  It is an ugly subject, one that I’d just as soon divest myself from.  I’d like to continue to pretend it doesn’t exist, I wasn’t part of it, perpetuate the secrecy that surrounds it.  Keep it behind closed doors and keep the ‘me’ I’ve created for all to see plainly visible so I can continue to hide the pain, the embarassment, the shame of being abused, of being a victim.  Yet through my experiences it has been exposed – I have been exposed.  I stood naked, figuratively and literally, in front of a huge audience and it was impossible to play the part I’d acted anymore.  The layers unravel, the core exposed.  The same person who imprisoned me set me free.  I don’t know if that person is him, in his final act, or me in my attempt to reclaim my life from the ruins of his.  I only know it is possible, whereby before it seemed so impossible.

So when I sit down to write, in this chair which holds such pain, I pray.  If you want me to be the light, give me the candle. If you want me to be heard, give me the voice.  If you want me to lead, show me the way.  If you want me to reach out, hold my hand, tightly.  Never let me go.

The Lord Be With You….and with thy spirit.  Lift Up Your Hearts…..we lift them up unto the Lord.

“Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?'” Matthew 14:31 (NIV)

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Finding Normal

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

    Every so often things seem ‘normal’. I thankfully have periods now without it. Sometimes, I forget. When it comes though, it comes rushing back and over me and I suddenly am aware what it felt like only minutes earlier to not have it with me.

     It is during those times I am tempted to just put it away. Tuck it safely in the back of my mind and go about my life as though my husband awaits at home with a welcomed hug or kiss for me, an attentive inquiry as to how my day was, asks the children about their day, sharing too his challenges and triumphs. We might plan our weekend, discuss the weather, laugh, and eat dinner, sharing the mundane aspects of daily living. Go about figuring out finances, visiting our careers, encouraging each other; possibly even disagreeing. Maybe we’d get the kids on track for homework and bed, and then share privately one on one time, just he and I. Time to dream together and replenish one another, talk about how the kids are doing; and in my dream, quietly pray together.

     For many, many women, it is a nightmare that unfolds regularly. They, too, go about their daily living. They start working on an exciting project, or have dinner with friends, watch the children’s sports, or even sit at a light in the car like I just did and for a short time they, too, forget. Only when it comes back their anticipation of what awaits them is more apt to be uncertainty as to his mood, trying to figure out how to fly under the radar to avoid his wrath, keeping the kids quiet and the pets out and dinner exactly the way he likes it at the right time and if the phone rings hoping he doesn’t grab it and throw it across the room. Making sure the house is clean and the dishes are done, and his shirts folded correctly and everything is the way he likes it. It never is.

     There is little conversation during a meal because everyone is afraid to say the wrong thing; say anything that might begin the tirade of which she is always the cause, according to him. The only exchange in the room is that of fear. It is a war of which no one outside the walls knows. One where the enemy changes face and tactics and is expert at luring its prey. Even on quiet nights, when it looks like he’s in an agreeable mood, the fear lies just below the surface that it will only be one thing that triggers the free fall. That is what it feels like. Falling with nothing recognizable to grab hold of, no support in sight; never knowing how far, where, or how injured you’ll be at the end.

     To remember that. To remember how I tried to create and maintain a life without insanity as the main attraction, curiously expecting him to graciously exit, with not the first bit of evidence leading me to believe that possible. I cannot forget living in it. I cannot forget how it ended. I may have a dream finally, but I can’t just clean up the dirty details, hide them away in a box and leave someone else to their own insanity, pain, isolation, hopelessness; leaving their children to that fate as well. It suddenly seems very clear I can’t profess to be a Christian while quietly abandoning my story. So here I am….again.

“As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

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On Forgiveness

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

“Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, and/or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.”  Wikipedia

I am a person who when interested in something pursues it with obsessive fascination.  I like black and white, facts, statistics, conclusions. I do not like the abstract, vague, undefined. Little in life, however, is black and white.

One of my readers asked me to write about forgiveness. My first thought is I have little expertise to discuss forgiveness. From an ecumenical standpoint; from any standpoint. I don’t know if I understand forgiveness. I am not qualified to discuss it.  So I set about researching it that I might comment with some degree of credibility. Even now, I am still very unqualified to render anything meaningful other than how I am personally processing it.  Rightly or wrongly.

I forgave my husband everything while he was alive. Although he never once apologized for anything. Never once said he was sorry. Never once seemed at all remorseful at the hurt he inflicted by his words, his actions and inactions. He was always adamant that whatever he did I was the cause, reason, or motivation; and later adding the children into the blame mix. Even so, my forgiveness wasn’t incumbent upon his repentance. It seemed a given at the time. I viewed his actions as just that, his actions. Forgiveness was not something I gave him. It was something that I needed to bridge a gulf between us.

In retrospect all those times may have had an enabling effect because he had little consequence to his actions.  It allowed him to continue his mistreatment of me and the children. I failed to grasp that despite my forgiveness the damage still remained, accumlating over time with his escalating abuse. It allowed me to continue in an unhealthy relationship that the gulf, unbridged and full of anger, resentment and indignation, might have prompted me to leave sooner.

Now that he is gone it is though it is unraveling; I am decompressing and it all seems so new and raw some days. Perhaps now it is finally safe to allow myself to feel?  I move from forgiving one day, to angry and unforgiving the next. I can only conclude that forgiveness is not static. Not final. Not a one time and it’s done. I leave the pain behind, and then it seems to be in front of me again. Forgiveness ebbs and flows. It is here, it is gone again. It seems quite slippery. Just when I think I have a firm grip, I open up to find it missing. Maybe this is why Jesus suggests we forgive not seven, but seventy-seven times.

It seems easier to forgive the man whose final acts were shooting me, threatening his children, taking his own life. Whereas I struggle and find my own forgiveness most difficult. Forgiving myself for allowing him to treat us the way he did, for emotionally checking out of the turmoil, in turn losing myself; for losing hope and staying, fully aware our lives and well being were being whittled away daily. It is that acceptance of so many mistakes and lapses in judgement – it is that forgiveness which is most challenging to me and makes me question my progress towards being healthy.

For today I have to trust time and patience will quell my internal struggle with forgiveness.  On this uncharted course, for today, I need to just be where I am.

“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

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Carryout Pizza

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

Reunions

I knew it would happen.  I thought I would be prepared when it did.  Still, though, it is difficult. I run into an acquaintance I haven’t seen in a few years.  He asks how we are. I tell him the children and I are doing really well, assuming that is the gist of his question.

 He asks where my husband is. I hesitate, thinking I will lie and say we aren’t together any longer.  I just can’t get comfortable with it, so I am truthful, saying he died.  He seems surprised, and asks how. I am proud of myself that I can say it without falling apart: he committed suicide.  There is a silence, and then I see it in his eyes. He connects it. He says he remembers reading something. That was me? I see him trying to process it, trying to reconcile the person he knew as my husband with the story he read. I confirm it. I want to spare him his unease, but just don’t know what to say. He says it just doesn’t make sense, and then asks me how something like this can happen. As though we are commenting on something we’ve both just seen on TV.  It is awkward as he realizes what he’s just said aloud.  He is a kind person, and clearly somewhat shaken; at a loss for the right words, but he searches for an answer. He keeps shaking his head as though that will change it.

 I feel like I am not in my body, as though I am watching the interaction like a movie. The same feeling I had of watching Law and Order and looking down onto the person the paramedic was working in the ambulance. It is someone else these things happened to.

 Finally I tune back into what he is saying. Pleasantly I thank him for his concern, and reassure him we really are doing okay. As I leave I am sorry I have left him with such a difficult thing to process. There is nothing in his experience like this. It bounces around his brain trying to find a resting spot with similar experiences.  It is unrecognizable and becomes more evident the longer it lingers in the conscious mind. I have stopped asking the question, finally accepting there is no answer, and even if there were, it would never satisfy me. No answer could explain something so wrong. No answer makes sense. It will never make sense.

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