My Struggle

I've struggled, and I've struggled and I've struggled, but now I'm feeling pain for something I've shut out so many years ago. I can guess without looking that it was somewhere around 1994 or early 1995, though bits and pieces have resurfaced for many years after. That's hometown for you.

*This blog may offend some, (I'm leaving out names and intentionally chose a back side picture) but it's not meant to offend, only for me to let it out*

If the picture above is something you're not ready for yet, I understand and please quit reading until you are ready to...it's my struggle and I verbalize in type so I am letting it out now before it weighs too heavy on me.

When I was 20, I married for the first time. It was my childhood friend. We played together, we did chores together, my parents picked up where his had decided it was best to leave off. He wasn't an easy guy to take at 21. He had his ways; his parents and many adults couldn't quite understand him, but I and my parents/family honestly tried.

We married pretty suddenly in a the 34th District Court with my big sister setting it up since she worked for a lawyer in the district. My buddy, JJD was at my side being my Maid of Honor and YES, she's still in my life. *Hugs because she doesn't know what I'm springing on her*

I can remember being 21 and buying liquor for the first time on my honeymoon with him. It wasn't much of a honeymoon; just a few days away at our family cabin. After all, between the two of us working (with me already having a child) we made about $800 a week in pay. We weren't taking a Jamaica vacation in a week's notice, that's for sure.

In any case, as quickly to my point as I can be; my first husband took his own life this past Friday. I found out Saturday morning from a friend, and then confirmed a few minutes later from his brother, whom (both of which) I have maintained Facebook contact with.

I may have been cold, I may not have let my heart show and for that I apologize.

I'm just now verbalizing what I feel and I have to do it this way because other ways just aren't appropriate for me.

We divorced in 1994 or early 1995 and it was brutal. Possessions smashed, feelings hurt and loads and loads of financial disasters thrust upon me. Loans, businesses, IRS, State and credit card debt; he'd quit his job and I was left holding the bag. I held the burden and worked my way through a lot of what wasn't mine alone....nine years later I had paid off all debt except the boat. Our biggest fights in divorce were the dog and the boat. I kept the dog, he kept the boat. Zeus didn't outlast the boat, but he was worth everything to me and to Jason for years to come after our divorce. He's still with me in ashes guarding my front door.

Together we had owned a neon sign company, its assets and a trucking company and it's few assets - all of which I paid on until the debt was gone. It's easy for me to remember that pain, because year after year it was a pain, even quite recently it was a pain that was unexpected. Most of the debt was secured by stock my Grandparents had given me, but some was secured by personal loans in my name in which the assets were sold, but the loans remained. If I totalled it up, (just in my head), semi-truck, sign truck, neon equipment and IRS debt, credit cards, tool loans, etc., it was well over $200K.

Inside my head swirls the pain of financial destruction that I slowly climbed my way out of while raising a child on my own (until 1998), but it wasn't unbeatable and for a large part I'm clear of it now. There is one remaining debt that I'm unsure of the status of at this time. Civilly it's not mine, but if the bank decides to be a bank, I'm going to have to cover (for those of you who know how divorce works). A signed contract is a signed contract and there is no reprieve! I likely will, in good faith, settle it with or without the collateral in my hands. Lord knows I never signed the title to sell it and last I knew it still existed when the bank came to my house to repossess "WET DREAM II". Regardless, that's a semi-small factor weighing on my now. Debt is what it is, and I can handle it on most days.

What weighted heaviest on me was whether or not to tell Jason. My first husband had stood in as a good man to him. Despite my financial troubles in the end, he never faltered as good guy to my son. He taught him all there was to know about mechanics...(that a four year old could absorb), and trust me Jason was well advanced in this endeavor. We had to take spark plugs out of everything Jason knew about as a child - from dirt bikes to lawn mowers.

*I'm working at 7:12pm while I type and try to keep my brain the right spot*

So from Saturday to now I've held off telling Jason. How can I tell him that the second important man in his childhood is gone? Gone at his own hand? Even worse in the equation is that his father overdosed (albeit accidentally on drugs) and died when Jason was eleven; but top that with his first mentor in man-life taking his own life? I've struggled. It hurts, like I never thought it would.

I can say tons of "unhappy things" because I've lived them and nobody can take them from me. However, when I reverse it...Jason learned so much from him. The man never ever wronged Jason personally, unless you consider my financial demise for several years Jason's too - - but Jason can't because he never knew the extent of it.

What I'm learning now, is that whatever someone is to you, they are something totally different to someone else.

I told Jason tonight and he is completely saddened. He didn't have much to do with my ex-husband, but they knew each other. They greeted happily in party stores and would stop to chat and catch up; even recently. Though Jason is 20 and a big boy now...he's still got talents he's learned from my ex-husband (whom I find it hard not to mention by name, but I will not for the sake of his family - - his wife and child I do not know personally)

My struggle...here it is, was whether to let Jason know two men significant in his younger life are gone. One at the hands of accidental overdose and one at the hands of himself, though I don't know any details to share.

What would that do my son? I don't know, but the one thing I cannot do is take TRUTH from him. So the truth has been told and I pray my son takes none of it personal and enjoys what he had in both men and finds that life is tough, but when it's super tough, you stick out EVERYTHING for you and yours; no matter how tough a bat life swings...you SWING BACK WITH ALL YOU HAVE and take it, whether shatter the bat for a base hit, or a walk back to home. There will be other at bats!!!

For his daughter, I can't be sure whether suicide a reckoning come early or not, as I'm sure it's not mine to wonder. What I can say is wherever he is; he's surely fixing something and I hope her heart is BIG part of his agenda.

He will be missed; maybe not for what he was to me, but for what he was to others. Everyone has a place and time and just because it's not mine personally doesn't allow me to take from whose it is. Jason was sure saddened and I'm sure many others are too, including me!

REST IN PEACE, MJR!