I had a warrant out for my arrest three years ago. So not Bonnie and Clyde. No cops and robbers. And sorry Butch Cassidy, no guns and train heists. The story, morning glory, is that my former husband asked the courts to issue it since I hadn't made medical, music and dental payments for over a year. And my son's graduation was coming up which meant I'd be going to Vermont.
The courts agreed. I nearly fell of my kitchen chair. In fact, the judge said, "If it were up to me, I'd personally slap you behind bars if you were to step foot across the state of Vermont today."
I hung up the phone. But what about the note I included from my doctor, stating I had --oh, what's the term for it--a major depressive episode? As in 18 months long. Silly me, I'd become lost in despair. I had forgotten the big picture.
How do you tell the courts that being apart from your children, when every fiber of your being screams that you need to be with them, is like waking up to death every day? Or that every time the children come out, it's like Lazarus raising from the tomb? Or, that when you personally fly them "home", away from you, it's like personally putting him back, rolling the stone over the entrance and wishing you were the one inside?
When I attended my son's graduation, I needed to pay a huge purge
amount to keep from getting slapped behind bars. An interesting thought, really. It would have made a great picture. Maybe I'll have to take a fake one.
Last summer, in a moment of déja vu or Groundhog Day, the children's father asked the courts to issue
another warrant for my arrest so that I'd have to pay another purge amount to . . . yes, attend my daughter's graduation this time. When he saw my legal response, he hurried and dropped the motion, admitting that I had been making
payments regularly.
That's pretty much my story, and I'm sticking to it. When I look back on it, and when I see the pictures of me as a child, it's hard to believe it's my life. But I've been blessed. I have guardian angels. Lots of them. And I believe in miracles. Writing Secret Speakers has been one of the biggest miracles of all. It has turned my life around. The Transformation of Karey began when, in profound despair
I asked God, "What can I create out of my life that is good?" I had
lost my identity, my greatest joy and livelihood: I had always wanted to be a
mother and saw myself as a mother. That was gone. Being a mother bear hadn't brought back my children. I was up against something much bigger than growls an sharp claws. I needed to find out who I really was, right at my core.
I asked a simple question. When The Answer came, I heard three words spoken to my mind, and I felt washed over with
something good, hopeful, and purposeful. I had talked to my
mother about a book years before and had made attempts to start it many
times. It was finally time.
The Answer turned into a four-year long flood of words that had started several years earlier back in Vermont. The ideas wouldn't stop coming. I wrote on flyers, on
my hand, hopped out of the tub
dripping wet to scrawl sudden, about-to-be-lost ideas onto receipts or
whatever sort of paper I could find, and went for long, long thinking
walks after I got out of my pajamas at around 2:00 most days. Going to
bed meant turning the light on several times a night to scribble
before I actually went to sleep. Or, I just scribbled in the dark.
The
picture above is of my hallway office back in Vermont, 1998. I had a
folding display board with my dreams on it. I had never seen an entire Oprah
show, but I had seen her in a movie that gave me so much hope that I
taped a picture of it up there. If you look closely, you can see a
postcard of the Wizard of Oz to the left of the open book that my ever supportive mother gave me, knowing that was the direction I wanted to take with my writing. I was working on an early, now unrecognizable, version of Secret Speakers.
I used to feel as though I had
given up everything when I couldn't bring my
children with me, when I left all I owned behind. But I have come to
realize that
I couldn't lose my children. They were never mine to begin with. They
were and are gifts from God not just to me, but to this world. None of
us own anything. We hear those words all the time, but hearing them is a whole lot different from living them right down to your gut.
We will always be bound by the
cords of love that nothing can destroy. I didn't
give up all I owned. My children were only temporary possessions, only
because
I saw them that way. They each have their own purpose to fulfill, and I
can still be an influence for good in their lives, no matter what. Being a mother is like beauty: beauty is beauty no matter when, no matter where. I
will always be their mother. No court can destroy that truth. No matter what has happened over the last eight years, glorious promise exists in the Buddhist saying, "Hold that which you love with an open hand. It
will always come back to you." Could it be?
My selfish hope is that through writing Secret Speakers, it will
afford my children and I big helpings of time to fill our waiting
plate. Time like a banquet, face to face. Fresh memories with laughter
on the side, please. A full glass of the present. Moving forward like a
salad bite by bite, with wow-that-bite-was-too-big grace, hoping
everyone at the table is watching you chew--woops!--wide-eyed and smiling with your eyes crossed.
And so, I'm writing to reunite my family. But I’m also trying to spread my wings by offering a message
of
comfort to those who know no comfort, a message of companionship to
those who
feel utterly alone. The only way to soar is to share. It is through
service
that we are made whole.
We
all get second chances. We all have the capacity to give.
And it is by giving that we come to know God. God bless you. God bless
all those who suffer. Cherish your family, no matter what, no matter
who they are. Quietly bless and forgive them when you can't stand the
way they behave. Because after all, they are there before you in all
their mortal glory. Miraculous, imperfect, and divine.
Karey
P.S. Go to SecretSpeakers.com and see what the book is about. It's really good, I swear!
