Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Amazing Day.

 Monday, I cleaned the apartment and readied it for the new tenant. Tim worked down at the renovation. The kitchen has a bank of five windows, side by side, facing the river and I threw them open to the river breeze blowing in. It made the scrubbing and polishing far more pleasant, that is for sure. It is a pretty kitchen, and I rehung the clean cafe curtains and enjoyed watching them fluttering. A storm was approaching. 

That was then. This is now. Today, 48 hours later, it's snowing. Amazing. (There may or may not have been unfortunate words uttered). 

Yesterday, I painted at the renovation, and today, I was back at the apartment I was cleaning. I had a carpet to shampoo. I thought that I had enough shampoo, but it turned out that I did not, so I ran to a local big box store to get it. While there, I decided to get the makings for sandwiches for lunch. It is unnecessary to rush home to cook at noon when we are so busy . I had a craving for a tomato for my noon sandwich, and so I picked one up. Imagine my amazement to get to the register and discover that one lone tomato cost 53 cents. It wasn't even a large one! 

Something else happened. 

When Tim and I were first married, things were quite rough, financially. We both worked multiple jobs to keep five children fed and clothed. One of the jobs that I had was cleaning at a local resort owned by a well-to-do woman. We went to the same church, and she thought she was doing me a great charity. She was. I worked hard. I cleaned not only their huge house but the resort rentals as needed. 

One of the things that became very evident was that she had a problem with addicted to opiates. It was my first experience with an addict, and sometimes it was scary. Once I was certain she was going to die. She had laid on the couch for 6 hours while I cleaned, never waking, never moving. Before I left, I called her husband at the office to tell him that I was leaving but was worried about his wife. He told me that he knew she had a problem but he couldn't do anything about it. 

Long story short, it got very uncomfortable. She felt strongly that her husband was having an affair with another one of the women who worked for the business and pumped me for information. I honestly did not believe it and never saw anything to indicate that this was happening, and told her so, again and again, believing that her drug problem was causing her to be paranoid. Then her husband began to pump me for information as well. I began to get suspicious, but the alleged mistress was a friend, and she assured me that there was no affair. 

Foolishly, I simply believed my friend. 

When the affair finally was exposed, the well to do woman assumed that I had been lying to her right along. Her husband's mistress lost her job. I lost mine because she refused to have a liar in her house. Moreover, she was a big shot at the church and she took her story there.  The church gossips in her circle were horrified at my alleged dishonesty.  

Losing the extra income provided by the job made life difficult, but even more difficult was the fact that I was a pariah in the church. I lost my job as a Sunday school teacher. My reputation took quite a beating and it was a humiliating time. I tried to talk to the pastor who took the woman's side and said maybe this church was not a good fit for me.

Months later, that well-to-do woman was in the newspaper. She had been caught at another well-to-do friend's house stealing the woman's opioids. She was arrested. The pastor stopped in that day.  I was trying to catch up on laundry. He never said why he was there, but he was very pleasant and kind. 

Later when I read the paper, I figured out why. I didn't blame him. He was a young pastor. He had been duped. I sure knew how that felt, but I never did go back to that church. 

Anyways, the point of this rambling story is that a few years back, I saw this woman and she was so pleased to see me. She wanted to chatter on. I was not interested in chit chatting with her, so I made my excuses. As I was pushing my cart away, she said, affronted, "I don't know why you are so short with me," and I turned to her and said exactly what I meant to say. "I had no idea about your husband. Not one clue. I was minding my own business and working, and when it all came out, you lied about me. You forced your husband to fire me at a time when I needed the money. You got me drummed out of the church. You made my life miserable for a couple of years over this." 

And she said, "Well, you have to understand. I had a serious drug problem. I couldn't help it." She added a little reminder that, as a Christian, I was required to be forgiving. 

I was amazed. I turned to my cart and left her in mid-lecture. 

Today, as I was being amazed by the price of a greenhouse tomato, I heard a cheerful "Hi Debby!" I looked up, and there she was, looking much older, and not at all like the well to do woman of 25 years ago. She smiled beatifically at me. 

I said hello. Nothing more. I turned back to my groceries as they were rung up. 

But inside my own thoughts, once again, I was amazed. 

41 comments:

  1. An amazing day indeed and you handled it very well, much better than I would have done. My emotional Italian side would have come out and I would have either wept with rage or screamed like a fishwife. In neither case would I have acquitted myself as I would have wanted.

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    1. I'm not a fan of noisy public scenes. So...while my brain is filled with outrageous things, I usually am able to leave them unsaid.

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  2. I am often surprised at how churches and Christians treat people. You should not have been drummed out. It was OK for her to remind you about forgiveness! 53 cents for a tomato is a bit steep. They can get up to AUD9 a kilo here, though.

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    1. It was a small country church. She was very active in it, and she gave a lot of money. People were impressed by her. It was Tim's church, and since we had moved into his life, we just began going to this church. Some of the busiest bodies in that church were busy bodies.

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  3. Wow. My observation from this tale is her lack of understanding that one is not entitled to forgiveness.
    KJ

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    1. I think that forgiveness will be something that I struggle with. I don't wish her ill. I just don't think of her and I don't want to. She is a very self centered person as people who struggle with addiction generally are.

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  4. You've had such an interesting life!

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  5. Perhaps her empathy switch is permanently switched off?

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    1. She is/was an addict. These people are very focused on themselves, always, and can always minimize the damage they do because their own needs loom so large.

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  6. Wow, the self righteousness of the woman. No shame at all and her behaviour doesn't sound very Christian. You've handled it well. I guess you stayed at the church. I am not sure I would have.

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    1. No. I did not stay at that church. I left it and I never went back.

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  7. Wow! What a story. I am amazed that the pastor took her side and asked you to leave the church. That seems like an astonishing stance even for a young pastor, when he should have been preaching forgiveness, generosity and community.

    It's interesting that she persists in saying hello to you, knowing how you (justifiably) feel about her.

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    1. He didn't ask me to leave. You have to understand that it was a small country church. In these churches, getting the things done to sustain the church is always a struggle. The young pastor must have thought it a prayer answered to have someone in his church who was involved in every social activity, spoke movingly of God, and gave lots of money to the church. (I know the money part because as I cleaned, she always told me about what she had given to the church. She was quite proud of her charity. (I was one of those charities.) It was not that I didn't see her clay feet. Probably the pastor saw it too. But I needed the extra income. So did that church.

      So when I went to speak with the pastor, to say that there was a problem, he listened. I said, "I feel as if I am not welcome in the church, and I don't know how to change that."

      He replied that perhaps I needed to look for another church. The thing that I remember most is that he picked up some papers to look at from his desk, as if he wasn't really interested, as he said it.

      He wasn't a bad man. He and his wife have done many good things, although they left that little church.

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  8. You were right..and right to be amazed. As if she could blame everything on the drugs and she had nothing to do it

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    1. I witnessed that behavior in our last president. It was not his fault. He always laid the blame on someone or something else. He had nothing to do with it. It is the mark of a narcissist.

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  9. For things like this I can forgive but I never forget.

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    1. I struggled with forgiveness in a lot of situations. In the end, I figured that forgiveness is seeing the person for what they are, understanding as best you can why they behave the way they do, and then simply accepting them as flawed individuals (just as I am). It doesn't mean that you run up to them and hug them. It means not holding ill feelings.

      I have seen Linda twice to talk to in 25 years. I have seen her other times in passing. As hard as I have tried to look at her as a flawed individual, there is this strong distaste that rises in me when I see her. My internal safety switch kicks on and my mind shrieks, 'run away, run away'!

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    2. We feel the same. I wouldn’t run up and hug her either. If spoken to I would be polite and then walk away.

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  10. Goodness! What garbage you've had to go through. Too bad there's the chance you have to run into that person at times. The tomato is glad it made it to your home. I think I may have thrown it at that evil "christian" woman. Hang in there. Linda in Kansas

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    1. I think everybody deals with garbage. I also live in a small town, which increases the odds of running into someone you'd rather not run into. I try very hard just to keep my thoughts to myself mostly.

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  11. Say there was murder back in 1972. The culprit was tracked down fifty years later. Should he or she be allowed to get away with it because the killing happened long ago? Of course not! And that's how I feel about wrongdoing to me, my family or friends. I can neither forgive nor forget. I didn't choose to be this way. It's just how it is.

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    1. 'Getting away with it' is a funny term. She didn't get away with it. Ultimately, it caught up with her. Ultimately, she paid for it, I guess. Based on our exchange the last time we spoke, I'm going to guess that she's continued to move in lofty Christian circles, but she's probably now talking about how God redeemed her from her dark times. Talking about herself in this way, in almost a third person way, allows her to separate herself from her behavior. Forgiving is simply accepting the fact that others are flawed, just as we are. Forgetting is a hard thing for me. I have a very strong instinct for self protection. It is hard to leave oneself open for possible re-offense.

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  12. You and Tim have worked hard and built a good life together.
    She did wrong, not you, and it's her loss.

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    1. You know, we were talking about that yesterday as we worked. Back then, we could have never envisioned where we are now. Tim is a very practical person, and he rarely gets emotional (about anything, which can be frustrating). But when I mused, "Could you ever have believed that our lives would turn out like this?" he said, "Nope," and that one word was filled with just as much amazement as my sentence.

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  13. There is a big difference between forgiving and forgetting. While others sometimes need our forgiveness, I find forgiveness to be a personal thing most of the time. It's a way of letting go so I'm not eaten alive by anger, bitterness, etc. It's for my benefit. Forgetting is a totally different thing. I don't believe we are supposed to forget a lot of things. If anything, so we can stay aware and not allow it to happen to us again. It can be a difficult thing, remembering without letting us consume us all over again... but I think it's healthy. It also makes forgiveness something I have to do repeatedly. -Kelly

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    1. It sounds as if you and I think a lot alike on this subject, Kelly. It is really the first time that I've considered remembering and choosing to forgive as a cycle that might be healthy. Thanks for that perspective.

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  14. Well you acted like a Christian Debby good on you.

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    1. Well...next time, I'll probably screw it all up, so...

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  15. Going on to have a good life is the best revenge, and it sounds like you have a very good life, Debby. It's amazing how "good Christian" people will behave! In fact, that phrase makes me want to puke.

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  16. Me too, actually. Me too.

    Not nagging or anything, but aren't we due for more Poppy the Puppy Pics?

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  17. When Dr Phil first hit the screen. We watched for a time, and he did have some good advice. One piece was, "You're not talking to the person. You're talking to the drugs." I think there's a lot of truth to that. We didn't watch him for long and soon lost interest, but I think that there was a lot of wisdom in that one thing. I don't even know if he's still on.

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  18. He is. We do not watch him at all. We think he is exploitive. It is a shame really. There are many types of addictions, and in every one that I can think of, the need for the addictive substance becomes more important than anything in their lives. Pity the people in their lives, really.

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  19. Wow. Some people sure don't like to look in the mirror, do they? She blames you and then doesn't take any responsibility for the impact her actions had on other people's lives.

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    1. I think most people don't like looking in the mirror.

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  20. I see that she never asked for forgiveness-she never admitted wrongdoing. She just made an excuse. If she felt really badly she would have admitted that she had been wrong and asked for your forgiveness. I would probably avoid her too.

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    1. You cannot grow without introspection. She is more obsessed with how she appears to the world.

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  21. Wow. So sorry Debby but glad you finally got to let her know how you really felt. Your story is just one of the reasons why I don't like churches or organized religion. A lot of the ones that so-called religious do a terrible job setting an example of what they learn in church. Take care and good luck getting the rental squared away.

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  22. I am good. It was a learning time for me too. It was just a tough time to be learning something new on top of everything else.

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  23. I wonder if she ever thinks how her life could have been. Such a waste.

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    1. She really did have everything. She had inherited a great amount of money. She really had all the makings for a good life. She could have gone anywhere, done anything.

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