My life has become more wonderful because of the birth of my grandson, EJ.
My daughter's life has fallen apart, and she has picked up the pieces to carry on, because her marriage has ended. The fairy tale and the romance are finished. Her husband has shown his true colors.
Cathie said she fell in love again with her childhood sweetheart. Yet he couldn't maintain the fantasy world he created for too long. Eventually, the wedges he tried to drive between her and friends and other family members gave way. Her heart broke down the barriers until she finally saw the truth.
The girl Cathie's husband had dated before Cathie was pregnant. He let me believe that this girl had become pregnant before she became involved with him, and that he had found her out and broken off their relationship. Since I worked with her, her mother, and her grandmother, it became a rather sticky situation, or at least an uncomfortable work atmosphere for me. I couldn't freely talk about my daughter's marriage. Then I couldn't openly share the news that she was expecting. We felt like spies, hiding from the KGB or the CIA or something, watching over our shoulders for the people who were out to get us.
I started seeing signs that the other young lady in question wanted to make peace. But dear hubby filled Cathie's mind with fear and prejudice, at least as much as a spouse could do. Cathie wanted to trust and support him. She believed in him.
My younger brother has a girlfriend, a young single mother with adorable children I happen to be very attached to. Cathie's husband - oh, let's just call him "DH" for Dear Hubby - told both Cathie and me that this woman was dealing drugs, and that he had her on videotape. According to him, her arrest was imminent. Likewise, Cathie's brother Paul was involved in all manner of shady business, along with his girlfriend. DH told Cathie that Paul's girlfriend -- another young single parent -- had tried to seduce him (DH), and that she had announced her intentions to either break up his marriage or cause him to lose his job.
EJ was born three weeks early. Just as they were preparing Cathie for a C-section, EJ decided to come naturally. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, but he was still healthy, if tiny, at 5 lbs and 10 oz.
A few weeks later, I was gravely concerned about Cathie's emotional health and the state of her relationships. She had been trying, since December or so, to find and talk to her DH's former girlfriend about his daughter and him. She wanted to make peace, even though DH did not want her talking to this young lady or any of her friends and relatives.
I had managed to help her get back on speaking terms with Paul, and he gave Cathie's cell phone number to the young lady.
That's when things began to get interesting....
Cathie told me she and the former GF had gotten along fine, and the babies were so cute together. Former GF agreed to let DH see their daughter, even though the hearing had determined that DH would not get formal visitation for a year.
Cathie also told me she was beginning to doubt some of the things her husband had told her. I was already taking some of it with a grain of salt. After all, wives of cops don't have to be cloaked in complete secrecy. I was married to a state trooper for years, and my older brother has been in law enforcement of some kind ever since he became a police dispatcher at the age of 18. I had thought DH just needed to learn to be more laid-back about things.
Cathie had been fighting against rumors she had been hearing, only a few of which I'd heard too. Rumors that he'd had an affair with Paul's girlfriend before she started dating Paul, that he'd been caught having sex with a girl in the WalMart parking lot in the back seat of Cathie's extended cab pickup truck, and that he was currently dating a teenaged girl. We actually drove around town looking for his car.
We were back at their house in the baby's room where Cathie had been sleeping for weeks in an extra bed (she'd said because she kept DH awake when he was home), when we heard a car in the driveway. DH's mother was dropping him off. I had long since become uncomfortable being there when he came home because I didn't want him to feel I was trying to be a third wheel or interfere with their relationship in any way. I told Cathie and baby EJ goodnight and went home.
A few hours later, my mother was trying to wake me to tell me Cathie's cell phone number was on the caller-ID. I was so groggy, I hadn't even heard the phone ringing. I was trying to call Cathie back when I heard her at the front door. She was on the phone with either my brother or her stepmother, EJ's carrier and the diaper bag in her arms.
Last year, March signaled the beginning of change at the track, with a new group planning to purchase the controlling shares the company. There were significant changes at CafePress that impacted them as well. Even their Google ranking dropped like a rock for some time.
I had doubts about both of my jobs. I was at a phase in my participation in the Vanderbilt study on depression where I was kind of winging it, going solo, like Dumbo when he finds out he doesn't have a magic feather in his cap anymore. (Oh, you know, the cartoon. If you have never seen it, you are deprived. Go rent it.)
All this stuff sent me into a dark place for a while. I needed a flashlight to find my way out. And then I found my wand to guide me. Lumos. But it took several more months before I really felt better. Life did change at the track when it changed hands. For one thing, my brother no longer worked there. For another, Paul worked in Bobby's place, though not for the same pay. My hours changed, getting worse, then better, partly because several other tellers began to leave.
I also quit doing the Kentucky Downs gear through Horses-Around on CafePress. The wife of one of our new owners was an Equine Artist (because they are apparently superior to the rest of us peons), so the track is now filled with her work. There's a monochromatic screen printed t-shirt and sweatshirt now on sale, replacing my designs and t-shirts. I rescued my stuff from the cabinet where they had been stashed and took them home. Even though I had legal signed permission to use the KYD name and facilities to sell merchandise, I decided it would useless to complain. All I would likely do is endanger my job as a teller.
When the truth came out about DH, it enabled me to redirect the distrust I had felt toward several other tellers to the real owner of all the trouble, DH, and it was great. A sense of relief and freedom accompanied the new anger, so it empowered me. Finding out her husband had been cheating on her since day one did the same for my daughter. She was nothing but courageous, changing from the remorseful hermit I had worried about, hiding in her house across town, to a woman with a purpose, a single mother with an innocent child.
There's more to this story, but as of January 2, 2013, it won't be told here.
