A Flawed Legacy - 24

With our boys gone and technically, subject to a "breaking and entering" charge, and another of my former wife's maneuvers, I sat down and cried.  "What had I ever done to deserve this?'  One thing came to mind, I was not going to blame her, nor the boys.  They had lived in the midst of lies that were beyond even my most vivid imagination.  And I began to recall the day I went up to Santa Barbara to talk with her father.  I had had no interest in knowing him, especially as her mother had claimed that she was conceived after a one night's stand.  Even that proved to be a lie.  Now, how could I blame Janice, not understanding her life before we came to know each other?

Her father did not deny the claim, nor did he offer any advice to me.  Janice was a by-product of what some might claim to be, a sordid affair.  He offered no apologies, nor did he want t be saddled with any relationship.  He was married, had children of his own and had no interest in revealing his past to his current family.  I thought I understood and let it be.  I never mentioned that conversation to Janice and actually, I felt sorry for her.  She had a father who would not even acknowledge their relationship and I had a father who - as far as I was concerned, had never acknowledged ours.  Life offers us strange "coincidences" at times, I was beginning to realize.

My job turned out to be another fiasco.  The owner was completely paralyzed, caused when he dove into an empty pool at a Holiday Inn and sued them.  I thought I could "minister" to him as he acted as if they were at fault and the sizable settlement he had received was not sufficient to cover his costs.  And he assumed that everyone else was as corrupted in their thinking as I came to realize that he was.  We were not meant to be together and I have often wondered why I even considered his offer.

As I left the owner of the space in which the offices were located wondered why I was leaving and I gave him my impression.  How much does it cost to open an agency, he asked and to make another longer story shorter, we went into business together in another spot in the same building.  It was slow going at first, but there was a huge blizzard in the Buffalo, NY, area and I had access to a list of engineers from that area who were stuck at home.  It was an easy interview by telephone.  I had potential clients in the Texas area where there was no snow and the temperature was in the mid-70's and 80's which made the change very plausible.  In the next 45 days, we placed eight engineers at significantly higher wages than they were used to and best of all, their new employers paid our fees.

What had turned out to be "sour grapes" suddenly turned into expensive wine.

There was a former Cowboys player working in the same building and we met one evening at a new restaurant on the ground floor.  I knew about him and he became very interested in me and what I was doing and within the month, he offered me a part-time job that paid a lot of money.  I had used some of my earlier earnings to employ a lawyer in case Janice came up with some financial obligations and now, considering the fact I would no longer be representing a company or my name, I asked him to look at the possibilities of an illegal scheme.  All I was doing was to quote a price on a variety of products that they were purchasing and schedule a delivery.  It paid very well.  But my lawyer questioned some of the transactions and apparently, discussed it with the police.  They came to see me, plain clothed officers who examined the records I was keeping and left saying I was doing a good job.  Then, one of them came back to me with an offer to sub-let his apartment while he and his wife moved into their new home.  It was a good deal.  Three months later, they offered me another job in another city.

I went to see my lawyer who had drawn up a plan by which he would have me pay the State of California a substantial sum to offset any potential claims for past or future child support and when I learned that my "part-time" job was coming to an end, I decided to close my other business as well, and instructed unpaid fees to be sent to the lawyer's office to be added to the amount we would be sending to California.

All the while, I had been attending church regularly, sometimes one church and another, and whenever possible attending Bible studies as well.  I had quit drinking all together and spent a lot of my time in various "missions" offices around the city.  Knowing the trial and tribulations I had suffered through, I was convinced I would be able to help others - not with money, but with my impressions of how God had worked in my life and was changing the man that I was to become the man I hoped to be.

With no job at hand and no interest to go back to what I had been doing, I asked God what He wanted me to do.  It was just a passing thought, but within moments I swear I heard Him say, "Go, be with My people."  I never questioned that.  I got up from where I was, called a friend to come and dispose of everything I was leaving behind and with my keys hanging in the door, I literally walked out of town 

A Flawed Legacy - 19

San Diego on any day of the year is a good day.  We were fortunate to have found a nice duplex apartment that was close to the elementary school we needed for our children and across the street from a shopping center. It was a great new start and it should have worked well for us.  Unfortunately, it did not.

My problem was that I had not yet learned how to deal with rejection and working for a company that promised to "Write your Congressman" on behalf of the companies I was able to convince that they needed to participate, meant that I was being rejected on 60 to 70 per cent of my "unannounced" calls. More often that not, the owner was not available.  I should have anticipated this, but I did not.

Instead, I turned to what I had begun to believe was my old "dependable" as far as jobs were concerned.  I dropped by an employment agency looking for a "better" job and would up with another promise of the future and more drudgery.  I had some breaks.  The young Indian emigrant with more clerical skills than I had ever seen was easy to place in an "employer paid fee" job.  That impressed her father who came to the office with the resumes of the other children I had yet to meet and told me not to worry about fees; he would pay the fees for any of the others I placed.  That became my goal, but I did not share my thoughts with the agency manager and soon she became critical of my efforts.

Then came the bomb shell.  The mail box of the people in the adjoining unit had been pilfered and it did not take long for the authorities to visit Janice.  From what I would soon hear from the investigators who talked with me, she was blaming me for my financial failures.  To be honest, I almost lost it.  I came close to beating on her after she hid in our bedroom behind a locked door.  I kicked it in and was ready to beat on her, when I realized my promise to her and to myself.  One more incident like we had experienced earlier and I was through with the marriage.  The next morning I was talking with a lawyer about the possibilities of a divorce.  I would learn that we could not afford one.

So, I let the inevitable happen.  She was arrested, went to court - alone, and eventually, she was found guilty.  I never visited her in jail and was not interested in visiting her in the prison she was sent to for an evaluation.  Instead, I went to the appropriate offices in the State to see what assistance I could get to stabilize our family situation.  It would take time, I was told.

I called an old friend we had known in a Los Angeles church we had attended, shared my sad story and asked him if he could arrange to find me help for my problems.  By this time, I had to admit there had to be something wrong with me to have worked so very hard with no significant results and now, to find our family in disarray and my wife facing ten years in prison.  He came to San Diego, picked me up and we met with two others who were supposed to understand family crises.  We talked for over three hours and I realized, I was trying to convince them of my realities and they were fixated on what they had read about Christian family dynamics.  We were getting nowhere, but something my friend had said began to resonate with me.  My problem were more spiritual than any of us cared to admit.

With that I called a man I had known briefly, but who had made a lot of sense to me, so I called his office in Tulsa, OK.  Unable to reach him directly, his secretary suggested I come to Tulsa so that it would be easier to have him understand my predicament.  I thought that was a good idea.  I could not think of anyone in California who would be interested in listening to me.

I went back to the people I had talked with at the State offices and asked about the possibilities of placing the children in temporary (90 days) "Foster care" homes.  I assumed that before the 90 days had elapsed, Janice would be out of her temporary hold in prison, I would have learned more about my own sense of reality and we could establish a plan to our children.  To this day, I thought it was a good idea, it had been endorsed by the child welfare people.  Things would work out for the best of everyone.