Sunday, August 30, 2009

Living with chronic disease

I stumbled upon a blog of a mom, a fighter, a surviver on http://coffeeandchemo.blogspot.com. She lives with cancer, fights it, does not complain, takes care of the kids and of the house and even has time to blog every day.


And I am reading it and thinking: here I am, sitting in front of my Mac, writing the blog about my war against my husband's ex. And it looks so insignificant in the comparison to what RivkA with capital A is going thorough.


Another thought comes to bother me. I am not ill, my husband is doing well too. Then why our life looks very much like dealing with chronic disease that does not want to go away and there is not treatment yet to be found?


Did I go insane, comparing a person, a living person, a Jew to a chronic disease? Is is really that bad? There is no physical pain, there is no question of how long we are going to survive and we are obviously not dying (not as far as I know).


But how do you measure emotional pain? How do you return days and weeks invested in this battle? Can you feel how toxic and how harmful is hate? How many children will be born into this mess and grow up crippled?


What a waste of life, what a waste of energy, what a shame!


Good night everyone! Refuah Shlema RivkA with Capital A, my personal hero!

Non-violent resistance or open war?

When Sons of Israel have had it in Egypt, Moshe nicely asked Pharaoh to let his people go briefly mentioning God vindictive temper. This had little effect. Spooky stuff like frogs falling from the sky and other minor nature disasters were by far more effective. 

So let me ask you, dear readers, how you pursue someone to let go? Do you take Mahatma Gandi approach of peaceful resistance or you go to war asking God to be on your side. 

Here is my answer. I believe the one should always seek peace and pursue peace (בקש שלום ורדפהו). Love mixed with determination can change the world. On the other hand, if your enemy has one and only goal and it is to kill you (remember this famous scene from "Independence Day" where the alien whispers to the President of Unites States: "Die, die!"), then there is no point in negotiating and no point in non-violent resistance. This is not going to work. The enemy will crush you with force and you will die as a hero. You will have no choice but to go to war.

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country, said George S. Patton.

Would like to know your opinion on the above.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Three most wonderful years of my life or Tribute to the Man of my Dreams)

Two weeks ago we celebrated the third anniversary of our RCC (religious commitment ceremony). What is RCC? This is what you do, when your beloved one is being denied legal divorce and his "legal" wife is waving bigamy charges above his head. So we went to undisclosed location and did whatever we had to do in presence of two witnesses who's identity cannot be revealed and anonymous religious authority that refuses to identify himself.

All I have to tell you is, that when you find the love of your life nothing can stop you from being together, no matter how many obstacles you have to move on your way (and we had a lot to move). There is still one pretty big obstacle, but she will leave us alone soon. I am working on it.

Every day I wake up in the morning smiling because I woke up next to the most amazing person in the world. He is good hearted and gentle, he is one of the smartest people I ever met, he cares about others, he cares about his kids, he cares about me. He is generous and kind, his integrity is unquestionable. Someone once told me that integrity is to do the right thing even if nobody is watching. This was said about my husband. His friends are the first class ones (not a single one of them is rotten). Everyone (well, except one that we don't want to talk about here) loves him and I love him the most.

Did you ever feel that you cannot express in words how much your love someone? Every time I try to explain it seems that my vocabulary is so thin, despite the fact that I speak three languages.

Even after three years, when everyone says that the freshness of love fades, our love is blossoming more and more. Would you imagine that people still ask us this newly wed question: how long are you married? They find it hard to believe that folks like us still exist on the face of earth. That we still give each other silly cards and when we call each other "My Love" we actually mean it.

Enough for now, I see the readers preparing the paper bags (like when the airplane goes through turbulence). Please don't say, "Blah, she is just saying it to make us feel bad. Love like that is long since gone from the face of earth."

I have some news for the skeptics and cynics among my readers.

This phenomenon is called TRUE LOVE. And it is alive and kicking!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Fighting for my chained man!

In Succos we will "celebrate" the 6th anniversary of this divorce battle. For long 6 years my partner is waiting for his separated wife to give him legal divorce and leave him alone. I joined the "show" 3 years ago when finally, despite all the obstacles, we were able to start our life as a couple. 3 amazing years and hopefully many more to come.

Since then, every day, after praying for Mashiah to come I add my little prayer saying "please help me to get married, have healthy children and please separate us from his ex-wife". And this day will come - being eternal optimist is not a bad thing, right?

In the mean time the legal wife is not giving up on us juggling between arbitration (Beth Din) and civil court system depending on where she gets more favorable judgement. The worst part of it - everyone believes her lies. Why? Come on, would you not have pity on a poor women that has no money to eat and had to file bankruptcy to avoid foreclosure on her house? Would you not feel sorry for her being abused by her husband? She would tell you how liberated she felt after obtaining the Order of Protection against her abusive husband and filing for divorce. And you will probably burst in tears of joy - so convincing she sounds.

The only problem is that her story is made up from it's very beginning. "Here we go again", you would say, "This is one of these stories where each side is right and I better stay away from it". The difference is that I have proofs and she doesn't. Lying only works for awhile, and only for people that don't want to be bothered by facts. So you can stop reading right here if ignoring the facts feels more convenient.
More details to be revealed soon - stay tuned!