From Happiness to Tragedy; To Bliss on the Borderline
(Lamentations of a Fool)
by
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A Rude Slumber (excerpt from Part I) “Honey. Honey! Honey!” I shook her. She was cold. I looked at her face, not expecting the worse. She was still as death. I felt her arm. It was cold. Her skin had begun to turn blue. It was clammy. Just a couple of months earlier, on Thanksgiving weekend, my wife and I experienced the worse argument we had ever had in our lives. The holidays went fine. They were the usual. My wife and I, along with our seven-year-old son, went to her family’s home for our first of two heavy holiday meals. My mother-in-law was a traditional, down-home southern lady. She believed her mission in life was to overstuff her family with good food. She succeeded. I recall my first holiday meal there. It was an experience for wide eyes and a large stomach. I don’t recall the number of courses, but there must have been a dozen. Ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, scalloped potatoes, corn, green beans (the beans always had large pieces of bacon), baked beans (with large strips of bacon), cranberry sauce (the kind that still looks like the can when it is served), home-baked bread, home-baked dinner rolls, butter, apple butter, honey, jelly, and other foods I don’t presently recall. For dessert, it was usually the same thing every holiday. We had the best homemade apple pie made from scratch and the freshest apples this side of the Pacific, cherry pie, cherry cheesecake, chocolate pie, and banana pudding. As for drinks, we had milk, cranberry-apple juice, and strong coffee. I had learned to strengthen my coffee from two level scoops per pot when I was a young man to seven heaping scoops per pot. To this day, I use seven scoops. After all, seven is the perfect number, and the Bible named a book after this ritual. Shortly after I had finished that home-cooked southern feast, I sat on the couch, staring at the wall for the rest of the afternoon. I couldn’t move. I believe it was the first time I had experienced such a swelling sensation in my stomach that froze me in my tracks. First of all, I couldn’t believe I’d eaten that much, and second, I couldn’t stop thinking, Oh no, am I going to explode? You’re My Mommy Now! (2nd excerpt from Part I) Around three thirty in the afternoon on the day my wife went to heaven, my mom picked my son up from school. I saw them walk into the living room. My son could sense something was wrong. The pastor was there; my dad and some of my brothers and sisters were sitting with me in the family room. My son gave me a kiss and hug. I stopped him as he began to walk toward the bedroom to greet his mommy. Putting him on my lap, I said, “Buddy, Mommy is in heaven now. She is very happy. We will see her again in heaven, but it will be a long time before that happens.” He looked at me and began to cry. At first it was a light cry, and then it became louder. Finally, at the top of his lungs, he cried, “I want my mommy,” over and over and over again for what I believe was about twenty minutes. As I rocked him on my lap, he continued to bellow out, “I want my mommy!” My friends and family sat in grief, watching the episode. After a few minutes, I took him into the bathroom. We sat on the bathtub step while he screamed, “I want my mommy!” Finally, he stopped, and just as suddenly, while looking up at me he said in a calm voice, “That’s all right, Daddy. Now you are my mommy and my daddy.” I still heave with pain from my chest and on into my throat when I think of this. I picked him up and walked into the living room. He never cried another tear over his mommy until that day I kissed his “new mom.” Once upon a Second Time (excerpt from Part III) She is poison. That’s what my attorney told me. I called him this morning asking why I need to start paying alimony before the pretrial date. He only replied, “You need to quit asking her back!” Just last week I sent him an e-mail telling him to tell her attorney to tell my wife to come back home. Then I got the alimony letter. My attorney said I need to calm down and quit asking her back, because she is poison. She is poison, but it sure did taste good going down. It’s like drinking too much wine. It tastes so good at first, and then it feels so wonderful. However, in the morning, the hangover makes you realize that along with that nutritious grape comes the alcoholic poison. That is my present (second) wife. Here’s my other story.
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About the Book
Bewildered, she exclaimed, “Did she have psychological problems?” I was stunned. I had just told my real estate agent I was selling my house because my wife left me nine months ago. A few years ago, we bought a house in the Akron area. My wife rode around town with this real estate agent looking for a home. When I told the agent she had left me, the she said, “She talked you up so well, I honestly believed she thought you were a god!” I replied, “I used to be, but now I’m a demon from Hades.” Neither me or my wife had spoken to this agent before or since she sold us our house. That’s just a small sample of the paradox I had lived the previous twelve years. My first wife died, suddenly, leaving me alone with our seven year old boy. A year later, I married my second wife. Now, my second period of grieving was to begin. Through the course of the following pages you will cruise along the path of a man who laments the loss of his first wife and tries to make sense of life in general. Suddenly however, in the midst of the book, his present wife leaves him. This devastation twists the book into a peculiar direction as he expresses his grief in the loss of his second wife, then in Part III, tells his story of the agonies involved in living with a Borderline wife. In Part IV, the book produces evidence that convinces him she has Borderline Personality Disorder, then elaborates further on how it affected him and his son. Finally, in Part V, as an afterthought, he discusses the fact that he may be narcissistic after all and this narcissism may have drawn him to his BPD wife and helps explain how they stayed together for so long.
About the Author
The author was happily married for twenty-seven years until suddenly his beloved wife died, leaving him with a seven-year-old son. A year later, he remarried. Then, a second period of grieving was to begin in From Happiness to Tragedy; To Bliss on the Borderline (Lamentations of a Fool). The author, after marrying his first wife, became very involved in church life. He soon became a teacher, librarian, and officer in the church. He also gained his education and entered the field of information technology. While progressing through its ranks, and gaining a wonderful son, the author had lived a wonderful life. However, this bliss was cut short by a dark secret that did not reveal itself till it was too late. Conclusions are drawn in this book as to the whys and the hows this could happen. Nicholas E. Cleveland Chair, School of Information Technology at a major technical college Associate of Commerce (Computer Operations) Bachelor of Arts (History, Philosophy, Education) MBA (Business Management) IT Certifications (A+, Net+, MTA Net/OS/SrvrAdmin/Security, MSWindows)