I loved you, Tom.

I LOVED you.

I loved YOU.

When we got married on May 13, 1972 in that little stone chapel on the hill at Colgate Divinity.........I was madly, passionately, inexplicably, inordinately, crazy-in-love with you. We bought a house and closed on it two weeks before our marriage but I told you then that I would have lived in a cave with you. I adored you beyond the words to say it.

Bit by bit, night after neglected night, you ate away, not only at my passion for you...but my passion for life itself. You stole my joy at every turn, and worse, you not only didn't feel bad about it, you reveled in it. You manipulated me in ways that Denis, the "master-manipulator" as he has been called by all of you, even those of you who have not met him, could not begin to dream of.

I gotta give you credit...you were goooood. Either that, or I was REALLY stooopid. I think it's a combination of the two. You knew how much I loved you. You knew how much I would have done anything for you. You knew, for many years, that you never had to put your foot down with me.

You knew that I would submit to a look on your face.

I not only gave you everything you asked for...I got to the point of giving you what you wanted, even when you didn't ask for it.

I WANTED TO PLEASE YOU.

What took me all of these years to figure out is that there WAS no pleasing you. My only regret is that I didn't figure it out before.

For the first 20 years we were married I didn't drive, have my own credit card, or ask for anything special for myself. If the kids ever heard me cry, or raise my voice to you, they should know that it was because I wanted something for THEM...not for me. I didn't wear make-up, get my hair done, and I wore CRAP for clothes, because you insisted that we didn't have money for any of it. When Ginny needed braces...and I'm not talking about 'wanting' them, I'm saying that she NEEDED them...I LITERALLY got down on my KNEES and BEGGED you for them. I cried. I told you that we should give up our vacation that year. That was how important her teeth were to me. Maybe I ranted a little bit. That's all the kids remember. That Mom rants. But it wasn't for ME. It was always for THEM. You turned your head.

I loved you all, Jenny. I gave myself to you for the past 18 years. I laid my life down for you. Ask anyone who knew me. You and Barbie and Sabrina were all I talked about for years. I'm sorry that you think Denis and I are so "annoying" just because Denis got tired of seeing you sit and watch HIM make dinner while you sat and drank a two liter bottle of orange pop and a bag of chips. As much as you claimed to "love" him at that time, you not only NEVER offered to help him, but when he asked, you whined and griped like a 5 year old. All he wanted was to see you get up off your fat butt and get motivated to do something other than sit around and gossip with Brittany, Sabrina and Brandy. He CARED about you. You were SO proud of yourself that day that you ran along 14A on the way to pick up Sabrina from school but then you used that as something to complain about the two of us the second you got home to Dad who is using this opportunity to spoil you kids with gifts and money in a way that I would never have allowed.

I always thought that love would be enough. I grew up in the sixties, didn't I? All you need is love.......isn't that what John said? Well, that was John Lennon, not John the Revelator, so what does he know anyway?

Love is patient...love is kind...

Well, I wasn't perfect, was I? But at least I tried. At least I TRIED. I'm sorry my love wasn't enough. I'm sorry that I wanted something more for all of you than living on welfare, eating off of Food Stamps, and sitting around on your butts watching TV, eating junk food and watching your weight climb to 300 lbs. by the age of 30. The fact that you, Jenny, not only have finished your first semester of college, before you even graduated from high school...well, I don't want to take credit where it is not due, because you did the actual work yourself, but let's face it...it was my foot that kept kicking you in the butt all these years.

I'm glad your life is so 'wonderful' now, Jenny. I am SO glad that you, and the rest of the family, don't have to be 'annoyed' by that 'bee-yotch' Mom, who saw something of value in you. Maybe Caleb was right. Maybe I invented whatever it was that I saw in all of you. Maybe I needed to see something so that I wouldn't have to to say that I was wasting my time.

All I know is that I LOVED YOU. I still love you. I love you all. I love Dad. I told him that. When he asked who would "take care of" him as he got older, I promised him that I would. All I said was that I didn't want to be married anymore. I never said that I would desert him.

I will no longer allow any of you to manipulate or take advantage of me anymore though. The whole lot of you tried to kill two people. You can blame someone else if you want, but you were ALL in cahoots. Even, or maybe especially, the children who don't live at home. I don't mean to keep picking on Craig, but his voice just keeps playing over and over in my head. You expected it all along, didn't you, my misogynist son-in-law? Even my own so-called mother, the one who wanted to disinherit me for adopting children has taken sides with a man who tried to kill her own daughter. Well, I was always the "slow" one, wasn't I Mom? The one who "needed to be taken care of". You told Tom that, didn't you? That would explain why Tom always treated me more like his child than his wife.

Awww, don't worry Mom...I don't want your money. I never did. All I wanted was you. I've accepted that I will never have that so as far as I'm concerned you can continue to pretend that I died. This blog is proof that I didn't, but I'm sure there is a place you can go in your mind where you can still pretend.

As for the rest of you, you are no longer 'children'...you are adults. It's time to grow up. I never left any of you. Not even Dad. I only left now...because you left me first.

You guys can pretend to know where I am but don't get too comfortable. Wherever you think I am, before you blink, I'll be gone. My God is an awesome God and He is taking care of me every step of the way. You can whore yourself to the 'father' who never paid any attention to you all these years if you want to, because it seems easier right now.

As for me, I'm opting for a Father who will never forsake me. If anyone thinks that I am backslidden, or that God cannot hear my prayers because I am "in sin"...think again. Get another picture of Jesus "the lover of my soul" Christ. I have seen miracles in the past two months that you guys can only DREAM of.

All I can think of now is Tommy's dream. "Stay with Mom", right? Each of you, every single one of you, were given that opportunity...over and over and over and over...and every single one of you chose to do what you are doing. You can't say I didn't wait. I waited TWO MONTHS for someone...ANYONE...to come to me, to call me, to help me. Don't think I didn't see you that day, Jenny, hiding behind the new pink hat that you pulled down over your face, getting into the new car Dad bought so that we wouldn't know it was you. You knew it was me that day and you CHOSE to ignore me.

Am I to be greater than God? The Bible says that if you deny God, He will deny you, right? If you deny me, I will deny you. God does not expect me to do more than what He would do.

Whatever your life is, or purports to be in the future, you have brought this all on yourselves. I'm glad it's 'wonderful' for you, Jenny. So is mine. I'm finally free.

I love you Calebson..............thank you...thank you...thank you. You know, more than anyone except for maybe Denis, how much I loved them. I never claimed to be perfect, did I? I knew I could love though. Then this happened and I questioned, not my love for them, but whether I had shown it enough. But love is a two-way street, isn't it? I know...deep in my heart, Caleb...that I did the best I could do. If it wasn't enough there is nothing more I can say or do. Thank you for this piece. You have blessed me in a way that I can't even describe. And to think that everyone accused me of 'favoring' Jenny. It would appear that even the 'favored' ones don't care..............

For anyone who might be tempted to feel sorry for me....don't worry, it's okay. Denis says I am growing up and has called me a mongoose amid a brood of vipers. My friend Lookin' named me "Stands with Fists".......

I may not be as soft and sweet as I used to be but sometimes growing up demands a little hardening. Romans 8:28 says, "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes". In other words, "It's all good".

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This is Caleb's most recent post on his blog:

I lost a friend today.

I lost several friends. This recent debacle with Connie has left a lot of tension floating about how certain people feel about certain people. I’ve talked with Connie a very small amount lately… What is happening now, to her, is ridiculous and appalling. The woman who was buying and selling and managing a million dollars in real-estate is, not more than one month later destitute, distant, and almost broken working at multiple dismal jobs that I would never take.

I talked to one of her children for the first time since all this began and I wasn’t sure what to say. It was a chat so there was no tone, to voice, no inflection. She asked how I was doing I said I was okay. I asked how she was doing she said that everything was wonderful. I asked why. She said that Connie and Dennis were gone now so the family didn’t have to be annoyed anymore. … I felt the coldest inhuman chill. And I told her. I’m going to have to stop talking to you. I’m ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of your whole family. I’m appalled. And I can’t associate with you anymore. I blocked the poor girl. …

If either side of this mess is reading this post… I don’t know what to say. I think to some extent, human justice would provide it natural for each of you to feel spiteful for what is happening. I wish neither side had to see things like this. And I’m… I’m ashamed. I’m almost furious at some of the things I’ve heard. But most of all I’m saddened. I am absolutely, deeply, horribly saddened that this is what it’s come to.

To the Cooke Family: I understand why she did it. I would even say that it was the right choice in such circumstances as they were and are. I said it to her. And I stand by that. Fully. There’s a massive misunderstanding that robbed you all of good sense and raised tension and anger and hatred. Connie left a marriage. She did not leave her husband. She did not leave her family. She did not lose love for her family. She did not TAKE anything from you. She did nothing to hurt you. NOT TO HURT YOU. Nothing was taken from you but the word “marriage.”

But it annoyed you. And she annoyed you. And he annoyed you. Tom, Mikey, Jenny, Brandy, ALL of you. Hear me: Human beings are not flies that when annoying should be crushed without thought. Human beings are God’s creation. God help you what fairness He intends for your family now. I am afraid… for you all now I am worried… I am hurt to think of what is going to happen now that you’ve batted away your own human decency. Whom among the lot of you weren’t at one time rejected and taken in by her? Which of you were never ANNOYING? Which of you hasn’t been looked down upon and treated like the spit of another human being? Which one of you is so popular that you’re never at want for friends? Who considers you beautiful inside? Who bothers to know you well enough to even LOOK inside? And what has she done to you!?

She saw gold in twisted minds and souls inside your empty eyes! She saw what no one else saw in you and she fed you the LIE that being whatever it is that you are is enough and when there was nothing to see, when there was no one who could find ANYTHING worth ANYTHING in any of you SHE INVENTED something, she CREATED a reason to love you… and if there were nothing else to create, she loved you anyway. There were rough spots, no doubt. Welcome to earth. Welcome to the fact that everyone on this planet is a little dysfunctional. We’re HUMAN. We MAKE mistakes, we rub people the wrong way we DISAGREE on things. It is what it is. You had a person the world was never going to give you two of, someone who’d feign blindness to all your sores and gores and mottled minds and unkempt thoughts and silly fallacious dreams and whines and gripes. You had someone who SAW it. But never reminded you of it, never held it over your heads, and never rejected you.

This is what it is.

The truth of it is that none of you ever deserved her. When she left but said she still wanted to be a part of all of your lives she was holding the golden rod out to Esther.

You fucked her.

You fucked her and God help you all. IF you ever think twice about autonomously jumping through your flattened, thoughtless emotional rings and finally see the circus it’s become and BEG on your KNEES with tears in your eyes for her to come back and be a human being to you all and she agrees to then you’ll have just received the greatest grace you’re capable of sucking out of this cold, barren life save God’s salvation and if she asked me I’d tell her not to do it.

I’m sorry… but you’ve borne your own lives now. You were excellent friends to me, the best. And I loved you all sincerely and I’m crying now… not for what’s happened to her. But because I’m losing you to it. I wish it had happened another way.

To Connie: I guess now we know.

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"And who is a chosen man that I may appoint over her? For who is like Me? Who will arraign Me? And who is that shepherd Who will withstand Me?" Jer. 50:44 NKJV

This is a comment that I left on Whit's blog way back in 2006. It is one of the few comments that I have ever written that made me cry while writing it. I asked him at that time if I could copy and paste it to my blog and he said yes. Since then I reposted it once. This is the second repost here.

It had meaning for me then....it still has meaning for me now. As things stand at the moment it would appear that my family is no longer speaking to me or wants to have anything to do with me. I didn't say that they weren't tracking my every movement on the blogstream/questionstream...I just said that they refuse to directly talk to me, or correspond with me. My mother and one of my sisters have told me that I am "no longer welcome in their homes" because of the choices I have made. None of my nine children are speaking to me even though the two oldest ones were given an opportunity when I called them several times. They have not spoken to me at all since all of this occurred even though one continues to log in under different names on the questionstream whenever she sees that I am on there. Once I was told by my son-in-law that "no one is talking to you at this time" (very Christian of him, don't you think?) and the other times I left messages that were unreturned. Well, alrighty then........

As for my husband, you have all heard the story either directly from me or through the blogstream gossi.....er, prayer chain. The Reader's Digest version is that he left me, WITH NO VEHICLE, at one of our homes on the lake 10 miles from the town to the north, 15 miles from the town to the west and 30 from the town to the south. Don't ask about the town to the east...that is directly across 4 miles of the deepest lake water in the United States. You DO know what a swimmer POH is, right? Well, May is just a TEENSY bit early for THAT kinna swimming, if you know what I mean. *wink* Along with no vehicle, he shut off my cell phone, which was the only way I had of contacting him or anyone else for that matter, the verizon internet card, the credit card, the debit card, and is still, to this day, giving me no access to money of any kind. Just think! Little POH had to get temporary FOOD STAMPS to suffice for the month of May. What a comeuppance, huh? But wait! How was I able to get to Social Services with no vehicle, hmmmmm?

Let's just leave it that God LOVE POH, baby, and NO ONE, not my mother, not my sisters, not even my supposedly CHRISTIAN family can convince me otherwise. Jesus Christ is not only ALL of my salvation.....He is the true and ONLY Lover of my soul. I always knew that and told people on the blogstream that before. Maybe...just maybe...they believe me now. People keep asking me WHY would I want to leave such a "wonderful" and "kind" man after all of these years of marriage. Maybe they would like to assess what has happened to me since I left, realizing that the ferocity of his vindictiveness was not a surprise to me, even after I offered him everything we owned ($1,000,000 in real estate) if he would just supply me with $1,000 a month for the rest of my life. $12,000 a year....poverty level finances for those of you who weren't sure. Apparently that deal wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to see me STARVE. If that doesn't convince you of the caliber of man I was living with, and why Denis did not, could not, and never will be considered "abusive" by me, then you are being stubbornly obstinate in the reading of the facts of this matter.

Anyway, thank you again Whit for giving me the opportunity to write this piece, something I would never have done if you had not posted the poem back in 2006. Here it is with your original comment and my original response. Thank you too, Whitmeister, for being such a good friend the past two years.

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

My take of the words mean:

We have lost all sense of the future, and all integrity in ourselves. We have seen so much that we have lost the innocence of our First Love and can't find it any more. We can't tell the truth from a lie anymore. Our youth was filled with the hell and pain of war and we feel the shame of what we've been through and fail to feel the pride in what we've accomplished that others feel for us. We feel disqualified from this thing called life and our disinheritance surrounds us until we pass to the other side.

They sound like dead men walking, Whit. They have lost their innocence, their faith, the truth that they once knew. Their torments have caused them to see the world and others from the other side and they will never be the same. They followed the herd, baa, baa, baa, into the horrors of war and now they have lost who they are, the boys that they used to be, what they once stood for......

Don't we all lose our innocence sometime, Whit? Don't we all lose our faith, our hope, our love for God and our fellow man SOMETIME? Who has not felt those emotions so unique to the human experience? My wars have been different....I have not held a gun....not ever in my whole life....yet I have been to war and I defy anyone to minimize it or say that I haven't. I know what it means to lose my hope and to lose my honor, in my own eyes and in the eyes of my fellows. I know what it means to question my own integrity and to think that I MUST be the wrong one and everyone else MUST be right. I know what it is like to hug my pillow at night and pray to die.

I know what it is like to follow the herd, baa, baa, baa, and the price that is exacted from that. I know what it means to leave the herd and have to follow another road. A harsh, rocky, lonely, narrow road. I know what it means to lose the innocence of my youth and know that nothing....nothing....will ever gain it back....that I will never trust people, any people, even the people closest to me, the same way again.

I know first hand the curse of Reuban and know that my earthly inheritance is not worthy to be compared to what awaits me in heaven. If they deny me, I deny them. My hope is not 'false hope' and I do not hang onto it because I have nothing else to hang onto....I hang onto it because I have 'tasted and seen that the Lord is good' and no one in this world, not even my dearest and best can take from me what I have experienced.

I am a prisoner of the hope the Lord has put so far down inside of me that it can never be pulled out no matter how hard someone.....or circumstances try. When my hope fled from me, He caused me to hope against hope, and a greater hope was born. A hope that is not dependent on anyone but Him. He is all my hope, all my honour, all my innocence, all my youth and all my truth. In my darkest moments, in those times when I thought I would die from the grief, I found something so much greater than my own integrity to hope in.

Ps. 18 says, "He made darkness His secret place". For a while He was so bright and I didn't have to look hard to find evidence of His love for me. Then it's like someone walked in the room and flipped the switch. When the light went out all I could think of was "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1John) and it condemned me. Yet His Word says that when our hearts condemn us He is greater than our hearts. Then I saw the Psalm and God drew me into that secret place, and it was dark....and I so HATE the dark....and it changed me, Whit. Forever. I am changed and even if I wanted to I can't go back. It would be like slapping Him in the face for all the times He has secretly met me in my need.

I am called rebellious and unsubmissive to authority....but I was such a good girl, wasn't I? It was only when I realized that nothing I could ever do for these people would please them, that I became truly free to please God alone.

Well, this is the first post on any blog in the whole time I've been here, that has taken me more than a minute or two to comment on. I had to process this one for a while and then I had to get past the tears. The nostalgic Whiffenpoof song was an easier take....but I knew this meant more to me than that.
by prisonerofhope (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006 @ 10:05 PM

prisoner:At last we know how you acquired your blog name--prisoner of hope. I am not certain I like the use of the word "prisoner" within this context. I think of a prisoner as someone who is incarcerated against his or her will. And you have voluntarily entered into this relationship and are free to disengage anytime you wish. But meanwhile, the hope that you have goes deep into your own soul.I am pleased that you found a force which has allowed you to surmount all the turmoil in your life. And you are right. Sometimes, the battles we must fight within ourselves are just as real and traumatic as any battle by a soldier on a battlefield.Good luck to you as pursue your destiny.
by Whit's Whittlings (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006 @ 11:04 PM

The blog name is really not original with me. There is a book, written by a Holocaust survivor, by that name. I understand what you mean about the 'against your will' aspect of the word but I don't see it that way, anymore than I see anything wrong with the scripture that calls us 'slaves to righteousness'. You speak of destiny, and I believe that, but right now, Whit, I can't see more than a day ahead of me. I know that I have hopes and dreams for the here and now, not just for the hereafter....but, well, we'll see...I'm not the type to barge my way in somewhere I'm not wanted. Anyway, I liked this post, even if it was hard.
by prisonerofhope (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006


PS. ANYONE ON THE BLOGSTREAM OR QUESTIONSTREAM WHO INSISTS ON PM'ING OR OTHERWISE COMMUNICATING WITH MY FAMILY DURING THIS LITIGIOUS TIME CAN AND WILL BE SUBJECT TO SUBPOENA. BE AWARE THAT YOUR PM'S ARE IN PIONEER'S FILES AND ALL I HAVE TO DO IS GET THE JUDGE TO FORCE THEM INTO COURT RECORDS. I WILL DO THIS, EVEN IF YOUR PM'S DATE BACK FROM BEFORE THIS WARNING. PEOPLE I HAVE CONSIDERED FRIENDS ON THIS STREAM HAVE NOT ONLY TURNED THEIR BACKS ON ME, BUT HAVE, LIKE NOSY BUSYBODIES, ENTWINED THEMSELVES WITH PEOPLE WHO ACTIVELY TRIED TO STARVE ME. FOR THEM I SAY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE MESSING WITH.

ON THE OTHER HAND OTHERS HAVE COME THROUGH FOR ME IN WAYS I CANNOT THANK THEM ENOUGH FOR, AND I REALIZE THAT I HAVE FRIENDS FOR LIFE IN YOU.

My time is very limited at the moment....just wanted to let anyone who is interested know that things are okie-doke over here. I still have not received one of the two family vehicles, money of any denomination or a phone call to see how I am doing by any members of my so-called "family".....oh wait, I forgot....yeah, my phone was turned off too and no one knows the number of the new phone that Denis told me to buy two weeks ago (I told you he could see things that are coming)....but other than that God is taking care of us and we are trusting in Him. Still listening..........you know?