Looking Back

               For today’s post, I am reaching WAAAAAAY back into my memory file, though the whole thing was actually triggered by a very modern-day entity—FACEBOOK.  But before I begin, I need to include the following disclaimer:

This is Melinda’s blog, written by Melinda, for the benefit of Melinda (mostly), based on Melinda’s memories.  I write it because it helps me work things out in my mind and put things that need to be behind me, behind me.  I write it to record important events that I feel have impacted my life and the lives of my family, whether I view that impact as positive or negative.  I write it because I have always dreamed of being a “writer” and this type of forum allows me to exercise my love for written expression without having to deal with the rejection of publishers and critics.  Having said all of that, if you are someone who is liable to remember things differently than me, or if you could possibly get all sideways because you think the way I remember something may put you in a negative light, then PLEASE, do us both a big favor and do not continue reading my blog.  The stories I tell are based on my memories and the feelings and emotions those memories evoked.  Both my memories and my feelings are valid,whether or not you want to acknowledge them as such and whether or not you remember things differently.

Alrighty, then… back to the post.  As have a great number of today’s society members, no matter their ages, I have succumbed to the pull of Facebook.  People use all sorts of reasons for using FB, from staying in touch with family members to re-connecting with old friends and acquaintances, to cyber-stalking.  I personally don’t care why people use FB, it is their business, after all.  I enjoy being able have conversations with people without having to actually see them or call them on the telephone.  It is nice to be kept apprised of what is happening with family members and friends too, especially the ones you don’t live near anymore.  I will admit, I check my FB page on a regular basis throughout the day.  Sometimes I join in the conversations, and other times, I just sit back and “glean” knowledge that would have otherwise been unavailable to me.  All in all, I would have to say that I consider FB to be “electronic eavesdropping”.  I am constantly amazed at the stuff people will blurt out for the whole world to see.  And, yes, I have resorted to blocking a couple of people who have “diarrhea of the brain” and post waaay TMI and then have the nerve to be upset and whine that everyone is always “in their business”.  Over all, though, I think FB is a fun and valuable tool, when used appropriately.

One of the neat things FB does, is that it will make suggestions from the friend lists of your friends of people you may know and wish to reconnect with.  That is what has triggered this particular post.  Recently, as I was on FB, a name popped up as a friend suggestion.  The name was not familiar to me, but it said that we had two friends in common, so I was curious.  Well, I clicked on the name and discovered that it was actually a guy I had known when I was a teen-ager… one that I had unfortunately spent a lot of time and effort on.  The reason I didn’t recognize the name is that he evidently goes by his first name now.  When I knew him, he was known by his middle name. 

As I realized who he was, a wave of memory washed over me.  The feelings that accompanied the memory were strong enough to make me have to stop and catch my breath.  Took me back to a place of confusion, longing, anticipation, disillusionment and deep hurt… a place I did not like re-visiting.  You see, this fellow has the distinction of being the first boy I ever loved.  And yes, it was love I felt.  People through the years have tried to convince me that I was much too young at that point to really understand about love.  And while I was very young when the whole thing started, I have always been blessed with the gift of knowing my own heart.  So, no matter what anyone else wants to call it, I did love him.

I first fell for “Joey” (not his real name) when I was fifteen.  Not really sure what made me look his way.  He had just ended a pretty serious (as serious as kids that age can be) relationship with another girl.  Something just drew me to him and I fell hard.  As things go in most teen-age circles, when word got out that I had “a thing” for Joey, two of my so-called friends decided it was their duty to go to Joey and tell him so.  After an initial awkwardness, Joey started letting me ride in his car when the “gang” went places and taking me home from church activities.  He never indicated that he liked me as anything more than a friend, but he never told me to “get lost”, so I took his attention as positive.  The more time that went by, the stronger my feelings became.  The whole thing came to a head during a week at Youth Camp.  Joey picked the third night of camp to tell me he was not interested in me “that” way.  He had all kinds of reasons, he thought there was too much of an age difference (I was 15, he was 17), he was getting ready to go off to college, he didn’t think it would be fair for me to have to wait for him. He gave me all these other “reasons”, many of them seeming to hold a promise of a relationship somewhere in the future.   It would have been so much better if he had just gone ahead and told the truth, that I was too fat and he didn’t want to have a relationship with me.  Yes, it would have been hurtful and devastating to my 15-year-old psyche, but if he had told the truth, I could have dealt with it and gotten over it.  As it was, his reasons with hidden meanings, set me up for YEARS of heartache.

So, Joey tells me halfway through camp that he doesn’t want a relationship, and I get to spend the rest of the week hurt and embarrassed.  To make it worse, he tells my sister about our conversation, supposedly so she could “comfort” me.  Well, as I’ve blogged before, my relationship with my sister was contentious, at best, so comfort is not usually what I got from her.  I don’t remember that time being any different.  So instead of being just hurt and embarrassed, I got to add humiliated to the list as well.

Now… if Joey would have left me alone and ignored me, that’s where the whole thing could have ended.  But he continued being my chauffeur service and treating me as though there might be hope for us in the future.  When summer ended and he was getting ready to go away to school, he told me that he would like for me to write to him.  Of course, I assured him that I would.  I remember that we were all going to give him a little going-away send-off.  I told my mother that I was going to the store and get him a card.  Instead of acknowledging that I was going to miss Joey when he left, her response was, “Don’t you go embarrassing him!”  SIGH…  nobody ever knew what he was telling me, so everybody just thought I was pitiful.  I guess I was.

After Joey went off to college, I wrote him, just like I promised I would.  We corresponded very regularly for that first year, and every time he would come home, he would take me places, talk to me, and lead me to believe that “our time” was coming.  In fact, that Christmas he did something that made me SURE of it.  He KISSED me!  I had just turned 16 and it was my first “real” kiss.  I was thrilled beyond belief.  I just knew that a boy wouldn’t kiss a girl like that unless she was very special to him.  Even now, at 53, I believe that it SHOULD be like that.  Kisses should mean something… they should be special… not just another way of spending time together.  I know how terribly old-fashioned that makes me sound.  But I was so young and so terribly naïve, I couldn’t see that kissing didn’t mean the same thing to Joey as it did to me.  I gave Joey credit for being a much nobler and more sensitive critter than he actually was. 

Things continued this way from the time I was 15 until after I graduated from college. Joey would spend time with me whenever he came home from school and shower me with attention and affection, making me feel special and loved.  But then he would go back to school and it would be like he had dropped off the planet.  We wrote less and less, and eventually stopped altogether.  I would make up my mind that I was DONE, and start trying to move on.   But every time I would finally get fed up and be ready for Joey to “go ahead on with himself”, he would show up at my door, take me places, hug me, kiss me, and I would be hooked all over again.  He never said that he loved me, but he said enough to keep me believing that there would be a future for us.  The closest he ever came to it was when he found out I had been dating another boy.  He got all wound up and said that he didn’t think I should see the guy anymore.  I asked him, “Why not?  You date other girls at school”, and he snapped, “Because I kind of like you!”  (I know, it makes me sigh and roll my eyeballs too, now… unfortunately, at the time, I just knew it meant he wanted to be with me.)  It must have really stroked Joey’s ego to have someone so hopelessly devoted to him.  It took me a long time to realize that I was just his “always-be-there-whenever-I-want-her” girl.  I am the one he would call when all of his other options ran out. 

I know that you are wondering why anyone would allow herself to be treated so badly for such a long time.  Well, you need to understand that I grew up believing that fat girls didn’t deserve and shouldn’t expect the same kind of love that the thin girls received.  A girl could have a face that would stop a train, but if she was thin, she was automatically prettier than the fat girls.  I was truly convinced that this kind of hand-me-down attention was the best I could hope for.

I guess the last time I saw Joey, I was 22 or 23.  I had FINALLY decided that I was “done”, and had actually made great strides in finally putting Joey in my past.  Then one night, he showed up at my front door and said he needed to talk to me.  I let him in and he started the conversation with, “You know, I just don’t know what it was that EVER got us started.  I never wanted to be anything more than friends… I believe it was always you pushing for more.”  I said, “Joey, I have a lot of male friends and NONE of them ever kissed me the way you always did.  That didn’t seem like friendship to me.”  He gave me a stupidly sheepish grin and said, “Well, maybe you are right about that.  Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”  Then he took a big breath and said, “I still want to see you, but I think it’s only fair to let you know that you are not the only horse in the race.”  REALLY??!!  First he wants to blame our whole pitiful relationship all on me and now he’s calling me a horse?!  I couldn’t come up with any kind of intelligent reply to such a STUPID statement, so I didn’t say anything.  He got ready to leave and asked if it would be okay for him to give me a hug.  I told him I didn’t think it would be a good idea.  He left, and as far as I can remember, that’s the last time I ever saw him.    It was probably about three weeks later that his mother showed up at church with a newspaper clipping of Joey’s wedding announcement. I guess that whole last conversation must have been a stab of conscience for Joey, or some “loose ends” he felt needed tying up before he moved on with his life.

So why, you ask, am I digging all this up NOW?!  Well, when Joey’s name popped up on FB, it brought back all the memories and feelings and it made me MAD!  I hate that he strung me along like he did with a few stolen kisses here and there and pseudo-promises of something more, but never admitted to the outside world that he ever was even interested in me.  It made it look for all those years that I was just a pitiful fat girl chasing someone I could never have.  And I hate that I grew up believing that such treatment was all I deserved and could hope for.  It colored the way I felt about life, about love and about myself.    I deserved better than that! 

The whole thing made me terribly suspicious of men and their motives.  I remember the first time Ken went to put his arm around me.  I jumped up and pointed my finger at him and said, “Listen, I don’t know where you think this is going, but I am interested in a real relationship, not just fun and games!  If you are just playing with me, then you need to head on down the road!”  Now, most men, especially that early in a relationship, would have tipped their hats and ridden off into the sunset.  Ken just looked at me with those blue eyes that I so loved and said three words… “I ain’t playing.”  (SIGH… it still makes me smile when I remember.)  It was the first time I ever saw myself through Ken’s eyes – eyes of unconditional love.  THAT is the kind of love I deserved!

So, what important life lessons can I take away from all of this?  I guess the most important lessons are ones that I have been trying to teach my sons:

1.       A woman’s worth is determined by her heart, not by the size or shape    of her body.

2.      Girls look at things like kissing a lot differently than boys do.  They give it much more weight in a relationship.  Boys should be aware of this fact and treat girls with tenderness and respect.

           If I am successful in passing on these truths to my sons, I will be able to see purpose in this whole pitiful tale.  I can’t say that it was “worth it”, because it was hurtful and embarrassing and no one deserves such treatment.  But if I can keep J & B from treating a young lady the way Joey treated me, then the lessons will outweigh the pain of the memory.  

             

 

    

The Rest of It

               I decided to give myself a little break from Kooki, so I let a month go by before I tried calling her about the deed.  After all that had happened, it was such a relief not hearing from her for so many days.  But, at the end of that month, I knew that I was going to have to “put on my big-girl panties” and deal with Kooki, so I gave her a call.  The first couple of times I called, Kooki answered and assured me that she was going to “take care of it in the next day or so”.  Then she would again launch into her “let me help you buy some more properties” routine.  I told her again, VERY EMPHATICALLY, that I would NOT be buying anymore rental properties.  I just wanted her to deed that property over like she was supposed to have done months ago.

            Well, I guess when Kooki finally realized that I was serious about not buying any more properties with her, she started avoiding my calls.  I would call and leave messages with the people at her house who answered, but she never would call me back.  One time, her daughter answered the phone.  I asked to speak with Kooki and she replied, “Sure, here she is… Mom! The phone is for you!”  I heard, with my own ears, Kooki ask her, “Who is it?”  The daughter came back on the line and asked, “Who is calling?”  I told her who I was and sat and listened to a bunch of whispering between Kooki and her daughter before the daughter came back on the line and said, “Um…. She’s not here.”  (REALLY??!!!!)  I said, “But you just told me she was there.”  She replied, “I’m looking all around, and I don’t see her now.”  Well, I was CHAPPED, to say the least.  I told the daughter, “Look, I am a lot of things, but STUPID is NOT one of them!  I heard you call her to the phone and I heard her ask you who it was!  You tell your mother that I want to talk to her!”  She replied, “Well, I can’t tell her because she’s not here right now.”  I guess that proves that a lying parent will most likely produce lying children.  I hung up the phone.

            I worried over that deed for quite a while, and continued trying to contact Kooki.  But, once I had released the security deed on her daughter’s property, Kooki became a ghost, a vapor in the wind.  Since she wouldn’t answer or return any of my my calls, I decided to send her a letter, certified mail, return receipt requested, so I would at least have proof that she received it.  Well, about three weeks after I sent it, the Postal Service returned it to me with a stamp showing that they had tried to deliver it to Kooki on three different occasions, but each time, it had been left unclaimed.

            After we moved to Alabama, I decided to give it one more try.  By now, I was just plain MAD about it and the way she had treated Ken during his illness and me after his death.  I wanted JUSTICE.  So, as many justice-seeking individuals do, I retained an attorney in Ringgold to “go after her” for me.  The attorney assured me that I did, indeed, have a case and we could probably even have Kooki arrested and charged with fraud.  I told him all I wanted was for Kooki to deed over the property.  The attorney had me sign a client agreement and accepted a very expensive retainer from me, and promised to get started “right away”.  He wrote Kooki one “lawyer letter”, you know… the kind that is meant to scare people into doing what you want but doesn’t really require the lawyer to do much work.  Very shortly after writing the letter, the attorney promptly closed his practice and disappeared!  Call me crazy, but I believe there should be a law that says if an attorney is being investigated by the state Bar Association and is facing possible disbarment, he should NOT be allowed to accept retainers from new, unsuspecting clients!

            So, there I sat, not one bit closer to getting Kooki to deed over the property and now, I was out quite a bit of money that I really couldn’t afford to spend in the first place.  I considered for a week or so, what my next step should be.  I realized that I didn’t really care about the property as much as I cared about the heartless way Kooki had treated us.  And if I didn’t turn that loose, it would keep on hurting me and my kids.  I just needed to be finally DONE with Kooki.  I needed to put her completely in my past.  So that is what I decided to do.

            As I said earlier, Ken's sister, Cindy, was “managing” the properties for me.  The next time I went up to Ringgold to see her about the business, I gathered up all the paperwork I had on that property.  I gave it to Cindy and told her that if she and/or her daddy wanted to pursue it, they could have the property, IF they could get Kooki to deed it over to them.  But, since there wasn’t one scrap of paper that said the property legally belonged to me, I was through paying taxes on it and paying her to maintain it.  I told Cindy as emphatically as I could, “If you want this property, you REALLY need to get that deed taken care of.  If you don’t, Kooki will come back one day and bite you in the butt with it!”  I will never forget her response.  She looked at me with a smirky little smile and said, “I’m not the one who has a problem with Kooki.  You are!  I don’t think Kooki would do me that way.”  I was incredulous!  I guess I should have tried harder to convince her of Kooki’s true character, but I just needed to be through with the whole MESS.  So I said, “Okay… whatever you say.”

            THAT is where this story should have ended.  I should never have had to even conjure up one little memory of all that woman had put us through.  And for about four years, that is how it was.  Cindy had found someone to buy the property on a rent-to-own contract, and they had been living there for at least two to three years, so I assumed that Cindy had worked everything out with Kooki and all was “nifty”.  Truthfully, I didn’t really care… it was behind me and that was where I intended that it would stay. 

            Then, one day last year, out of the blue-clear sky, I received the strangest thing in the mail.  The envelope was addressed in a handwriting I had never seen before and the return address was Cindy’s first and last names, but it had a middle name too.  Only thing was, it was not her right middle name.  I was suspicious before I even opened it, but what was inside made my “uh-oh” quotient go way up.  It was a copy of a letter from a GA attorney’s office, written to Cindy, saying that “the list Melinda has is VITAL to your case.  You have to contact her and get that list.”  HUH?!  What list?  What case?!    

My first instinct was that the letter was from Kooki.  She had contacted me all those years ago after receiving that “lawyer letter”, again promising to deed over the property if I could get her a warranty deed.  I sent her one, but once she got wind of the fact that my attorney had skipped town with my retainer and I couldn’t afford to pay for another one, I guess she didn’t see any need in completing the deed like she had promised.  That was the last time I had heard from Kooki.  Now, I was afraid that this letter was actually something she had fabricated to see if she could find out what I had done about the property and if I was still inclined to pursue it legally.  The only thing that made me think that it was, in fact, from Cindy, was that it had a money order for a house payment in it.  (I made the mistake of agreeing to hold a mortgage to sell Cindy the house we had been living in when Ken died.  You would think, that since my children are her dead brother’s sons, she would be real good about paying on time.  Yeah, well, not so much.  She pays when she feels like it, usually only when she needs something from me.)

I started trying to call Cindy.  But none of the numbers I had for her were good anymore.  I finally called the attorney’s office that was listed on the letter.  I told them who I was and that I had received copy of a letter they apparently wrote to Cindy.  I knew, due to attorney/client confidentiality, they weren’t allowed to tell me if they were, in fact, representing her, but I told them if they were her attorneys, they needed to contact her and tell her to call me and tell me what in the world was going on!

I didn’t hear back from anyone for about a month and a half, so I breathed a little sigh of relief.  But then, I got a phone call from Cindy (at work, mind you) that she REALLY needed my help.  She needed me to execute a deed and bill of sale for that property into her name.    It seems that Kooki, for whatever reason, suddenly remembered (after four whole years) that she still held a deed to that stinking property in her name.  And, true to her sleazy nature, she went and filed an eviction on the tenants and told Cindy she was claiming the property.

  I was just as confused as I knew how to be.  I said, “I thought you already took care of that matter after I gave you all the paperwork.”  “No”, Cindy said, I never figured Kooki would do something like this ( ‘scuse me… but didn’t I TELL you she would?), so I just went ahead and rented it out.”  (I know how utterly ridiculous that sounds, but Ken’s entire family has a dominant “ignore it and it will go away” gene.  They will do the least they can to handle a situation and just hope no one kicks about it.  Ken, in many instances, was the same way and it drove me CRAZY!) 

So… Kooki was making a claim, not only on the property, but she was also claiming all the rent Cindy had collected in the intervening years, and Cindy was begging me to “help” her.  SIGH… it was like a recurring nightmare.  Cindy told me that their first court hearing was the following Friday and she really needed me to come and do the deed and bill of sale before then.  I told her that I work for a living and if she needed a deed and bill of sale signed by a certain time, she would have to come to AL so I could sign them.  She told me I had to come up and sign at her attorney’s office so they could be notarized.  I was, at that time, working at a law firm.  I told her that we had a whole houseful of notaries I could sign in front of if she would just send me the documents.  She said that she was afraid they wouldn’t get back to her in time if she sent them and I sent them back, so I told her again, that if she wanted me to sign the documents she would have to make the trip to AL.  She finally agreed and told me what day she would come.  I gave her directions how to get to the law firm where I worked.

Now, I could clearly see where this was heading.  If Cindy was going to court over a piece of property I said she could have if she could straighten it out with the woman who bought it through a business deal she had with my husband before he died, they were going to want me to come to court as a witness.  Well, I would rather bed down with a rattlesnake than ever have to see Kooki again and be involved in a mess I had washed my hands of years ago.  So I prepared an affidavit detailing all the facts I knew about the case.  On the day Cindy came down with the deed and bill of sale, I had another of the legal assistants “swear me in” so I could swear to the facts in my affidavit.  I told Cindy that it was the only sworn testimony I intended to give and when her attorney mentioned I would make a good witness for their case that my answer was BIG FAT NO!!!

That should have ended it, but NOOOOO, no such luck.  A few days later, I got a call from the attorney representing Cindy saying how since Ken was dead, I was the only one who knew the facts about the agreement he had with Kooki.  Said it was “imperative” that I testify as a “fact witness” in the case.  I told him that I did not intend to testify and that I had sent a sworn affidavit that should be sufficient.  He snapped back at me that “they won’t be able to cross-examine an affidavit and if you don’t agree to come and testify, I will simply subpoena you and you will have to come."  GRRRRRR!!  I was FUMING!!!  I did NOT appreciate being threatened, but neither did I want to find a Catoosa County deputy on my doorstep one day waiting to haul me to Ringgold, so, through gritted teeth, I “agreed” to testify.  (The crazy thing about it, after I finally agreed, every time the attorney talked to me, he went on and on about how much he appreciated me agreeing to testify for them… thanked me profusely over and over and OVER.  Every time he said it, I wanted to scream at him and say, “I DIDN’T AGREE!!!  YOU THREATENED ME, YOU BIG DUMMY!!!)

As with most court cases, this one was set and continued several times before it was finally set on the special docket so that it would, indeed, be heard.  I guess Cindy didn’t think it necessary to give me a “heads-up” about court dates, because I got a call from her attorney one day, to "remind" me that I needed to be there one day LATER THAT WEEK!  He said he would call me at home that evening and discuss my testimony.  Well, I rearranged my schedule so he could call, and guess what?  He DIDN’T call.  He called me the next day (while I was at work), apologizing all over himself and begging me to give him a few minutes right then so he could “prepare” me to testify.  I told him everything I had already sworn to in my affidavit.  Then he asked if I had a picture of Ken I could bring.  I told him I had a portrait, but it was really BIG.  He said to go ahead and bring it.  Then he asked me if I had a picture of Ken when he was really sick, maybe right before he died.  I knew what he was trying to do… he wanted to show the judge that Ken was a “real” person.  And he also wanted to show the judge the frail, sick man that Kooki had taken advantage of in his last days.  It turned me sort of sideways to think of exploiting Ken’s memory that way and I told him so.  He assured me that he would be respectful to Ken’s memory.  I told him I would think about it.

My boys didn’t think that I should go to court by myself.  They knew how much the subject of Kooki and the thought of having to see her again tore me up and it was precious of them to want to protect their Mama that way.  Jesse had a test in school on the court date, so Benjamin decided to go with me.  I have to admit that having him with me was a great comfort.  I did have to explain to him, though, that the opposing side would probably say things about his Dad that would not be complimentary, but that he could NOT react negatively in the courtroom.  I also told him that if Kooki tried to talk to me, he would need to stand in between us, because I didn’t know what I would do.  Now, I am NOT a violent person.  I will go WAY out of my way to avoid confrontation of any kind.  But when it came to Kooki, in my mind, I could see myself climbing on top of her and ripping out great hunks of her hair.  That scared me.  And I think it probably worried Jesse and Benjamin a little too.

By the time we got to the courthouse that day, I was sick to my stomach and my jaw ached from gritting my teeth.  We had to sit out in the hallway until they called me in to testify, so that just gave me more time to dread the whole thing.  After court had been in session about 45 minutes, Cindys’ lawyer came running out and said that Kooki was denying that she had ever seen the letter I sent her and that her attorney was arguing for a continuance so they could decide how to proceed.  I looked at him and shook my head and said, “She DID NOT see that letter.  That’s the one she never claimed at the Post Office, remember?!”  He blinked at me a couple of times and said he’d be back in a few minutes.  When he came back, he told me that the judge had granted the continuance and I would have to come back when the case was reset.  I had a come-apart on the poor guy.  I said, “I took a whole day off from work, my kid took a whole day off from school, we got up at crack-thirty in the morning, drove two hours in the dark FOR NOTHING?!!  You have GOT to be kidding!!”  I knew it was beyond the attorney’s control, but I was mad, nonetheless.  He apologized over and over and said, “They are probably just trying to wear you down so you won’t come back next time.  But you know how important your testimony is to us, right?  Cindy doesn’t really have a case unless you testify!”  (I guess he was forgetting again, that he had threatened me with a subpoena if I decided not to testify.)  I looked him square in the face and said, “Don’t you get it?  I am NOT here for Cindy!  I am here for Ken and I am here for the truth!”  Cindy and her attorney were both a little stunned at my reply.  I muttered to them as I gathered up my things, “Somebody call and let me know when this thing is reset.”  Then we left.  Instead of going home relieved that it was finally all over, I went angry and worried about having to come back AGAIN.

Cindy called me right before Christmas and told me that the case was reset for January 13^th.  This time, Jesse would go with me since Benjamin had already missed a day of school.  So, I got to go into “worry overdrive” all through Christmas.  On court day, Jesse and I got up and made that two hour trek in the dark again.  When we got to the courthouse, as they were scanning our stuff, the deputy asked whose courtroom was I going to.  When I told him which judge it was, he said, “I think he’s already finished for the day in Catoosa County”.  I was working on another come-apart when Cindy’s attorney rounded the corner.  It seems that there was a conflict on the judge’s calendar for that day, but the judge agreed to go ahead and listen to my testimony, seeing as how I had now made TWO trips from AL. 

I’ll admit that I was very nervous when they called me into the courtroom, but in addition to the nervousness, I was “loaded for bear”.  It is hard to explain, but I felt this weird sense of relief and power just walking in to face that woman.  Of course, I didn’t really get to “face” Kooki because the whole time I was up there, she refused to look me in the eyes.   My time in the courtroom basically went like you see it on TV.  They swore me in and I took the stand.  By the way, you know that part of the oath that says “I swear to tell the whole truth”?  Well, lawyers don’t really want you to tell the whole truth.  They only want you to tell the part of the truth that makes their side look right.  They like to ask very specifically focused, narrow little questions and then want you to answer with only “yes” or “no” and they do NOT want you to elaborate. 

Kooki's attorney was a little combative with me, but it was his job to be that way.  He kept objecting to my answers because they were “hearsay”.  On TV, there is always an exception to the hearsay rule when a person is dead and can no longer speak for himself.  Well, apparently, in Catoosa County GA, at least on that day, there was no such exception.  So, any of my testimony that came from discussions that occurred between me and Ken were objected to.  Some of the objections were overruled by the judge, but several, on some pretty important points of the case, were sustained.  Kooki's attorney, as I had suspected he would, tried to make it look like Ken was the one who had been doing things wrong, not Kooki.  He then even tried to make it look like I had not acted appropriately in my capacity as the Executrix of Ken’s estate.  He was just trying to make me mad, which he did, but I did my best to remain calm on the witness stand.  I did get it on the record, though, that Ken WAS an honest man and in my experience with Kooki, she had NEVER been the least bit honest.  I got it on the record how Kooki had taken advantage of my sweet husband when he was vulnerable and dying and how she had further taken advantage of the whole situation by preying on Ken’s family after he died.  I spoke truth in Ken’s defense.

One thing happened that kind of gave me a little chuckle.  You know the saying that a lawyer should never ask a question he doesn’t already know the answer to?  Well, that happened to Kooki's lawyer, TWICE during my testimony.  The first time, he asked me who was present on the day that Kooki signed the paper stating that she had been paid in full and had no further claims on the properties.  I answered truthfully, that it had been me, Kooki, and the man she brought with her, the one she called her “new business partner”.  The attorney said, “Who else was there?”  I said, “Do you mean in the house, or in the room where the transaction took place?  My kids were probably in the house, but they weren’t in the room.”  He replied, “I MEAN, who else was there besides you?... Kooki?... the man?..., Kooki's daughter?...”  I said, "It was only me, Kooki and the man.”  He ran back around to his notes and shouted at me, “Are you NOW testifying that Kooki’s daughter was not there?”  I replied, “I never testified that she was there because she WAS NOT.”  Evidently, Kooki had testified that her daughter had been there, because when I emphatically stated that she had not been there, heads popped up and everyone’s eyes, including Cindy’s and her attorney’s, got BIG with surprise. 

The second time my testimony surprised the Kooki's attorney was right before he released me.  I think he was going to try and make something out of the fact that I had worked as a legal assistant.  He asked, “Do you work now?”  “Yes”, I said.  “What type of work do you do?”, was his next question.  “I am a secretary”, I replied.  He started nodding his head vigorously and said, “And where is it that you are a secretary?”  When I answered, “At a Baptist church”, he looked like his head was going to explode!  He started stuttering and yelled, “I thought -- didn’t you work at a LAW FIRM?”  I answered in the affirmative.  He asked me what was my job at the law firm.  I told him I had been a legal assistant.  He nodded his head again, but you could tell “Baptist church” had not been the answer he had expected to come out of my mouth.  I think the “deal” he was going to try and make about me being a legal assistant sort of fizzled. 

I have to say, after dreading the whole thing for such a very long time, the court experience itself was a little anticlimactic.  Maybe if they had gone ahead and heard the rest of the case that day and it had been resolved, I would feel differently.  But, at this point, I don’t really even care how the case turns out.  It would be a shame if Cindy loses the property that I know rightfully belonged to Ken, but I told her she should take care of it and she didn’t.  It might just have to be a hard lesson learned for her.  And, if the judge awards Kooki the property, she may laugh at me and celebrate for a little while, but I know another Judge who knows the truth and will render His verdict in due time.  The one thing I do know for sure is that I am finished letting Kooki have one more tiny second of my time and my thoughts.  She is in God’s hands now, and He will deal with her as He deems fit.  I was blessed to have the opportunity to stand up for my sweet husband and that is enough resolution for me.       

         

                  

Almost There...

     You can  probably see the direction this is heading, but there is one more element of the story that I need to explain before we get to the court part.  It has to do with another property... one Ken REALLY did not want to buy, but finally relented under a heartless barrage of pestering from Kooki.  It seems that while Kooki was talking to the finance company guys about repossessed properties, she discovered one right down the road from her own home.  She decided it would be perfect for her daughter.  Unfortunately, no one in Kooki's family had any collateral or a good enough credit rating to get a loan to purchase it from the finance company.  So Kooki called Ken with another of her "perfect" plans.  Ken could buy the property for them and hold a mortgage on it.  They would pay payments to him each month until the daughter could get a loan to refinance the property, using the property itself as collateral for the loan.  (I know... it made me roll my eyes too.)

     The first time Kooki mentioned it, Ken flatly refused.  Said he didn't think it would be a good idea.  Kooki, in her typical relentless fashion, was NOT going to be that easily deterred.  Thus began an absolute siege in which Kooki would call and/or drop by the house at least three times and sometimes up to six times a day, trying to change Ken's mind.  The woman would NOT leave Ken alone.  Her actions were enough to make a healthy man raise his hands and beg for mercy.  Please understand that over the course of his illness, when Kooki was badgering him so, Ken endured having to be fed through a tube, two major surgeries, three different rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, shingles and too many other minor procedures to even count.  He was sick, he was exhausted, and he was scared about the possibility of having to leave his family before he was ready.  THIS was the man that Kooki pounded relentlessly to get what she wanted. 

     I was in the room with Ken, listening to his side of ANOTHER phone conversation with Kooki, on the day that he finally relented and agreed to purchase the property for them.  I heard him tell her "NO" four different times before he told her he'd draw up the papers for them to sign.  When he hung up, I asked him why he changed his mind after all this time.  He looked at me with sad, exhausted eyes and said, "It will be alright, honey.  They have promised to refinance it as soon as the deed is recorded in her daughter's name."  I don't think he really believed it himself... I know I didn't.  He just said "yes" because he felt like it was the only way he would get any peace. 

     So, Ken gave Kooki the money to purchase the property for her daughter from the finance company.  Ken filed a security deed against the property and gave Kooki an amortization schedule showing the payment information and told her that he expected her daughter to get the thing refinanced RIGHT AWAY, like they had promised.  Kooki assured Ken they would and the daughter started paying mortgage payments to Ken.  I have to say that she was pretty good about keeping the mortgage up to date, but that is probably only because they knew that Ken held that security deed and could take the property back if they didn't pay.  But, of course, one month turned into two, and two into several, and no attempt was made by any of them to refinance the property.  There was always an excuse... "her baby was sick... her husband lost his job... they were called out of town unexpectedly...".  Lie after lie after LIE!  It became painfully obvious that Kooki and her family had no intention of refinancing and probably never intended to do so in the first place.  

     This situation weighed pretty heavily on Ken's mind there at the end.  The week he died, when we should have been able to spend every single moment holding, loving and saying good-bye to each other, he had to waste some of the precious minutes he had left talking bout that woman and how she had scammed him.  He said, "Don't pay Kooki any of the money I owe her until they get that property refinanced and pay you back."   I told him I wouldn't.

     After Ken died and after I finally convinced Kooki that I would NOT be buying any more rental properties through her, I guess she realized that her "gravy train" had come to an end.  So now, instead of calling about properties to buy, she started calling about the money she said Ken owed her from the deals they had already done.  She said, "I know you are going to do me right.  Ken always told me that I didn't have to worry about you not treating me right!  He said you were the most honest and truthful person he had ever met!" At that moment, I absolutely wanted to choke the woman.  I KNOW how my husband felt about me.  I didn't need her telling me how much he trusted me and how he knew I would try and do the right thing in every situation. HOW DARE SHE use my dead husband's words to try to get me to do what SHE wanted?!  

     Time went on, and the calls continued.  Kooki always worded it in ways that made it sound like she had my best interest at heart.  "I know," she said, "how hard it is for you, having to deal with all of Ken's business stuff.  I am just trying to take some of the pressure off of you by trying to figure out a way you can go ahead and get my stuff out of the way."  (HUH?!  She's trying to take pressure off of me by calling constantly and pressuring me to do something else?!)  Each time she called, I always reminded her of two things:                1) refinancing her daughter's property, and 2) deeding that other property over into my name.  As usual, she "promised" to take care of both, and as usual, she did not.

     The next time Kooki called, she had the "perfect solution" for both of us.  I could add up all of the amounts that Ken owed her and subtract that amount from the balance of her daughter's mortgage loan and she would arrange to pay me the difference if I would release the security deed on her daughter's property.  (Hmmm...  sounds strangely like a little bit of extortion to me.)  I told her no... I had promised Ken I wouldn't pay her a penny until they paid off the mortgage loan.  And technically, I really didn't owe her any money because her agreement with Ken stated she would get paid at the conclusion of each lease agreement.  So far, not one of the rent-to-own agreements she arranged had worked out.  How could I owe her money on agreements that were null and void?

     Now, just as she had done with Ken, Kooki mounted an all-out campaign to pester me into submission.  She began calling constantly, dropping by at all hours of the night and day, hammering at me about her latest idea.  Had I been in a better and stronger place in my life right then, I probably would have had her arrested for harassment and filed a restraining order against her.  But I was grieving the loss of my sweet Ken.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to raise our children without him.  I was exhausted from two straight years of fighting as hard as I could to help keep him alive.  And I was as hurt and heart-broken as I had ever been, facing the reality that my sweetheart was gone.  In a word, I was VULNERABLE.  And I needed peace.  I knew for a fact that until I dealt with Kooki once and for all, there would be no peace.  She had proved that over and over with Ken.  I knew I would have to break my promise to Ken if I was going to be able to get rid of Kooki.  That broke my heart too.  But I cried out to Ken and told him that I just needed to be able to concentrate on our boys and rebuilding our family now that he was gone.  I begged his forgiveness for not being able to keep my promise.  I decided to go along with Kooki's idea.  (I'm sorry, Baby... to preserve my sanity so I could be the Mama our boys needed, I really didn't feel like I had any other choice.  Please forgive me.)

     The next time Kooki called, I told her I would go along with her idea, but she had to bring me cash or a cashier's check for the balance of the loan after I subtracted what Ken owed her.  If she showed up with a personal check, the deal was OFF.  I could hear the glee in her voice as she agreed.  I told her to give me a week with NO PHONE CALLS AND NO VISITS to get the amounts figured and the paperwork ready.  She agreed, and for the one and ONLY time since I have known her, she was true to her word.  I didn't hear from her again.

     Since none of the "tenants" in the agreements she had arranged lasted until the property was paid for, the only way I could figure how much Ken owed her was to take the tax value, subtract it from the purchase price, and give her whatever percentage Ken had agreed to give her of what was left.  It was complicated, a lot of work, and very time consuming.  (Time that I should have been able to spend with Jesse and Benjamin, but couldn't because I was having to deal with a CRAZY woman.)  I listed every property, how much Ken paid for it, what the tax value was, the difference, and Kooki's percentage.  I even included "finder's fees" of $1,000 each for three trailers Kooki said she helped Ken buy that he had moved onto his properties.  There was no paperwork on those trailers, but Ken had purchased and moved them during the time he and Kooki were doing business together and she knew all the particulars about each trailer, so I included those fees as well.  I called Kooki and told her what the balance would be and asked her not to call me until she was ready to pay it off.  About a week later, she said she had made the arrangements and was ready to come over and settle things.  I gave her a day and time to come over.  In the meantime, I typed up a paper for Kooki to sign stating that she had been "Paid in Full" for whatever monies she felt Ken owed her at his death and that she had NO FURTHER CLAIM to any of the properties she and Ken purchased together.

     Kooki arrived at the appointed time, along with some man I had never seen before.  I knew it was NOT her husband.  She introduced him as her new "business partner" and said that he would be paying me what was left owing on her daughter's property, so when I released the security deed, it would need to be into his name.  At that point, I didn't care if BOZO the Clown paid off the loan, as long as it was in cash or cashier's check and as long as I never had to deal with Kooki again.  I showed Kooki the property list (Tuck this away for later... this list will make another appearance before this whole pitiful story is done.), explained how I had figured the amounts, and asked if she agreed with my figures.  She seemed about to wet herself to get this "deal" concluded, so she nodded vigorously and said over and over, "Yes, I believe this is right!  Ken said you would do me right, and I always believed him!"  (GRRRR!  There she goes again, using my husband's words to get what she wants.  I don't believe I have EVER met anyone quite as heartless as Kooki.)  The man gave me a cashier's check (I called the bank while they were standing there to make sure it was real.), I signed the papers to release the security deed into his name, and I had Kooki sign the paper that said she had been paid in full and had no further claims to any of the properties.  I asked Kooki if she wanted me to make copies of the documents for her files.  She replied that she "never kept up with stuff like that".  They left and I felt a tremendous wave of relief come over me.  Unfortunately, that relief would prove to be short-lived.  Later that week, it occurred to me that in all my concentration over settling the issues over Kooki's daughter's property, I had completely forgotten that Kooki STILL had not deeded over the other property, the one in progress when Ken died, into my name.  I STILL was not through with Kooki.

      

    

  

Here's the Deal... (Part 2)

               Okay, so Ken finally agreed to Kooki’s deal, and together, they started purchasing properties.  Some were just mobile homes and Ken had them moved to his parks.  Others, he purchased the land as well as the home.  Kooki started finding people who agreed to purchase the properties on a rent-to-own basis.  As I mentioned in the last post, the “tenants” were mostly Kooki’s friends and family members.  Once they moved in, most of them became very sporadic with their rent payments and eventually stopped paying rent entirely, bolstering my belief that Kooki was scamming Ken from day one.  I think out of the 6 to 10 properties Kooki found “tenants” for, only one ever got anywhere close to paying for the property entirely.  And I finally ended up letting them have it for a much lower price because I was tired of worrying about whether or not they would continue paying like they should.  So, instead of being money-making properties that would help support our family, they basically became “money-pits” because I ended up having to file evictions to get the tenants out of the properties.  And of course, once they were served with eviction papers, they generally always trashed the trailer before they left, causing me to have to pay more money to rehab them before I could rent them again.  (Even now, it makes my head hurt.)

               The sicker Ken got, the less he was able to oversee the properties, so a lot of stuff fell through the cracks there at the end.  My sole focus was caring for my dying husband… the last thing I wanted to have to deal with was the rental properties.  Ken had been able to finish the paperwork and have deeds and titles transferred on all of the properties except one before he died.  He and Kooki were in the middle of this transaction during his last week alive.  Ken had given Kooki the money and she had purchased the property from the finance company.  Unfortunately, on the day of Ken’s death, the deed was still in Kooki’s name. 

               Ken had not been dead a whole 24 hours when Kooki began calling the house to talk to me about “the paperwork” associated with this last deal.  It seems that she had someone willing to pay a deposit and sign a lease agreement, but Ken had always provided the documents needed to complete those transactions.  So, instead of giving me a minute to breathe, Kooki started blowing up my phone (I always wanted to be able to use that expression… that is exactly what it felt like) to try and talk to me.  My Mama was at the house to help me make arrangements and take care of Jesse and Benjamin, so she was answering the phone for me.  After about the third call from Kooki, Mama said to her, “You DO realize that her HUSBAND JUST DIED, don’t you?”  Kooki said that she did know that, but she only needed to talk to me for a minute.  Mama didn’t let her talk to me…  God bless my Mama. 

               Later that week, I can’t remember if it was before or after Ken’s funeral, Kooki showed up at my front door.  When Mama answered the door, Kooki said that she had been a “friend” of Ken’s and that she was there to “offer her condolences”.  Well, Mama, not knowing who she really was, let her in.  The second Kooki saw me, she started yammering about the papers she needed to rent that property.  Said if I could just get them ready for her real quick, she’d be on her way.  Now, you have to understand, I was still in a fog… not much was making sense at that point.  I do remember, though, feeling absolutely incredulous at her nerve.  I told her that Ken had always taken care of preparing the lease agreements and I had no idea what “paperwork” she was talking about.  I think I said something to the effect that I had more important issues to deal with right then and I would call her when I had a chance to sort through things and see how Ken had handled them.  She kept on standing there, waiting.  She mentioned, again, that she had someone wanting to put down a deposit and sign an agreement.  I don’t remember if it was me or Mama, but one of us told her that she would NOT be getting any documents from me on that day.  Mama ended up kind of nudging her out the door and shutting it in her face.

 Even the flowers Kooki sent for Ken’s funeral became a point of hurtful frustration for me.  You see, Kooki’s husband had the same name as the sheriff of Catoosa County.  Instead of signing the card “Rodney & Kooki (again, names changed to protect me from the STUPID), she signed it “Mr. & Mrs. Rodney Ballmen and family”.  So, I had to spend numerous moments during Ken’s visitation explaining to people that NO, Ken did NOT know the sheriff personally and NO the flowers were NOT from the sheriff’s department.  SIGH… couldn’t even grieve for my husband in peace for a few minutes without having to talk about that woman!    

               I was hoping that Kooki would leave me alone for a while, but she was more persistent than that.  Since she couldn’t convince me to get the paperwork done for her, she started calling Ken’s daddy and telling him how much she needed it.  So, Ken’s daddy started calling and telling me that Kooki needed “them papers”.  I told him the same thing I had told Kooki.  I also told him that if she called again, he should tell her to STOP CALLING and that I would figure out the paperwork when I was good and ready.  But, in Kooki’s relentless fashion, she convinced Ken’s daddy that if I didn’t get her the documents soon, the deal would fall through and the property would sit empty.  In all honesty, I did not give one flying flip if the property sat empty from then ‘til judgment day, but this poor man was very upset over Ken’s death, and Kooki’s pestering was upsetting him more, so I told him I would do something “soon”.

               A little while later (I can’t remember just when, but I am thinking it was the same week of Ken’s funeral), I pulled out the folders Ken had kept on all of the properties he had purchased through Kooki’s “deal”.  I found the lease agreement he used on the computer, and the amounts that should be listed for purchase price and monthly rent.  But as I was getting the lease agreement ready, I noticed that the warranty deed from the finance company was in Kooki’s name, not Ken’s.  She had not deeded it over into Ken’s name before he died.  I went ahead and prepared the lease agreement.  I called Kooki and told her that it was ready, but that she still needed to deed that property over.  Since Ken had died, she would need to deed it into my name.  She said, "I know, I know, and I am going to do that RIGHT AWAY."  She went on babbling about how Ken had been her "best buddy" and that she would never do anything hurtful to his family.  I remember standing there clenching my fists, with tears pouring down my face, thinking to myself, "No, you were NOT 'best buddies' with Ken.  You were 'best buddies' with Ken's wallet!"

               The next day, Kooki came to the house, bringing with her, a tiny little “mousy” fella who seemed afraid to even speak above a whisper.  He was the “tenant” she had lined up to sign the lease agreement on that last property.  He paid his deposit and listened as I explained how much his monthly payment would be, where he should send his payments, and how the “lease with option to purchase” agreement worked.  He indicated that he understood everything I said, agreed to the terms and signed the lease agreement.  Before they left, I asked Kooki about the warranty deed she was supposed to have signed and brought with her that day.  She said, "Oh, I signed it and had it ready to bring, but completely forgot to bring it!  It’s laying on my kitchen counter at home.  I will run it back by later today.”  I have often wondered if Kooki really believed her own lies.  I also wondered if she REALLY thought for a minute that I believed them, because I DID NOT.  Kooki was one of those people who you always could tell when she was lying… if her mouth was moving, you could bet that she was lying.  And, of course, Kooki did not bring the warranty deed by that afternoon.

               The mousy little tenant (who just happened to be one of Kooki’s “oldest and dearest friends”) made one partial rent payment and I never heard from him again.  When I started trying to contact him, I received a call from a VERY irate woman who identified herself as his wife, wanting to know who the H*#& I was, what the H*#& property I was talking about and where the H*#& did her husband get the money to pay a deposit on it?!  Turns out, this guy was on disability income and his wife always got his check when it came and wouldn’t give him any of it.  I have always suspected that as a part of her scam, Kooki provided the deposit money and probably paid him a little something extra to go and sign the lease agreement.  And even after the man’s wife found him hiding in the trailer and bodily removed him and took him home, because he had a signed lease agreement, I still had to pay to go through the eviction process before I could even think about renting the property again.  (Do you see now, why I always HATED having to deal with the rental property business?)

               In the meantime, Kooki was STILL calling me.  I guess she figured that her “deal” with Ken would continue, with me.  She kept calling me to tell me about properties that I needed to go out and look at because she could negotiate a “real good deal” for it with the finance company guys.  She was calling Ken’s sister too.  Ken’s sister was supposed to be managing the properties for me.  (THAT is another sad story for another day.  She basically “managed” the properties to the point of almost being condemned by the county, and almost ruined a deal I had to sell the biggest of Ken’s properties.  Makes my stomach hurt to remember.)  Anyway, I think I finally had to have a total COME-APART on Kooki before she “got it” that I had no intentions of buying any more rental properties, from her, or anyone else!  Every time Kooki called, I reminded her about the warranty deed.  She always had an excuse, each one more ridiculous than the last, as to why she hadn’t brought it by yet (remember, she had already said that it was signed and ready, she just had to bring it to me).

WHEW!!  This post is getting longer and longer and I STILL haven’t gotten to the part about going to court.  I am sorry, but if I don’t explain the whole thing, it doesn’t make sense.  I guess I will stop for now and pick it up again in another post (or two, seeing as how it is taking me so long to get it all explained).          

              

                 

Here's The Deal ...

This story started way back in 2002 or 2003, so this is liable to be a loooooong post. If it gets too long, I guess I will break it into two posts. But, now that my part of it is over and done with, I need to write it all down and get it out of my system, so I can truly put it where it belongs… in the PAST.

Shortly after Ken was diagnosed with cancer, he got into a “business deal” with a woman I will refer to as “Kooki”. (I won’t use her real name, because I don’t want anyone to accuse me of slander. And, in all truthfulness, “Kooki” is a much nicer name than I feel she deserves! Besides, truth is an absolute defense against accusations of slander, so in this instance, I am safe.) Anyway, back to the story… Kooki was a woman Ken originally met because she was managing a property in which several of his rental trailers were located. She didn’t manage the property for long, because she was accused of taking money that didn’t belong to her. (That was the first bad sign.)

In the years between meeting Kooki and being diagnosed, Ken would run into her occasionally because they ran in the same circles. Kooki always had some kind of “deal” she wanted to rope Ken into. The woman could talk the paint right off a wall and she was relentless when she was trying to talk someone into something.

Ken was not usually the sort of man who was easily talked into things. In fact, he would think about things for such a very long time before finally deciding to do them, that many times it was too late and the opportunities had already passed. But, the cancer diagnosis scared him to death and he began to think that he had to quickly do something to “build up our income”. Now Ken had been in the rental property business since he was 16 years old, so to him, building up our income meant one thing – buy more rental properties.

Once Ken started earnestly looking for properties to buy, it didn’t take long for Kooki to show up. And, she said, she had the “perfect deal” for him. Here’s how it was supposed to work: Kooki knew a couple of guys who worked at a finance company that handled a lot of mobile home/land packages. That’s where you buy a new mobile home and the company will sell you a piece of land to put it on at the same time, so you can get the whole thing financed in one loan. Unfortunately, a great number of these deals fall through for lack of payment and the finance company has to repossess. The hard thing about trying to sell a used trailer is that it would have to be moved. Moving a trailer can be costly and generally always damages the trailer in some way, so not many people are willing to pay for a trailer and the cost of moving it too. Even the finance company does not want to have to pull a trailer that is already set up so they can resell the lot. It would be more beneficial if the finance company could find someone who would buy the trailer and lot “as is” for cash, to get it off their books. And that is where Kooki’s “deal” came in.

Kooki had the connection with the guys at the finance company, but no money to spend. Ken had money to spend, but no connections. So the “deal” would go like this… Kooki would find out from the finance company guys about a repossessed property they would sell for cash and give Ken all of the information about the property. Ken would go out to the property, look it over, and if he thought it looked good, he would give Kooki the money to buy it. Kooki would buy the property (with Ken’s money) from the finance company and would then deed it over into Ken’s name. Then, since Ken was busy with cancer treatments and various surgeries, Kooki said she would find someone to buy the property on a rent-to-own basis. At the end of the lease agreement, when the property was paid for, Ken would pay Kooki a certain percentage of the purchase price as a “finder’s fee”. After countless meetings and much discussion, Ken finally agreed to Kooki’s deal.

I know what you are thinking… sounds a little fishy, right? Well, it did to me too and I talked to Ken about it. It felt like a scam from the beginning because all of the “tenants” Kooki found for the new properties were either her friends or her family members. I told him that I didn’t trust Kooki and that I felt like she would do and/or say whatever she had to in order to convince him. I even told him that I got a strong vibration from Kooki that if Ken were to ever give her a second glance, she would gladly enter into a more personal and physical relationship with him even though they were both already married to other people. At this, Ken smiled and said, “Well, I think you are right about that”. Fortunately, he believed in the sanctity of our marriage and that sort of relationship, in Ken’s mind, was NOT a possibility.

Okay, I know what you are thinking, again… if Ken knew how I felt and was aware of the serious misgivings I had about Kooki, why did he go ahead and get into business with her?! You have to understand that Ken started his rental property business when he was just a teen-ager. He had been making his own decisions for a very long time before I came into the picture. As far as the business was concerned, we would discuss different issues, and I would give him my opinion. Ken would listen to my opinions and seriously take them into consideration. But ultimately, business related decisions always belonged to Ken. And in most instances, prior to him getting sick, his decisions had been sound and had benefited our family. So I trusted him to make those decisions.

Unfortunately, the cancer diagnosis, coupled with Kooki’s relentless pursuit of Ken’s money, created an atmosphere that, I believe, clouded Ken’s judgment and caused him to agree to things he never would have otherwise. In his mind, he was only trying to increase our income so that if the worst did happen, the boys and I would not have to give up the lifestyle to which we were accustomed. Had he lived, I am sure that every one of the properties Ken bought through Kooki would have paid for themselves and turned profits. And Ken never intended to die... he thought he would be here to handle things and make sure everything worked the way it should have. Sadly, Ken did not live to see the plan through.

You are probably wondering how this all landed me in court seven years after Ken died.  I am getting to that, but I needed to build the back story first.  I think, though, that I will stop here and tell the rest of the story in a separate post.  Stay tuned ... 

The Old... and the New

In about two hours and fifteen minutes, 2011 will become history and a new year will begin.  Someone once told me that whatever you are doing when New Year's Eve becomes New Year's Day, that is what you will spend most of the new year doing.  When Ken was alive, I always tried to make sure we would be kissing/cuddling at that moment.  Since he died, I have usually spent that moment crying and wishing that things were different.  Last year, I think my first Facebook status of 2011 said something like... "hopes this is the year that I can stop wishing things had turned out differently".  Well, I can't honestly say that hope came true... at least not completely.  But I can say that I really think it was better.

I stopped making "resolutions" years ago because I always felt so sad and disappointed when I inevitably broke them.  So now, instead of making resolutions, I just have things I would like to do better on, and things I would like to not do so much.  Baby steps, I guess, toward a bigger goal somewhere down the road.

So now, as 2011 is in its waning hours, I guess I can reflect on my progress from this time last year:

     I wanted to read more, and MAN, have I ever!!  I think I have read almost 100 books since we cut off the TV programming early in the year.  And let me just say, that my Kindle is the greatest invention since JIF peanut butter!  I had gotten out of the habit of reading while Ken was alive.  It was weird... I could be doing anything else and Ken wasn't bothered by it.  But if I had a book in my hands, it drove him NUTS!  Said I was "ignoring him".  I didn't understand it, but it was what it was.  So I stopped reading much.  I didn't realize how much I had missed it.

     I wanted to read God's Word more.  This, I was successful at.  I chose a reading plan at the beginning of the year and with the exception of a day here or there, I finished reading the Bible all the way through again.  This time, in the ESV.  I hope to read a different version in 2012, and I would really like to try memorizing more Scripture.  I don't know how that's going to work, though.  Ever since I hit my head on the car, I tend to have short term memory problems at times.  Oh well, I can try and I will ask God to help me remember as I "hide His Word in my heart".

     I wanted to be more active.  I have begun to move more these days.  I bought a recumbent bike in July and except for the month of December, have pedaled some every day.  I hope I can get back on schedule and continue to build up my endurance.

     I wanted to keep a better rein on my blood sugar.  This one, I did NOT do.  I am hoping that I can do better at it in 2012.  It is just so hard when all the things I love best are either pure sugar or starch that turns to sugar.  I will keep trying.

     I wanted to get out of the house more.  I think I did pretty well on this one.  I still stay home a lot, but God has blessed me with friends and new opportunities to "join in" with small groups where I am comfortable and accepted.  I hope to continue this in the new year and maybe even increase my outside activities.

     I wanted to start telling people how I felt when something affected me strongly.  All my life, as far back as I can remember, I have always stuffed my feelings way down deep inside of myself.  I would torture myself by replaying hurtful incidents over and over in my mind.  Made myself so despondent when the person or people who had hurt my feelings in the first place, usually didn't even remember doing it.   Well... this one I have done several times.  And you know what I found out?  People who are used to you taking their barbs quietly get kind of sideways when you tell them what you think.  In fact, some of them get plain old MAD!  But, there is such a wondrous freedom in saying what you feel and then letting it go.  I believe that this is a trend I will continue.  I am not out to intentionally hurt anyone's feelings or be hurtful just to be mean.  I just want to bring to light that I have feelings too and if someone hurts them, I will be letting them know.

     I wanted to write more.  This one I wasn't so successful at.  During late 2009 and all through 2010, I poured my heart and soul into the blog/book about Ken's illness and how he had to leave us.  It was a tremendous relief to finally get all of that set down on paper (or computer, as the case may be).  I don't know if I was just exhausted or what, but I didn't write anything more until this year.  I decided to continue the blog, but I haven't been nearly as good at keeping it going as I had in the past.  I would like to change that this year.  So, I guess that is why I am here now... blogging out the old and blogging in the new.  Hope to be here more often in 2012.

Happy New Year!

 

 

That "October-ish" Feeling

It has started working on me earlier this year for some reason and I don't know just why.  It is that sideways feeling I always get when October rolls around.  Yes, I know that September just started... like I said, it has started earlier this year. 

I guess I should explain what it is about October that gets me all sideways.  I used to LOOOOVE October.  It was my very favorite month and my favorite time of year.  When I was a little girl, I guess it was because of the fact that my birthday is in October.  But it was more than that.  I just loved the coolness in the air, the leaves changing colors, pumpkins, scarecrows... just the whole October atmosphere.

Later on, October got even better when Ken and I chose that month to get married.  I remember the day of our wedding (October 14, 1989) was one of those beautiful fall days where the sky is just a deep, crystal clear blue.  God smiled on us by giving us that beautiful day.

Many years later, on another beautiful fall day (October 6, 2002), Ken and I found ourselves speechless and sucker-punched in the office of a surgical oncologist, who told us compassionately, yet firmly, that Ken was going to die.  I can only describe the feelings from that day as a storm.
Fear... shock... disbelief... anger... hurt... denial all tumbled over and  over each other, creating this swirling sensation like a tornado, with Ken and I clinging to each other is the middle, too scared and uncertain to know what to do.  The weather I had rejoiced in earlier now became a point of consternation.  How DARE it be such a beautiful day when my sweet husband and I had just been told the worst news in our lives?

So now, instead of looking forward to October, I face it with a dread that just won't stop.  I try not to think about it.  I don't dwell on it.  But it is almost a subconscious thing that creeps up on me when I least expect it.  It often manifests itself physically.  All of a sudden I'm more tired than usual, headaches crop up for no reason, I don't sleep soundly, and I find myself walking around grinding my teeth.  It generally sets in around mid-September and pesters me for a couple of weeks before I realize what's going on.  Then I "SIGH" my way through October and November (that's when Ken died).

Every year, I think it will get better.  I don't talk about it much to people, because most of them don't want to hear that after all this time, I still miss Ken.  In the beginning, people didn't want me to talk about it because they were uncomfortable with my grief.  Now, I feel like people just think it's been long enough that it shouldn't bother me anymore.  And maybe it has... but that doesn't stop those same feelings from swirling around again.

Since I don't think anyone except me reads my blog anymore, I guess it's okay to say it here...

I miss my husband, and October makes me sad... STILL.