Eighteen Christmas Seasons

Eighteen Christmas Seasons
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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You don’t get over it you get through it … it starts with just breathing. You learn to breathe again when you have been knocked over and kicked in the gut by an adult child that grows up and decides that the life you afforded them and gave them didn’t and doesn’t measure up. They decide alone that you are unworthy.

This Christmas will be my eighteenth Christmas without my daughter, a daughter who is now gone longer than when I had her. This was a daughter who initially shattered my heart and my soul. And a daughter who re-created her past so that she could have a new and different life. Initially I couldn’t believe it or accept it, and I now so freely do.

Not only do I accept it but I appreciate the gift and what it was; a blessing in disguise. I am no longer tethered to a past. A past life that was filled with hurt with loss and with abuse. I am free. Yet there was a time when I thought I couldn’t live without her. I learned that I can live and that I will live and that I can be happy and healthy and whole again.

I gave her everything I had to give. I gave her more of a life and a better life than what my parents ever afforded me. And in the end I appreciated my parents more. There is a lesson here for parents that just give and give.

More and more people are writing to me and contacting me about my writings and about my then teenage daughter who at age eighteen decided to estrange, and their biggest question is, “How did you do it? How did you survive it?”

There is no cure; you take one minute at a time, one day at a time and one month and one year at a time. You work through it, through the heartache and through the disappointment. You work through the grief and through the loss. You purge your pain. Then one day they are gone longer than you had them in your life.

What you are left with is your memories and for me I have wonderful memories of a beautiful little girl who was bright and beautiful and the absolute love and joy of my life. I have no regrets. I played the hand that I was dealt and I did the best I could with what I had and what I knew at that time. Today my heart and my soul are at peace.

She chose her life and I have mine. I am able to look at my friends and my peers who now have adult children and many are married and having children of their own. I absolutely love seeing those healthy loving and growing parent-child relationships.

I am not soured as I am truly happy for them. I look on with love and a happy heart. I know that, that was not to be for me and it wasn’t going to be my lot in life. I have not only learned to accept it but to move past it.

People tell me things about her and I have been sent photos of her and I don’t bite. I am not interested in anything related to her and yet there was a date and a time when I was desperate to know anything at all about her. Today I think and believe that if she wanted me to know about her life, she would not have estranged and gone out of her way to make sure that I am not included. I know my place. I got the memo and I heard her loud and clear.

There is life after our children. I do not believe that my marriage would be as happy as it is with the continued drama that was represented in that relationship. She has declared it unhealthy and today I agree. Because of all the loss that she experienced as a small child I took it on that it was my job to fill those voids and in reality it was not. I was there. I was there 100% if not more. I tried my hardest and I did my best.

The decision to estrange was solely her decision, I have learned to live with that decision and she too will have to live with her choices.

Factually speaking she may be my daughter but the reality is that she has not been a daughter to me for eighteen years now. You can’t miss what you don’t have. I don’t miss her at all anymore. I have created a very full and very happy and a very loving life. This past year was one of the happiest years of my life! I had pure joy and much love.

“If God takes you to it, He will take you through it.”

My new books Along The Way and Another Way have many articles, blogs and essays about my journey. It has been an amazing journey and just like any journey there is a beginning and middle and an ending. When it is over, it is over.

I was married for more than 15 years before I legally changed my name, in part because when I was getting married she said, “then I will be the only Moyer left” her dad died when she was just two. I was always trying to fix things and make things better for her.

As this year 2015 ends, I will begin the new year writing under my married name Sahm, Bernadette A. Sahm. Bernadette A. Moyer has many writings that have addressed love, loss, death and estrangement.

The new writings will be about love, happiness and beauty and hopefully even more inspiring and healthy. I have purged my pain, I have written much and I have helped many.

My greatest hope in sharing my experiences and my life story is that anyone that is experiencing this kind of loss, please know that you are not alone, others have survived it and you will too!

I am not saying it is or was easy but what I am sharing is that it is possible … you can be happy again and you can be happy after losing a child to estrangement.

The page has turned … and life is good and beautiful and happy again …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All books by Bernadette A. Moyer are available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble

Pictures Down

Pictures Down
By Bernadette A. Moyer

Most people that know me know that I am a positive and upbeat person always seeking and striving for the truth and for the lessons that were to be learned. We learn so much about ourselves when we are faced with challenges and when things don’t go the way that we had hoped they would go. But that is life, isn’t it?

Facing change and facing our challenges help to show our character and sometimes our lack of character too.

Not everything is going to end with a happy ending but that doesn’t mean that our happiness has to end. When we are willing to take the “pictures down” and to dream another dream and to go off in a new direction our hearts and our souls have the chance to grow and to love again.

Parents often have the hardest time with “pictures down” as if in defiance keeping that lost person alive by showing their photos will change the outcome of their departure. It doesn’t. We can reflect on our past memories and we can hold near and dear the love that was shared.

In the beginning I used to overly cherish my pictures of people that left my life because that was what I had left to hang on to and to validate that they existed. The pictures served as the witness. But they also serve as a chain that keeps us tethered to our past.

A new husband or a new wife typically doesn’t want to start a fresh new marriage with pictures of the person who came before them. We can respect those people and appreciate who they were and what they represented but to be present in our lives and to be fully aware and able to embrace our future we take the pictures down.

When my first child left home so unexpectedly and without a normal transition I was so hurt and so angry and most of all so deeply disappointed. I remember taking a collage of photos with her pictures and smashing the glass against a chair. It shattered just like our relationship. It would be the love of my husband that would come behind me and clean it up. That single act is so meaningful to me in so many ways. He saved me and he helped me to save myself.

If pictures make you happy and bring you peace they should be up and around but when a relationship hurts you and has come to its own conclusion it may be time for you to take the pictures down.

I have other photos and I have other memories but the pictures are down and they are boxed and put away. The pictures that we keep up are the ones that make us happy and they make us smile, they make us feel good to have them around. Pictures down and I am fine and good and happy again.

What are you keeping up that really should be taken down? What are you holding onto that is getting in the way of what should come next?

Who or what are you keeping out of the frame that really should be in there?
Think about “pictures down” and all that could take that same place and space in your life …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
NEW BOOK! Along The Way available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Happiness is An Inside Job

Happiness is An Inside Job

By Bernadette A. Moyer

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It has taken a long time for me to understand that happiness is an inside job. It was my husband who taught me this. Overall he is very content and can take or leave most things. Brian has an inner peace and strength about himself. He is always so supportive of me. For more than 15 years, when I was running huge social fundraisers he never missed a single event. He never hung onto me for his good time either. He would circulate and was okay with being in a crowd and with people or by himself.

Through the years people have told me, “you two look good together” but what they could never have known was our back story, our family history. We are very much alike and have a deep understanding on what it is like to move past the limitations of your first family. We also had the same track record in love. Brian and I both had a spouse who died and left us with children and another significant relationship end when they cheated on us and left us for someone else. We know what it is like to be hurt by love.

My husband Brian is one of 6 children, I am one of 5. Neither one of us is close to our siblings. He is the only one who moved away. He grew up in the inner city of Baltimore, in the “hood” the projects. They were really poor as kids. None of his siblings left there, not one of them owns a house or an automobile. He pushed past his initial life circumstances. Brian got an education and continues to educate himself as he is still moving up the corporate ladder.

He is the most responsible of all his siblings. When his mother passed his father had him take over. He isn’t the oldest but was appointed the guardian for his father’s care. Brian learned how to live without his siblings. In childhood family photos most often Brian is on one side of the picture alone in contrast to the other 5 who are grouped together. It appears to have started when he was just a toddler.

I am one of 5 girls and like my husband I have no relationship with my siblings. We weren’t exactly well off as kids either. They have not been in my life for almost 25 years now. And just like my husband they appear when they want to try and bring me down. They presume to know me but have not been in my life for decades. I don’t allow myself to get caught up in their cauldron of hatred.

My husband had and has an easier time accepted that his siblings are not a part of his life. I always wanted my situation to be different; I mourn for how I would have wanted it to be not for how it truly is and was with them. Like my husband’s family they don’t add anything positive to my life.

It took a long time for me to learn that my happiness was my responsibility. Mine alone. I have so many friends and even more acquaintances. Every job I ever held was in a highly social setting. Many people have lifted me up. And I have been called “inspirational” by more than a few people.

No matter how many people enhance our lives, we come into this world alone and we leave it alone. Today I am probably more content and happier than I have ever been. It isn’t based on other people or on things but truly comes from self-love and self-acceptance. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. I know who I am and I know my truth. I have an easier time discarding those relationships that are unhealthy and non- supportive.

Accepting that my happiness is my responsibility has allowed me to create an inner peace of love supported by my own strength. I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that everything I ever needed was already there inside of me. Better late than never … I suppose …

What I would say to anyone who is unhappy is you need to fix that. You alone have all the tools to be happy. It is there and it is inside of you. People may try and bring you down and may try to hurt you but that is their unhappiness and not yours.

We are all responsible for the life choices we make and the way we live our life. If it isn’t right for you, then it just isn’t right. Change it. No one can make you happy, no one, but you.

Happiness is an inside job!

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All books by Bernadette A. Moyer are available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

How Can I Make You Happy

How Can I Make You Happy

By Bernadette A. Moyer

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Not that long ago I was visiting Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is a favorite travel destination for both my husband and me. We try and go at least twice a year. We love country music, the downtown club scene and Opryland at Christmas. The people are kind and so friendly.

On this occasion we travelled to Franklin to shop and check out a few antique places. When I walked into a shop the owner came to greet me. Instead of the usual “hello” and “can I help you?” He said, “How can I make you happy?” It immediately made me smile and I thought, how nice!

What a refreshing way to greet someone, “how can I make you happy?” Do we even think that thought, let alone say it out loud? What if we did approach everyone with a mindset of “how can I make you happy?” Rather than a “What can I get from you today?” Or “What can you do for me today? “What a nice shift in our mindset.

Just thinking that thought of how I can make someone else happy, makes me smile. So often we are stuck on ourselves, our feelings, our wants, our desires. Yet most mature adults know that a life of service and of giving is much more fulfilling.

Last week I was driving through a Delaware self-serve toll that costs 50 cents, the guy ahead of me tried using the coin changer machine, it appeared it wasn’t working. I could sense his anxiety. His tag read Pennsylvania tags, he looked just like my father, and I easily had the 50 cents so I drove around him and paid his toll. This guy was so appreciative. He had enough money to pay but watching him become flustered I felt compelled to help. The appreciation from this old man was well worth the 50 cents and so much more, he made my day.

There are opportunities every single day to be a giver, to be a positive life force. To make some else’s day better is a gift too. Yesterday I was walking through a big box store when a father and son were coming up directly in front of me. The father gently guided his son over so that my pathway was open for me to proceed. I gave the father who seemed a bit serious a big smile of appreciation. The smile that he returned to me was priceless. Those smiles cost absolutely nothing and yet I know that it made me feel good and I have to assume that father was feeling good. His huge smile was wonderful!

Today, go out into the world, maybe not saying it to every single person we meet along the way but in thinking it, “how can I make you happy?” Little acts of giving and of kindness go a long way. Be the do-gooder and watch just how much goodness comes right back at you.

How can I make you happy?

Bernadette on Facebook www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Bitter or Better is Our Choice

Bitter or Better is Our Choice
By Bernadette A. Moyer

I could be bitter but I am better! Earlier today I caught up with an old friend, she is like a sister to me. She is that friend that makes me happy, she calls me out when I am wrong, supports me at my best and at my worse. She gets me and in many ways we understand each other, in many ways we are alike. In her company I am lifted up and we always learn from one another.

Today she said something to me and about me. She said. “After everything you have been through and I could name the list, you continue to amaze me because you could be bitter and you aren’t, you have one of the biggest hearts I have ever witnessed. I know a lot of people and most would be bitter but not you and your heart.”

She is right I could be bitter! She knows me well as we have been friends for 18 years now. The list is long on what I have experienced in my lifetime. Some of it is really very hateful, hurtful and unattractive. But my heart doesn’t work that way. I have always viewed every single experience as something I could learn from. What was this or that supposed to teach me and by viewing everything as a learning opportunity I grew my heart bigger and I became better and not bitter.

We don’t get to control what happens in our lives or what other people do but we do get to control how we choose to respond to it. I may not always be happy with the outcomes of the things that have hurt me. But I always responded with a heart and with a conscience and in a way that I could live with, this allowed me to be better and not bitter.

When we rise above it, when we are faced with adversity and heartache, our own character is tested. Real character isn’t about how we handle the easy stuff in life, it is about how we handle the challenges and often it is about how we act when no one else is looking.

On reflection one of the things in my life that I am most proud of is how I handled my first husband’s death and his funeral. He was previously married and divorced with two children. When he died his kids were young and still in elementary school. When I was asked who I wanted to be in the first car with me my response was swift and heartfelt. I had his children and their mother with me. To me, it was the right thing to do. When I met him he was already divorced, his ex-wife and his children never did anything to hurt me. My view was that having them with me and close to their father was the right thing to do and it was one that I could easily live with.

The single line that has helped me the most in my life is from the book, The Four Agreements and I have written about it often, the quote is; “nothing other people do is because of you, it is because of themselves.” Not only has this made sense to me but it has virtually saved me and released me from the hate and the lack of love from others. Their actions are their choices, when someone chooses to behave in a certain way that is all about them.

The people that set out to hurt other people are lacking peace and love and there is usually a good reason for that and normally it comes from what they have done and their own actions. They are living in a way that requires them to justify their behaviors. If they can make someone else look bad they can justify what they have done. This may work in the short run, but in the long run, they have to live with themselves. We may be able to fool others, but we know who we are and what we are made of, we know better than anyone else.

I have never viewed myself as a “victim” but rather as a “survivor” and this allowed me to “survive” and even thrive in the face of adversity. I have also learned that just because I have a heart and a conscience that I shouldn’t necessarily expect the same from others. Some people just don’t have it.

We could all be “bitter” over something if that is what we decide but we also can choose to be “better” and being “better” just feels so good and right and contributes to making us better! Given the choice I choose better over bitter every single time…

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All books by Bernadette are sold on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Excitement of Newness

The Excitement of Newness
By Bernadette A Moyer

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There is something so exciting about trying something new, whether it is a new restaurant, a new vacation destination, a new recipe or a new class. There is that excitement of the unknown and the ability to try a new experience without any expectations.

It could be a new book or a new movie release just about anything that we are experiencing for the very first time offers us a new exciting experience without any previous point of reference. I am a junkie for trying new things! It doesn’t matter if it is a new hair conditioner or a new food item. I’ll try most anything at least once.

Over the weekend we tried the new BLK, Black water and I have to say “never again.” Not only didn’t it taste good to me but I literally felt like I was drinking really dirty black water!

Tonight my husband and I tried the newest Corner Bakery in our neighborhood, it is a chain and new to our area. Like most experiences we put a toe in the water and started with just a soft drink and a dessert. The place was nice, new, neat and clean. The menu had more than one item that piqued my interest and we will return for a breakfast, lunch or dinner meal at another time.

Recently I began taking a new business class at our local college here in Maryland, Loyola has a campus close to my home and I wanted a refresher business class to add to my resume. As an adult student you just want that “A” grade and it is important to do the very best you can, at my age you take every learning opportunity more seriously. You don’t have to be there, you are there because you alone made the decision to attend and you want to be there.

My husband like myself enjoys travelling to new locations, it could be a car ride or a plane flight away but we are always open minded and without a previous experience “there” we have no expectations which often makes for a guaranteed great time. We have also learned how to make everything old like new again. As frequent travelers to our resort home in Delaware we set out every single summer season to try a new restaurant. We also try parking on new to us streets, and taking in our beach place from a new and different angle. This helps to keep our trips fresh, new and allows us to discover and uncover new places.

Making time for new experiences and deliberately setting out on an unknown course allows us to broaden our horizons and makes for new learning experiences. Having a partner who enjoys trying new things as much as I do keeps our marriage fresh and alive. Where it may be easy to become a creature of habit, for me, not trying something new feels like a slow death and a boring life.

This week I have several “new” things lined up and I am both excited and curious and probably a tad bit nervous too! So here is to trying new things, setting out to experience a new experience and attending new places with opportunities to meet new and different people. Life is about change and growth and taking in as many new things as we can during our lifetime.

So … go somewhere new! Try a new food item! Make a new friend! Travel to a place you have never been before! Take a new class! Whatever it is … there is always excitement attached to newness …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Books by Bernadette A Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble