I have been married for 21 years and on Friday, December 11, 2009 I caught my wife cheating on me. My mother-in -law and I had suspected all along, but I just couldn’t prove it. She left her cell phone at home while she went shopping. I checked her text messages and a guy left a love note. I looked him up on the white pages on the internet and found his apt. She had been telling me she was working part time over night with her niece, but she was with this guy. When I busted her she didn’t know what to say. I wanted to work it out because I do love her but she has since been back seeing the guy and she doesn’t want counseling. I asked why she cheated and she said our communication went sour. I have 3 girls at home ages 20, 19 and 15. We are not divorced yet but it’s going that way. I have learned you can’t make anyone love you no matter how good you are to them.
Terence

Porch Light

It started with a look. It started with a laugh. It began with a nod.

Merging bodies. Merging lives. History being made.

The dance of life. The dance of anger. Follow the score, don’t keep it.

Why push when partnership beckons? Why deny when an embrace is possible? Just love.

He turned on the porch light but wouldn’t keep it on. She returned to dark. What had she done?

On the other side of yesterday, look beyond the arched ridges of the thumb that bore down hard. She didn’t want to leave. Sometimes there is no choice.

The passion burned looking for escape. It found the music. The beat carried her on but the tears clouded the way.

The fetal repose. The spikes of the urchin that pierced the heart and scratched the soul. Lost history mourned.

The earth shook, the tides extreme, the stomach churned. Follow the beat. Feel the beat. Embrace the beat.

Possessing foresight to look back. Missteps add wisdom. Openness allows growth.

She turned on her porch light. Her porch light burned brightly. She found her way.

Kathy B.

Four years ago, my engagement to a man who I now know was not the right one for me, came to a wrenching end. In the process of dissolving our relationship, I gained a fair amount of weight and my relationship with my family became strained. After months of spontaneous crying spells, sleeplessness, and sessions with a counselor to help with my adjustment back to the single way of life, I decided to take the trip I had always dreamed of taking with “that special someone” and went to Alaska alone. It was like hitting the re-set button on my life–I found myself again and decided get in shape and pursue other dreams I had put aside including running a marathon. I now have run 3 marathons and am about to marry a wonderful man who admires all the self-affirming behaviors I cultivated in recovering from my prior heartbreak.
Jennifer

Here’s a picture of my Aunt Francine and I signing my books. It was fun having an auxiliary signer, though I have no idea what she was writing in people’s books. I also learned on this trip that my Aunt Francine likes to travel with a flask of Irish whiskey. Last night she instructed me, “If I start dancing, you have to make me stop.” What are the chances I’m going to do that? Tonight was are going to the Irish pub that the St. Louis Finn’s own and then off to New York City.

Habia Una Vez

Once upon a time… a good and beautiful man loved me and I loved him. Together we had it all—great life, family, careers, elegant home in the old Hollywood barrio of Los Feliz (bad Spanish for The Happy Ones.)

One night I had a nightmare that my love left me. My pillow was wet with my tears. He kissed and embraced me, swearing he never would leave me.

But he did.

He was diagnosed with advanced cancer, way too young and far too healthy.

He never gave up hope, although the doctors had none, giving him 18 months. Our future changed from growing old with grandchildren to immediate castration, and then, certain death.

Twenty years have passed since I lost that love, the perfect life, that dream come true. I’ve lived another lifetime since, including two cancers of my own.

Love, loss, death is a tango. But my story has an ending possibly negotiated by my husband from heaven. Now in Buenos Aires, I live, dance and teach tango with an Argentine. We love each other.

On the other side of the world my home is once again in the barrio of “Los Feliz.”
.
cherie

I wish I had not been only
sixteen, when he latched onto my hands and pulled me
into shallow water, cold as his eyes, and dark as mine.
Too soon, the water turned red and you could not see me
from the surface
anymore

until I gasped for breath, broke to air, found my way
to shore
and left him to drown –

months passed before I could clear the red
from my mind
but then my dearest best friend
left me a letter of leaving
and loss – my loss, his gain.

I look through the clear blue water
and there she wades, with him.
The water will not be pure
for long, and soon
she will not be seen
from the surface
anymore,
ever.

A clear, blue tear
slides down my cheek.

Laura