Chapter 15 - Why I Shattered the Steel Ceiling & How I Did It

The economy was going into the toilet in May 2009 when I walked across the stage to accept my graduate diploma in rehabilitation counseling from Drake University. 

People started losing their jobs and homes. A lot of wealthy people were shocked when their entire life savings disappeared in the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme (a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors).

I knew that neither the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) nor the Iowa Department of Correctional Services (DCS) would be able to hire me like I had been counting on for four years. Budget cuts had forced them to lay off quite a few employees.  Others retired early.

The Republican Party’s representatives in Congress were obstructing and/or delaying almost everything President Obama tried to do. Hard working people were being thrown out on the streets because they could not find a job and pay their mortgage.

I had seen this pattern before from republicans. I watched funding be cut for people in 1988.  I was working for an intermediate mental health care facility as a full-time temporary secretary.  The facility closed due to the cuts in the Reagan years.

I started classes at a local community college after that job ended. I watched some of those displaced residents walking up and down the halls talking to themselves because they were no longer being treated for their schizoaffective and other disorders. 

I knew from typing on their medical records that they were each completely incapable of focusing long enough to even read, let alone sit in a seat and pay attention to a professor for an hour, but because of confidentiality, I could not help them or even admit that I knew who they were.

A few years later I was working as an advocate and investigator where I investigated alleged neglect and abuse of people with disabilities at a federally funded disability rights agency. It was at the beginning of this century when funding was cut for my clients by the George W. Bush administration. 

This time my clients had all types of disabilities. Their family members were calling me to find out what they should do.  Either the family could not, or were unwilling to take care of my clients after their services were discontinued.  Again, some of my clients ended up falling through the cracks into criminal justice facilities.

Our Iowa republican governor has closed two state mental health hospitals.  I heard several days ago on the news that he is thinking of closing the other two.  This will leave community mental health agencies and corrections to deal with those human beings.  Neither agency has the funding and trained staff to effectively treat that many people with mental health issues.

"History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children." (Nelson Mandela – May 9, 2002)

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

When historians look at our society, just in the past hundred years or so, some of the things they will see are remarkable. Our country’s research has come up with incredible treatments for lots of diseases, is close to understanding how our brains work and why they work that way.  There are even 3D copiers for replacement body parts from our own stem cells. 

And look at the World Wide Web, WOW! Anyone can have a voice all over the world by just posting an opinion.  This book is giving me voice. 

But historians will also see that we, in the United States, incarcerate the highest percentage per capita in the world.  With only five percent of the world’s population, we have twenty five percent incarcerated.  I read that Iowa, my home state, has been number one in incarcerating the highest percentage per capita of African Americans. 

Some of that twenty five percent were violent and did heinous things to be locked up, and we hope they stay there, but others had convictions for alcohol and drug addictions which are now considered diseases rather than criminal behavior. Still others started with mental health and/or undiagnosed learning challenges. 

The criminal justice system has become the dumping ground for people with mental health and other disability issues. It has been using assessment tools to figure out what interventions will deter offenders from reoffending for some time now, but it is only in the past decade or so that corrections has finally started to actually ask the prisoners what interests they have and what they would like to do with their lives.  

In 2000-01 I was told that the prisoner’s voice did not matter by an international researcher, but today there are very successful mentors who have served time. They are going into prisons to mentor peer-led reentry groups.

In the past few years there has been a push to start doing something about the abuse against women, children, the elderly, those with mental health and other disabilities. Programs are working to intervene on their behalf.  There are even peer-led programs now to help sex-trafficked victims, prostitutes and prisoners who grew up in incest situations like I did. 

I just wish the pedophiles would receive a life sentence instead of being allowed to walk free again to harm others. Even after sixty plus years I still have to force myself to go to sleep.  I don’t want to have those nightmares any more, but I don’t have a choice.

Those observers from the future will see how much better it got for the mental health and prison populations in the 1960s when society was using the rehabilitation criminal justice model. Well, that was before it became politically and financially beneficial to get tough on crime and drugs (1968 Nixon; In 1977 Foucault was cited, “…imprisonment was economically useful to capitalism” (Alleman, Ted & Gido, Rosemary L. (1998). Turnstile Justice:  Issues in American).

I am so very grateful that I was lucky enough to come through Iowa’s prison system in the 1960s. I am honored to sit here with a graduate degree from an outstanding private university and use everything I have learned to give voice to those who still sit in the chair I once occupied. 

The observers will see how our country continues to treat the children of minorities, the aged and infirmed by our representatives in Congress. They are trying, at this very moment, to cut benefits to education, social security, etc. 

I always thought that if the very rich would just give some of their money to the poor they would be better off. However, Dr. Dean shut me up one day when I was on my high horse about it, “Okay, so how much of the stuff that you have are you willing to give up so others can be helped?”

That put an entirely different spin on it for me! “Yeah, but I’m not real rich.”

“You have more than people who are homeless. Are you willing to share your home with some of them?”

“In a way I’ve been doing that when I married those men who didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”

As I thought about those relationships, all the way through to the end, I had not actually helped any of them. They didn’t want to do the work it would have taken to improve themselves.  My trying to help them had actually kept me down there with them.  I had spent all of my resources and, many times, ended up worse than they were when I left. 

He had gotten my attention, as a sociologist, with that question. It would do no good to just throw money at people without educating them what to do with the money. 

I know today that the reason I was trying to pull those husbands along with me is because I didn’t believe that I was worthy enough to climb out of the abyss by myself. I thought I could sneak out of it if I took someone else with me.  I still believed what my family taught me about me.

I could generalize that realization to his question. The minorities and poor have been told for so many generations that they are not worthy to rise above their circumstances.  They end up teaching it to their children.  They pass on their rage about how unfair it is, along with the survival behaviors which begets even more poverty, rage and incarceration.

Sitting here typing those last few paragraphs made tears come to my eyes for that little girl in me that still wants to be loved, especially by me, but I am afraid I still don’t know how.

What a waste of seventy one years! And what a waste of humanity when I think of the wonderful people I have met in those impoverished neighborhoods, jails, mental hospitals and prison.

They need a hand out until they can learn to use the hand up we are trying to offer them. Education is a must for them and their children.  Otherwise, the playing field is not even close to those in our country who claim the right to use conspicuous consumption, whether they can actually afford it or not. 

We have to teach them about all of the things that other people are taught when they are growing up. We cannot assume they see the same reality we do, because they don’t! 

It took me years of college to build the skills sets so I could understand that everyone views the world through the lens of their own experience. I have only been able to get socialized to an extent because I feel so passionately about people who have no voice.  I have been one of them for so long.

In the beginning I just spent the money given to me to survive and had short term happiness. Now I understand what it takes for long term joy, but I would never have been able to get here with the skills sets I learned as a child.  I had to have mentors who were very patient with me.  It takes longer to come back from those thousands of messages that I don’t matter than it would have taken if just one person could have drowned out mom’s voice earlier.

I would like to think that all of the hard work I did has helped those sitting in the chair I once occupied. You see, besides laboring for many years so I could get a graduate degree, I networked with the heads of the Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa Department of Correctional Services and many of their staff during and after my graduate internship.  I participated in many local reentry inter-agency meetings and reentry trainings. 

I kept slipping in ‘our’ voice every time I got the chance. I stopped caring what people thought about me as an ex-con, but rather I wore it as a badge of survival, because it is! 

There was research being done in the 1960-70s that would be unethical today, but both experiments showed what it is really like to be given a label and locked up.

One was the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ where the professor made sure that the volunteers had no psychological issues before they were allowed to participate in the study. Then one half of the volunteers were arrested and brought blindfolded to the basement in their university.  It had been set up like prison cells, including isolation.  The other volunteers were turned loose as the guards.  There was a movie released in 2015 telling the story. 

The professor, who played the warden in the study, talks about how even he ended up automatically adopted the stereotypical role of warden so completely that after only a few days of the prisoners being bullied and abused, he had to be reminded that it was just an experiment before he was willing to stop the study and turn the volunteer prisoners loose.

Some of those volunteers reportedly never quite got over the experience of being powerless as prisoners. If it affected them that bad in only a few days, what did it do to all of us who have been locked up for years?

The other experiment is called ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places’. It was done in order to determine the validity of a psychiatric diagnosis.

You see, doctors can do all kinds of tests to figure out what is going on in our bodies, but in the 1960-70s there were no physical examinations to make sure the psychiatrists had the correct diagnosis when they were dealing with people who they considered to have a mental health issue.

Researchers are now starting to understand how the brain works so maybe in the future those diagnoses will be more constant, but this experiment consisted of a few researchers presenting themselves to mental health facilities where they said they were hearing voices. That was the only time they lied. 

After they were admitted to the facility and given their individual diagnosis, they acted and spoke as they would any other time. The other patients were the only ones that detected that the researchers were there under false pretenses. 

The staff, including the doctors, treated each of them according to their diagnosis. When they were released they were assigned the label of their disorder being ‘in remission’.

After the study was published in a prominent psychiatric journal the facilities demanded another chance at detecting people who were not suffering from any mental health disorders.

The researchers agreed. However, they did not send anyone else into any facilities.  Later the psychiatrists in those facilities found many people they deemed as having no mental health disorder. 

This confirmed to the researchers that psychiatric diagnoses are subjective according to who is making that decision rather than a consistent gauge for naming each malady.  

Both studies really got my attention because I had been locked up in both types of institution. I had watched people act just like both studies described, and had been treated the same way the studies depicted the inmates being treated.  I recognized that there must be a reason people, who looked like they could be someone’s grandmothers, would treat us so badly when I was in Rockwell. 

The studies confirmed that those types of facilities change not only the prisoners and/or patients, but they also change the people who are guarding them.

In 2009, when I started looking for a job, there were several hundred people applying for each job opening. Even with my graduate degree and some experience, I was not getting calls to come for very many interviews, and no job offers from the interviews I had. 

I still did not realize that I had blackballed myself by taking my case to the Iowa Supreme Court. However, I did recognize that I was different from the people interviewing me at the Department of Corrections and the Department of Correctional Services.  In fact, I seemed to make some of them nervous. 

I could tell that they were only being polite when they listened to me. They reminded me of the professor and graduate student when I was working on my graduate classes in criminal justice, ‘I did not matter.’

I took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) when I applied to the Iowa Department of Correctional Services (DCS) for a job. I took my time and answered the questions honestly instead of making designs with the dots like I had done in my youth.  I was interested in what the test would show about me.  I met with the DCS Director, one of her staff, and the psychiatrist. 

The psychiatrist said that my exam showed that I was normal, but he didn’t define ‘normal’. The only thing that he questioned is why the exam didn’t show me to be more altruistic after I had worked so hard to help DOC and DCS clients for so long without getting paid.

“That’s easy. There is no such thing as altruistic.  It makes me feel good to help others.  If I was truly altruistic, I would not get anything out of it.”

I finally remembered what Dr. Dean had told me years before, “You scare people Bonnie! If you, an ex-con, are actually the same as us, then we can’t put people like you in cages, isolation and treat them like animals any more!  We will have to do our best to help them.  Most people who work for the Department of Corrections are not ready to make that kind of mental and emotional shift.”

I had been emailing grant opportunities to the DCS Director for some time so they could get some funding and maybe hire me. She finally emailed back that they didn’t have a grant writer.

I thought about it and realized that I was pretty much in the same place I had been when I got out of prison. No one would hire me except as a waitress, bartender or whore so I had started my custom drapery business.  Apparently I was going to need to do the same thing now, but not the whore thing!!! 

I was way too old, gimped up and had trouble breathing so waitress was out. There was no way I wanted to be that close to booze so bartender was out.  I certainly could not drive over the road wearing oxygen so that was out.

If DCS needed a grant writer, I would learn how to be one. I went to the community college and found out that they had four grant writing courses that I could take from home on the web.  I went to my Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation (IVR) counselor.  I explained what the DCS Director told me and how I could make myself more employable with those grant writing classes.  I completed all four classes. 

Then I found out that while DCS did not have a grant writer, but DOC, which is over DCS, did have one. Even though they were getting grants from national organizations, there still was not funding to hire me before they hired the union employees they had laid off.

I had continued to send out applications for all types of positions where my education and experience might help me get a job, but I had received no offers for even an interview for quite awhile. I went back to the drawing board. 

I asked if my IVR counselor would help me start my own business so I could help women in the criminal justice system with disabilities, but since I would be the only one who provided those services, if something happened to me, the clients would not receive any services and the business would go bankrupt. It was not funded.

I took a free class offered by a local agency about how to start my own business, but after a few classes I decided to put together a nonprofit agency, Assessing Disability Barriers (ADB). Four wonderful women with a lot of experience in education, corrections and counseling agreed to be on the board of directors. 

I wrote the articles of incorporation and Joyce paid to get it filed. Then I wrote the memorandum of understanding, forming The Coalition to Aid Women in Reentry, with the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC), Iowa Department of Correctional Services (DCS), Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) and Assessing Disability Barriers (ADB).

I continued to volunteer at IWD to help people with a criminal history find jobs. I used the money I received from my disability to pay for the gas I used to be at IWD five partial days a week.

I was determined to do what I could to help the people with a criminal history until I could get ADB funded. I refused to waste all of the years I had spent in classes when so many people needed that help.

When the memorandum of understanding needed new signatures I was told by staff that those people were at a meeting. When I arrived, the very large room was full of DOC and DCS people. 

I knew almost everyone there because I had met them in DOC and DCS classes, lots of inter-agency reentry groups, and some prisoner advocates. I sat and listened as many of them thanked the retiring board members for everything they had done.  When the DOC Director started to close the meeting, I stood up and asked if I could speak.  He gave me permission.

I introduced myself as the first woman in Iowa who was allowed to participate in the work release program.  “I am speaking for all of the offenders when I thank you for all you have done.”  I sat down and the meeting was closed. 

When the DOC Deputy Director came over to sign the memorandum he said, “You just keep nudging us to do the right thing don’t you?”

I just smiled at him.

 I got enough money to pay for a nonprofit class at Drake University.  I thought that I would be able to use their networking and find funding for ADB.  After all, I am an alumnus, but once again I ran into the same issue.  If something happened to me, the clients would not receive any services.  I finally gave up trying to get ADB funded.  I had been sending numerous long arduous grant applications to organizations for months with no offers.

It should be clear by now that I don’t give up easily. And this was no exception.  There were people going to Iowa Workforce Development with a criminal history that needed help finding a job.  I had the education and training to help them.  Giving up on that was the last thing on my mind!

Corrections had lost even more funding. More staff was being laid off by then.  Most of the state employees I spoke with said that they were doing the jobs that two or three others had been performing before all of the layoffs, but they had no choice if they wanted to keep a job. 

As frustrated as I was, I was not going to waste all of the hard work I had done to get an education. It had been my mission for years to help those sitting in the chair I once occupied, and here I was getting to help them. 

I had the money from my disability coming in every month to pay my rent and the gas I used to go to IWD in the mornings. I was available when people with a criminal history wanted my help, and I would be there as long as I could!

I read on the web where the National Institute of Justice was giving out scholarships to attend their conference in the Washington DC area.  Here is the letter I wrote when I applied for one of those scholarships.

March 4, 2010

Dear Selection Committee: Scholarships to Attend the 2010 NIJ Conference

I started my education in my 40s with a general-equivalency degree, received my undergraduate degree in sociology from Drake University on Mother’s Day 2000 and my Master of Science in Education, Certified Rehabilitation Counseling degree from Drake University on May 16, 2009. Forty years almost to the day of being released from prison on May 22, 1969.  I was the first woman allowed to participate in Iowa's work-release program in the 1960s, obtained my restoration of citizenship in 1974 and an executive pardon in 1982.

I have started a nonprofit agency, Assessing Disability Barriers, to help women with disabilities in the Iowa Department of Corrections and Department of Correctional Services.  I not only provide wrap-around vocational services, but am a mentor and role model.  Many have followed me into academia from the 12-Step program where I have over 28 years of sobriety.

I would like very much to attend the 2010 NIJ Conference and learn what is working in other states. Funding is nil at this point.              

It is my mission to help girls and women sitting in the chair I occupied and crying into the pillow my tears soiled forty years ago.

Sincerely, Bonnie L. Kern, DirectorAssessing Disability Barriers

 

I was granted the scholarship which included the hotel room, meals and the conference fees. Personal donations gave me the money to pay for my round trip air fare.

I started receiving telephone calls in June 2010. Men called me “Proclivity”, the title of the book I published in 2007.  One even asked me how much my services were, but they all hung up when I asked what they were talking about.

At first I was shocked that I kept getting calls, but I finally put it together and Googled, “Proclivity, Des Moines, Iowa”.  I found that the title of my book and home telephone number were posted on adult sites at YellowPages.com, “Serving the Des Moines Area”.  Those men thought I was a prostitute!

I felt like I was being raped all over again.  I contacted my mentor who is an attorney to see what I should do.  She told me to go enjoy the conference and we would deal with it after I got home. 

Another call came about 3:00 in the morning on the day that I was to leave for the conference.  #B answered the phone and yelled “NO!” CLICK!

“The man asked to speak to Proclivity.”

I was shell shocked by that time. Who would take the title of the book I wrote, about me being raped and abused as a child, and then put it on adult sites so men would call me for prostitution services?  Who hated me that bad?

I tried to go back to sleep, but there was no way to get my brain to stop. I finished packing my suitcase, laid out the clothes I was going to wear and took a shower.  By the way, I sobbed in the shower so #B didn’t hear me.

I hate flying! It scares the crap out of me!  I usually used the hypnotism relaxation suggestions I learned when I lost one hundred pounds twice to just go to sleep before the plane took off.  I used my over the road experience of the truck stopping to wake up when the plane taxied to the ramp. 

However, this trip was different. I flew to and from the Washington DC area in four small jet planes.  It felt more comfortable.  I certainly enjoyed not having a person on each side of me.  I even got to look out the window as we were taking off and landing.

The conference was great! There were quite a few of us who had received scholarships.  We were put at special tables during the meals with experienced justice educators and employees.  We had a special luncheon where we got to meet the people running the National Institute of Justice and the other scholarship winners.  We got to introduce ourselves and explain what we were doing in the field.

There was a lot of cyber stalking information and sessions at the conference.  I picked up the brochures and attended some of the lectures.  I contacted every agency on those brochures after I got home because I was scared.  I learned at the conference that many murders could have been stopped if the stalked victim would have been taken seriously. 

I didn’t know who put Proclivity on the adult sites, what their motive was, where the next attack might come from or look like, and when it might happen.  I still cringed over a year later when I answered the phone.  Many times I just let the answering machine take care of it.

I also attended a session where the presenters had conducted research at a prison with men in long term isolation. I noticed that the pretty young woman who had conducted the interviews, and was now presenting her findings, said that the prisoners did not mind being in isolation.

I had been in isolation enough to know that her research and conclusions were flawed. My experiences helped me understand why human beings get so frustrated looking at four walls, listening to their own voice rattle around in their head and being treated like an animal in a cage. Why they throw feces and vomit at their captors.  Why they spit and swear.  To be honest with you, the only reason my fifteen thru eighteen year old self did not do those things was because I didn’t think of them.

In fact, I am glad I didn’t think of this. A woman in the Iowa women’s prison dug out her own eyes while she was is isolation.  She had cumulative years of being isolated in mental health facilities, jails and prison. 

A person can only take so much of isolation before you start self mutilation. There are numerous articles and studies on the web about how hard it is on a person.

Additionally, prison history tells us that the Quakers found out that isolating prisoners, even when you give them a Bible to read, does not have any benefit.  Many times they will fall into some type of psychosis that they never recover from.

My attention came back to the presenter. I raised my hand as soon as she asked for questions, “Has this research been replicated with a man interviewing the male prisoners?”

“No.”

“Do you think that maybe you interviewing men who seldom get any human interaction at all, let alone being that close to someone who looks like you, might have skewed their answers so you would keep coming back to ask more questions?”

Even though she discounted what I asked, I contacted a woman in the Des Moines area as soon as I got home.  She has been a prisoner advocate for years.  I asked her to look into their research.  She emailed me several months later that the research had been challenged and debunked. 

Later I read in newspapers where there was a class action suit on behalf of some of those same prisoners for the atrocities they lived through while they were in those isolation cells. The article said that some of the prisoners had been moved to more appropriate facilities where the staff is trained to deal with their mental health issues.  They were showing improvement.

            I contacted the Iowa Attorney General’s office as soon as I got home about the adult ads in Yellowpages.com and they opened a case (Bonnie L. Kern vs Yellowpages.com, File # 2010-116157).  I got YellowPages.com to remove the ads, and Google to remove most of their links to those ads.

My attorney (contingency fee) contacted YellowPages.com’s attorney who told him that the person that posted the ads used my name, email address and mother’s maiden name to place the ads. It looked like I had posted them. 

“WHAT?!!”

I never would have advertised my book on those sites! Especially three years after I published Proclivity. I certainly would not lived through those months of being terrorized about answering the telephone and never knowing what else was going to happen. 

However, after months of trying, I was unable to prove that I was not the one who posted those ads. In the end, I moved and changed my telephone number.

My chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD - involving constriction of the airways and difficulty or discomfort in breathing) was starting to be a lot more problematic. I’m sure that the stress I felt about the telephone calls and not being able to get ADB funded had made it worse. 

It got even worse when the weather turned cold. It finally got so bad that I had to stop halfway to the car to get enough breath to walk the rest of the way.  I hung in there for as long as I could, but finally had to admit I could no longer volunteer my time at Iowa Workforce Development.

The day I was leaving was sad for me, but one of the state union employees told me, “That’s okay. We’ve been calling you a scab anyway.”

You talk about being shocked and hurt! This is one of those rivets in the steel ceiling!  My good intentions about helping the people with a criminal history find employment was not only unappreciated by state union workers, I had metaphorically crossed their picket line.

I went home, cried and sent emails apologizing to the DOC and DCS union employees I had worked with. I told them that being a ‘scab’ was never my intention.  I was trying to help their clients.  I have not volunteered since then except to help people in the 12-Step program, one on one, with their resume. 

My disability changed to retirement in 2010. Thank goodness that I had that money coming in every month so I could pay my $600 room and board to #B or I would have been out on the streets.

His daughter wrote that she wanted to come for a visit to see if she wanted to stay, but she was having trouble getting a visa. After a few months, and she still was not able to get it, I wrote her a letter that she should claim duel citizenship (her mother is English and her father is a US citizen).  I sent her the address where she could mail her letter and get everything straightened out.  I also had her send me the information I needed to put together a resume for her. 

#B had me take her resume to a child care facility a few blocks from where we lived. The owner said that she would definitely hire his daughter since she had been educated and trained in England for child care.  #B wrote her that she had a job waiting for her when she got here.

It was close to Christmas when she finally got her visa and was ready to come. We put together every bit of money we had to pay for her round trip airfare.  It was to be her Christmas gift from her dad.  We did without gifts that year.

#B told me that I needed to get everything gathered up so he could move my desk and computer into the basement because that room was now his daughter’s bedroom. I told him that I would move out if I was being moved into the basement.  I suggested that we put an electric heater on the front porch and move my office there.  “It’s light and bright from all of the windows.” 

I went to the store for groceries shortly after that. When I got back he had moved my desk, file cabinets, computer, printer, etc. into the dining room.  He told me to get the rest of the stuff out of the room so he could get her bedroom put together.

So that’s the way its gonna be.

I had already gone through this when some of my ex-husbands’ children came to live with us. Only this time it was starting before she even got here. 

I tried to find something good to think about. I remembered the day that he bought his motorcycle without saying anything to me.  I had left the house after he called me from the dealership and told me that he had bought it. 

It hurt that he had not shared that happy time of actually buying the motorcycle with me. Today I understand why he took his biker friend, but that day my hurt feelings manifested themselves as PISSSED. 

He was always more than eager to dump his negative feelings and thoughts on me. Why did I only get the bad stuff?  I stayed away from home most of the day because I didn’t want to throw a fit. 

Rage is what has always comes out when I’m hurt or scared. I had to talk myself into acceptance and get over being hurt.  Even though I was still mad, I finally went home.

I could tell that he was excited when he met me in the driveway and asked me to go to the garage to see his new toy. I reluctantly followed him.  He was backing it out of the garage, but my attention was drawn to the tree branch almost directly above him where a hawk was sitting.  It was staring at me. 

All I could do was smile. I had been aware, for a very long time, that when I was not sure I was on the right path, a hawk would appear to let me know that everything is all right.  Most of the time they were soaring, but this one apparently wanted me to really understand because it did not move, not even when #B had the bike out in the driveway.

I could tell that #B was shocked to see me smiling at him when he looked up. He asked, “What’s goin’ on?”

I pointed at the hawk and he understood that I was not mad any more. Since the hawk was in the tree above the Harley, everything was supposed to be happening…..just the way it was happening.  Evidently I would learn from it. 

Okay, apparently this was more of the stuff that was supposed to be happening….just the way it was happening. I got the rest of my stuff moved out of the room and into the dining room.  He set up his daughter’s bedroom.

I had not been doing well with my COPD. The stress of trying to get everything done for his daughter’s arrival made it even worse.  I finally ended up in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia for a few days. 

The only way the doctor would allow me to go home was if I promised to sit in a recliner on oxygen and do nothing for a few weeks. There was going to be a person when I got home to deliver an oxygen concentrator, “You have to promise me that you will stay on oxygen.  If you don’t, you will die from an enlarged heart!”

I did what he told me to do. I sat in the recliner and used the oxygen.  Since he insisted that I absolutely was not to do anything for at least two weeks, I will always be grateful to the friend that did our laundry, the friend who helped me with some of the organizing and #B who paid to have the house cleaned.  None of that would have gotten done if I had to do it.  I simply did not have the strength. 

I felt horrible that I could not do anything, but looking back, even then I realized that something had happened to me while I pushed myself to go to IWD. I knew my COPD was much worse, but I was having trouble admitting it to myself. 

I guess it should have been obvious to me after I had to get a chair while I took a shower, a grab bar installed to pull myself up out of that chair and a chair lift for the basement steps.

The doctor referred me for an elderly waver so I could get help doing the housework. They were also there when I took a shower to make sure I didn’t fall.  It was humbling to not be able to dance and walk like I used to.  Even go up and down steps. 

In my mind I could still do all of those things, but in reality, I needed a lot of help to even do the housework that had never been a problem before.

In fact, I had been so finicky about everything in its proper place that #7 asked me one time, “Do we live here or is this for display?”

The elderly waver helped me get an electric outlet installed for the chair lift that I got from Easter Seals. I used it so I could get to the basement where the washer and dryer were located.  My closet was also in the basement.  The house was so small that there was only room for #B’s clothes in one of the closets and the other one was for his daughter’s clothes.

The kitchen counter was raised so I could cook without the stenosis, fibromyalgia and bulging discs in my neck and back causing a lot of pain from leaning over the short counter. #B bought a dishwasher so I didn’t have to stand in one spot while I did the dishes.  It is still easier for me to walk than stand still.

I was very grateful that there were services provided by the government to help me because I had no children to help. The doctor said that I would have been put in a nursing home without this extra help. 

The first couple of aides they sent me were interesting to say the least. The first one saw that I had a lot of what I used to call junk jewelry, but it is now being called statement pieces.  She went to her car and brought back several nice necklaces and pierced earring sets in nice boxes.  She told me how much I needed to pay for them.  I asked her to leave and called the company. 

I told them that I was on low income and could not afford to buy things from the people they sent me. I heard later that she had taken the jewelry from another client’s home.  I was really glad that I got rid of her before she started stealing from me.

The next one they sent me was nice in the beginning, but started acting like she was the boss after a while. She started scaring me with her blatant intimidation.  I finally told her to leave.  I was too weak to fight with her. 

After I moved to this low income apartment and switched agencies, an aide hung my clothes in the closet, folded and put other items on the shelves, but they were wet. She was in the process of leaving for the day when I discovered what she had done and confronted her.  She told me that the dryer was not working in the laundry room. 

“Why didn’t you tell me instead of putting everything away like nothing was wrong?”

“Well, I told the maintenance man.”

“That doesn’t get my clothes dry!”

She just gave me a disgusted look and walked out the door.

I called the company and told them what happened, “I do not want her to come back.”

Some months later she was working for a friend’s wife. He told me that she said hello.  I called the agency and asked them what had happened to confidentiality and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 – guarantees my privacy). Apparently she was talking to my friend about me.

Over a year ago I finally got an aide that I can trust. She is no-nonsense, conscientious and extremely proficient in all of the things where I need her help.  She is friendly and I look forward to her hours with me.  I hope that she continues to help me for the rest of my time.

Some of the nurses were also problematic. The first one brought her own newspaper to put on my couch where she set her purse and medical bag.  She not only used hand sanitizer and wore gloves; she stood back away from me to take my vitals and acted like she was afraid to touch me.  I told her, “I’m not contagious.  I just have COPD with pneumonia sometimes.”

“I don’t want to catch bed bugs.”

“I don’t have bed bugs.”

“You may not even know it.”

I asked her to leave.

The next one was just the opposite. She called me “honey”, “sweetie”, “sweetheart”, etc. from the first time she walked in the door.  I told her that my name was Bonnie a few times, but when she seemed oblivious to my request to be called by my name, I told her, “I want you to stop hitting on me!”

“WHAT?”

“You keep calling me all kinds of endearing names. The professionals that I know call me Bonnie, Ms. Kern, etc.  As far as I can figure out, there are only two reasons that you would keep calling me “honey” and “sweetie” after I have told you that my name is Bonnie. 

First is that you are talking down to me. I know that’s not the reason because you know that I have a master’s degree from Drake University.  The only other reason is that you’re hitting on me.”

“Absolutely not! I’m happily married with kids!”

“Then why are you calling me those names?”

She thought for a few seconds, “I guess I’m just in that habit.”

“We may be poor and need your help, but we deserve the respect to be called by our name. Maybe I am the only one who will ever tell you, but be assured that the rest of us are just as insulted that you think we’re not deserving of that type of effort on your part.”

You may have noticed by now that I am a little stubborn and don’t get along with people. I never ran around talking about all of the stuff that bothers me medically.  Who wants to listen to that much negativity?  Besides, I’ve noticed that I slump into depression when I focus on those things.  I am much better emotionally, and most of the time I physically improve when I focus on the things that I am grateful about.

I was trained in biofeedback for the pain many years ago. I also use a heating pad and take a couple of aspirin most of the time when it gets bad.  I put a tennis ball behind me in the chair and apply pressure to the knots in my back until they release.  I also have some non-narcotic pain medication when I can no longer endure the misery. 

Both of my grandmothers had arthritis. Dad’s mother was in her eighties when she walked to and back home from Merle Hay Mall.  She died that night from a stroke. 

Mom’s mother got in a wheelchair in her thirties and never got back out. She died in her fifties.  I am doing the best I know how to emulate dad’s mom.  I will keep going as long as I can.

After almost not making it back to my car from grocery store one time, I gave up and started using a walker when I leave my apartment. It comes in handy when I need to sit down, but I ended up selling my car.  I was no longer strong enough to wrestle the walker into and out of the back seat or trunk. 

I have to admit that selling the car was a hard decision. It was a big step to give up having transportation whenever I wanted it, but I was spending more on the up-keep than the car was worth.  Besides, I no longer had to worry about it sitting in the parking lot.  Vehicles have been run into when people are mad and/or drunk.  Others have been broken into.

I also finally stopped worrying about what people would say and started shopping in stores where there are scooters. It is so much faster and easier on me than trying to walk all over to find the things I need.  I am very grateful I live in these times.  Grandma had to pull herself along using her feet.  Her wheel chair had four small wheels.  I can’t even imagine how hard that was for her.

KARMA – I figured out something after I started using those scooters. Now I know how all of those people in wheel chairs and scooters felt when I was either ignoring them or shoving past them.  I know I was just as rude to them as others are to me now.

Most of the time I stop, smile and tell the person “Go ahead. You’re faster than me”, but sometimes I just shove on through and make the real rude ones wait. 

The times that I really enjoy are when I see another person about my age on a scooter. Not the ones who look like they are mad at everybody, but the ones who are just going about their own business.  I slide up next to them, “Wanta run ‘em?”

Most of the time they laugh, but one woman said “Yeah” and took off.

“Hey!” I chased her, “Your’s is faster!  Come back …  That ain’t fare!!” 

We were both laughing by the time we got to the checkout counter. So were the people around us.  By the way, she won by a mile!

I like to have fun!!

I used the oxygen concentrator only at night after I started feeling better, but it would take my doctor telling me that I actually had an enlarged heart before I started to wear the oxygen apparatus all of the time, especially in public.

#B was having his own health issues when his daughter flew to this country. I had driven him to lots of pain specialists for treatment through the years.  They said that his cartilage had disintegrated and he was experiencing bone-on-bone pain in his joints, neck and back. 

Additionally, he was seeing other doctors at the Veteran’s Hospital. They were prescribing strong medications for his emotional issues on top of the pain medications.

I was able to drive #B to the airport where we waited for his daughter’s plane. It was delayed several times and he was getting more nervous with each passing hour.  The plane’s arrival was finally announced over the speakers.  I watched him as he finally got to see his daughter after so many years of not knowing if she was even alive. 

I knew that I was witnessing a miracle. The chances of me being able to find his kids in England had been astronomically stacked against me until I said those prayers and asked my daughter to help. 

His eyes had tears in them and he smiled from ear to ear as soon as he saw her. I thanked my Higher Power and Lori for helping those two people get to hug each other after so many years of being apart.

My thought was: Well #B, you just got to hold your daughter in your arms one time before you died! Your prayers have come true!!!

His daughter was beautiful. She was exhausted after such a long flight and the delays in Minnesota.  Her main concern was to get her luggage and then, “I need a fag.” 

I showed her my lit cigarette when we got to the car. I told her that we would be smoking on the porch because her dad had quit smoking.  However, it didn’t take very long of us smoking and talking of the porch before he started again.

She told me on the porch about her childhood and how tough it was for her mother to put food on the table. I told her that her mother could have called #B’s father, “She knew his name and the town.  She could have gotten his telephone number.  Your dad would have sent money.  It drove him crazy not knowing if you were dead or alive.”

After his daughter attended a few 12-Step meetings with me, she said that she never had a problem with alcohol, but had smoked ‘weed’ along with her mother. In fact, she got it from her uncle.  #B and I told her that we did not want any alcohol or drugs in the house.

I told her that she was beautiful and lots of guys were going to be hitting on her. “Just remember, the nice guys are not going to be the ones that show up first. The first ones are going to try to get you in bed.  The nice guys are going to hang back to see if you respect yourself.  If you don’t respect yourself, why should they respect you?”

Lots of things happened, but one of the first inklings I had that there were going to be problems was shortly after his daughter arrived. #B told me that she had to buy slippers because her feet were getting dirty from walking on the hardwood floors. 

I said, “Did you tell her to grab the vacuum?”

“That’s not HER job!”

“What is her job?”

“Well, it isn’t to be your housekeeper!!”

This is before I had any help. I tried to clean, but ended up in so much pain that we lived in a filthy house until the aide started cleaning for me, and even then it was not the way I had once cleaned. 

His daughter cleaned her room. He went to work, came home from work, and both of them sat on the couch and waited for me to tell them that the evening meal was ready.  They both set their dirty dishes on the counter and went back to the couch or went to meetings.

They drove to Minnesota one weekend so she could get reacquainted with his family.  When they came back she went directly to her room. 

#B was madder than hell. He told me that her cousin had gotten her so drunk that she was sick and they had to stop often on the way home.  I asked him why he was blaming the cousin.  “Did he dump it down her throat?”

The next morning she told me that it was her cousin’s fault that she had gotten so drunk.

I said, “We can’t let you go to bars.”

“Why?            

“Because you’ll blame the bartender for getting you drunk.”

She muttered something about maybe it was her fault for drinking so much.

I ask her many times in the next two years to talk to either me or both #B and me if she had a problem with me so we could work it out, “and not put him in the middle”, but I could tell from what #B said and how he acted toward me that she was taking her complaints to him.

Just like he had allowed the woman to flirt with him years before, he was allowing her to continue to go to him instead of insisting that we all sit down and talk it out.

After a few months he was treating me like crap most of the time. After each blowup, when we were alone, his daughter would tell me, “Oh Bonnie, you don’t deserve to be treated like that!”

I understood her attitude toward me because I remembered my initial reaction to dad kissing another woman in front of me many years after mom died. I was shocked and still felt loyalty to mom, but it was easier for me to get over that shock than it apparently was for his daughter.

I even understood the game she was playing with us, because I used the divide and conquer game myself with my parents. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it if #B would not insist that we work it out together, but that never happened. 

She was doing a real good job of sabotaging the relationship I had with him. She played the sweet little girl her father thought she still was. 

He put the next-to-the-last nail in the coffin of our relationship the night that we were watching television. There was a female body builder on the screen who was my age.  I said, “I sure don’t look like that.”

“If you did, we’d have sex a lot more.”

That moment is pretty much the last time I have had sex with anyone except me. I knew he was right because I had gained a lot of weight by eating instead of saying what was on my mind.  Any time he asked about sex after that remark, “I don’t look like that body builder” and he dropped it.

 #B’s daughter started the job at the child care facility a month or so after she got to this country.  She only had a few blocks to walk, but I had her clean the snow off of my car so I could drive her when it was real cold.  As far as I know, she still works there. 

From what she told me and what I saw, she is great with children. She attended many training sessions and received child care certifications through that facility to add to the education she earned in England. 

She started going with a young man who had a lot of piercing. I didn’t say too much, but I suppose what I did say was more than what they wanted to hear. 

I watched and listened to him for quite a while. I finally realized that he was a nice guy and gave him a letter of recommendation to help him get his driver’s license.  #B and I drove his daughter to stay nights with that young man often.

The kids went out of town most weekends to visit his family, sixty miles west of Des Moines, so he could help his grandfather on the farm.  His dad took them most of the time, but they asked #B take them and come get them a few times. 

Today I understand that I was putting my standards on his daughter about the respect a parent deserves just because they are your parent, but I was absolutely flabbergasted when #B was so gimped up from all of the bone-on-bone pain and needed their help. Instead of his daughter and her boyfriend offering to help him like they had done so many weekends helping her boyfriend’s family, they told #B, “We don’t want to.”

#B had to pay people to mow his lawn, blow the snow and make needed repairs.

His daughter put the last nail in the coffin of my relationship with her father when she had been in this country for almost two years. She told #B and me that her boyfriend needed to move and asked if he could move into her bedroom. 

I had always made it very clear that I thought the house was way too small for four adults, but she made it sound like he had no where else to live. #B was glad that he would be getting rent from her boyfriend.  Needless to say, he moved in with her.

It was a day or two later when she sat down on the couch. I was in my recliner.  Her boyfriend was in their bedroom and #B was not home from work. 

She was laughing when she said that the only reason she was telling me that they had stopped taking birth control and were trying to have a baby is because her boyfriend said that he would not lie about it when she told us that she got pregnant while taking birth control. She said that they knew they could not afford a baby, but they were going to have one anyway.

I was so shocked that all I could do is look at her. My thoughts rampaged, So now that he has already moved in, you decide to be honest? …  …  …  So what you’re telling me is that he has integrity and you are a pathological liar that will say anything to get what you want.  …  It’s time for me to get the hell out of here!

I drove to see Joyce, “I’ve gotta move before all hell breaks loose! There is no way that I’m gonna be a built-in baby sitter!”

She listened to me, again, because I had been telling her about the crappy things going on every since his daughter bought the slippers, and how over time she had honed her sabotaging skills. Joyce agreed that it was time for me to get on with my own life and let them crash and burn as a family.  I drove back to the house and told them that I was moving out as soon as I found a place to live.

#B went out and started mowing the lawn. I knew that he absolutely was not supposed to be doing that much walking with his bone-on-bone back and knees.  I shared with her that I used to mow my dad’s yard when his back was hurting.  She went outside and came back in, “He said he’s getting his head together.  I’m glad because the Diva in me didn’t want to anyway.”

Later we were all sitting in the living room. #B asked if he could get a hundred dollars (the amount she paid for rent every two weeks) so he could have money to buy lunches the next week at work.  She told him that they had $2,000 in the bank, “but it has to stay there for our trip to England.”

I said, “You selfish” and then stopped. My thoughts ignited, She is going to get paid the same day her dad does. She can’t give him the rent a week early and replace it with the hundred dollars that she would have given him for rent?  #B and I have spent every dime we had to try to please her for almost two years and she doesn’t give a shit about whether he can eat at work?  God, please help me get out of here soon!!

After all of us got home from the different 12-Step meetings we attended that evening, I apologized for interfering in their family discussions and promised that I would not do it again. I did not apologize for calling her selfish.  I said, “I am sponsor directed to keep my mouth shut, pack my things and move.”

All three of them started going into the kids’ room and closing the door to have conversations after that. It was a relief for me because I didn’t have to witness the way the man I loved was being treated. 

I had to switch agencies for my elder care because the one I used in the beginning would not help me pack or unpack my things. It would have been totally impossible for me to do everything myself. 

I found the agency I am with today. They sent people who were wonderful.  They took the clothes I was donating to my car.  They helped me get everything packed and moved to the front porch and my bedroom. 

My total focus became going through all of my stuff, throwing away dumpsters of papers that I had kept from my classes. I had an AA brother come get both of my computers and printers.  He took them home with him until I could get moved and have him set them back up in my new apartment.

I applied to four low income residential facilities and prayed that I would get the apartment I now live in, but I had to wait several weeks before they had an opening. It worked out because the kids went to England for a week and were not back when I moved out.

There was a lot of tension between #B and me. He asked me in a snotty voice, “Are you going to keep both of the computers?”

“It depends on how I’m treated until I get out of here.”

He did not want me to take the television until I reminded him that I had bought it right after he moved in with me because the one I had was too small for him.

“What about the stand?”

“I bought it to go with the TV! Look, I’m not taking anything of yours with me.  I’m not asking you to pay for all of the stuff that I already had or bought after we were together.  I’m leaving them here when I move.  I really would appreciate us not fighting about everything. 

I figure that me helping you get your job and lots of promotions, helping you get your divorce and finding your kids, helping you get your finances and taxes straightened out so you could buy this house, and all of the other things I’ve done since we’ve been together ought to be worth you showing me some respect while I’m still here.”

He bought two floor lamps because I had taken my sconce lights off of the living room wall. I asked him if he would trade the floor lamps for the sconces, and the retro metal drop-leaf kitchen table that had been left in the basement from the previous owner for the matching wood dinette table and upholstered chairs that I bought for the dining room. 

I think he was just as happy about those barters as I was because I knew the floor lamps would highlight the Native American prints on each side of the living room window. Also, there was not room for the dinette set in this apartment, but the drop leaf table would fit perfectly. 

I also knew that I would love the lace table cloth softening its aluminum legs. It would be out of the way with the leaves down, functional for eating meals, sewing, etc. with one leaf up.  Additionally, I would have room in my living/dining room to have a meal or play cards with five of my friends with both leaves up.

The day finally came for me to move. #B was stone silent when he left the house for work.  I was sad because I had to leave the man I loved in order to get away from his daughter. 

Part of it was on me because mom had come out of my mouth way too often when I was talking to her. I had expected her to live up to the standards mom taught me about respecting my father.  How could she feel that kind of love and respect for her father after being separated from him for so many years? 

She didn’t know him. She may have even romanticized what it would be like to have him in her life while she was growing up.  Today I understand her.  None of my husbands could ever have lived up to dad in my eyes.  Her father probably did not fit that fanciful notion of who she wanted him to be.

I was sad because I was leaving the cats that I loved, but realized that #B loved them too and would take good care of them.

I thought about all of my stuff that I was leaving behind, but knew I had no need for the large barbeque grill, patio table and six chairs, law mower, snow blower, tent and camping gear, etc. It was just stuff.  I was old now and this would hopefully be the last time I had to start over!

I was really sad about what might have been if I had never found his children, but knew that he was happier because I did find them. I also knew that finding them was meant to be or it would not have happened.  As a friend of mine used to say, “I don’t have to like it, or even have to understand it.  I just have to accept it and move on.”

The movers got there and packed everything in the truck. I made sure that I petted the cats and told them that I loved them.  Then I closed the door to the house for the last time. 

I had thought that I would live there for the rest of my life, but that dream had been smashed to smithereens. I guess I should have been used to it by then, but it still hurt like hell!!!

I met the movers at the apartment building. I had them put the furniture where I wanted it first and then they stacked the boxes and plastic tubs with lids all over the apartment. 

My aide got the items put away in the large tubs that were stacked three high and four deep between my recliner, the desk and the television set.

Even though I had torn up and thrown away two large brown dumpsters and two tall kitchen waste baskets of papers that were saved from my classes, there were still lots of papers that I would have to go through. I had not been emotionally been willing to get rid of them while I was packing.

As soon as the middle of the living room was cleared, I sat down in my recliner, looked directly at the TV and told my aide, “There will never be another man sitting in my recliner, watching my TV and telling me to go fix them something to eat! That just ain’t gonna happen again!!”

That felt good to say. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded.  I would be able to fix what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it.  No longer would I have to live according to the whims and preferences of a man and his family. 

Additionally, I could watch the television programs I wanted to see instead of vampires, zombies and the blood & guts programs that were always on before I moved. I always had to fight to watch Antiques Roadshow, but now I could also enjoy a symphony and the musicals I love.

It took a week or so to get the telephone, web and cable all connected. At the time I didn’t have a boom box to listen to my Native American flute music that is so calming to me.  It was silent, especially at night without a computer or television. 

There was deafeningly silence. I was left with my thoughts rattling around in my brain.  I call it mental masturbation because left alone in my brain my thoughts are always negative, overwhelming and on a rampage.  It took me years to learn how to get them to settle down so I was able to relax and find more positive things to think about.  Writing a gratitude list always works for me so I made a really long one during that time.

I had to fight myself for months to get over the resentments I had toward his daughter sabotaging our relationship, but then, she could not have accomplished it if he would not have allowed it. Throughout our relationship, when it came to standing up for me, he had always taken me for granted.  It was going to be my job to find people that think I am worthy of respect, and it had to start with me showing myself respect.

Even though I was very aware that resentments only hurt me, and my brain was short-circuiting like the forth of July on steroids with resentments, I found myself telling #B yes one more time.

It was just a few days after I moved that #B called. He told me that he needed a ride to the hospital the next morning for surgery and told me what time to pick him up.  I was so used to doing things to help him that I told him yes without thinking about it. 

I pondered it all evening and into the night. After I picked him up the next morning I told him that he was not to call me any more, “It took her almost two years to get me to move out of my home, but she finally got it done.  I don’t know if I even want any of you in my life at this point.  I’m going to need some time and space to process it.”  I dropped him off at the hospital and have never asked him how he got home.

My friend brought the computers to my apartment and set up the newest one and both printers. Since #B had not been real nasty to me before I moved out, I gave him the oldest computer.  He let me keep using the cell phone he was paying for. 

That is when I found out that he had a girlfriend. I realized they were apparently an item before I moved, but I didn’t want to know how long because I didn’t want another resentment. 

It’s over and done with! Let it go!!!

KARMA – Although it was torture to know that he had already replaced me in his life, I remembered that I had gone on with my life before I actually divorced #3.

 #3 was eleven years older than me, but I was fifteen years older than #B.  He wanted a woman that looked good behind him on the Harley and I certainly was not that woman.  I had told #3 that he would have to get old by himself because I was not ready to be old, and I mentally started hearing #B telling me the same things.  Karma is a bitch!

It took about three weeks of my aide coming twice a week to help, and me slowly putting things away the rest of the time, to get the boxes and tubs cleared out. I had to wait for several more weeks for the owner of the agency and his son to put my extensive headboard together.  It has lots of lighted shelves with mirrors in the back, drawers and doors on each side.  The owner told me not to move again because he was never going to put it together again.  I guess he meant it because he sold the company.