New Religion

April 8, 2013


People say the funniest things. They really do. This happened to me weeks ago and it still makes me laugh when I think about it. I was admitting a patient for surgery and her husband was with her. He was very quiet but was watching everything I did. When I was finished and rolled my computer out into the hallway he followed me. "Those rings you're are wearing are beautiful." I may have mentioned before that I wear my mother's wedding rings on my right hand. She gave them to me 6 months before she died. I have wanted them since I was a kid. I knew then that the end was near for her because she would never part with those rings. My sister wanted me to change the setting but I wouldn't think of doing that. Every time I looked at them they remind me of her. And I looked at them a lot these past two years. Every time we went to counseling and Dave ( not David, as apparently Anita Pedulla or is it Puton, refers to him now) listed all the MANY faults I had, during divorce mediation as he quibbled about how much money I deserved, and in the court house in front of the judge when I had to get on the witness stand and answer questions no one should be subject to.



"Why are they on your right hand?" he asked. "Is it a new religion?" I told him they weren't mine but my mother's. That I was no longer married. But what I wanted to say was, "Yes, it's the religion of the divorced. The religion were you worship any shred of kindness that the man you have been married to for thirty years sees fit to bestow upon you. The man's who's children you bore. The man you did not cheat on, not because things were so wonderful, but because you made a vow to be faithful. The religion of the spouse who finally knows all the shitty things that were done to her and was STILL willing to work things out. Because, above all she believes in FAMILY. That is the new religion where I am the high priestess."


So, somewhat funny but bittersweet as well. But what I have come to know is that survival is more satisfying than wallowing in self pity. That I am not following the same path I had dreamed about and worked toward for most of my life but a new one. Maybe a better one.