When the news of September 11 hit me
I first heard about the 9/11 attacks from a neighbor who did not have a TV of her own due to her husband’s religious convictions. She wanted to watch the unfolding events on my TV. Before her arrival, I was busy making renovations to my 100 year old home in Warren, Ohio. I could hardly believe her words when she told me two hijacked planes had purposely crashed into our twin towers in New York. As we watched the events unfold on TV, we both cried. After she went home, I continued to cry for our nation and felt numb all day. The next day as I continued to watch our government’s response, I still could not stop crying and had mixed feelings of pride for the way our country came together and great sorrow for the loss of life. I knew then that this event was prophetic and would change our way of life. I can see now that I was right in the way our country is starting to come back to God after a very long period of straying.
The next week the feeling of numbness stayed with me. When I was informed that our stock had totally plummeted, I called my husband, and, told him that we have to call our stock broker. Our stock broker told us that we have to cash out the remainder of our stock to pay off what we had borrowed against it for living expenses. You see, my exe had never worked any longer than 9 months at any one job in the last 20 years. He was out of work during the Sept. 11 attacks and living off of our dividends. I was making a small amount of money singing and playing the guitar for Nursing Home Residents. However, since we borrowed money against the stock for additional living expenses, and, with the value of the stock plummeting so low, it was time to cash out the remainder of our stock to pay off what we borrowed.
How my out of work exe received this stock
My exe husband had received the stock as the result of his Dad’s death 10 years prior to our receiving it. It had been put into a 10 year trust and grown significantly. Unfortunately, with the attack of 911 the stock was now worth less than its original value when my father in law died. With my exe husband’s bad work history having this stock meant that we would could almost live on the dividends providing we were thrifty. My exe didn’t know the meaning of thrifty and bought things that he should not have bought. My next article will be about the horses that depleted our resources that I had begged my exe not to buy.
We loss over $300,000 worth of stock
Unfortunately the loss of this stock blew my exe husbands mind and he sunk into an even deeper depression. As a result he wanted to start dating other women. He had been addicted to pornography for most of his life anyway, and, did not know how to love a real person. However, he felt that he missed out on the dating experience due to his alcoholic Dad. We had been married for 12 years. Only after two years of marriage, my exe went back to his pornography and it was like I no longer existed in every sense of the word. This played a significant role on my low self worth. I told him that if he wanted to date, then I would have to let him go. I also said that I will wait for him to sew his wild oats and hopefully someday come back to me.
Well, I waited 5 years for my exe to sew his wild oats. However, when I was not even thinking about dating, I met my present husband at my son’s wedding. Yes, I did a red neck thing and married the father of the bride. Details of our meeting will be in another article! I was totally taken off guard because I felt so very unattractive after being in a marriage with no affection or outward signs of love shown by my exe. I had not planned on ever getting married again but cupid hit us both hard with his arrow. Plus, this American Indian husband of mine was so affectionate and still is. I thank God for him every day.
Must pause for a joke
The phrase American Indian is to me redundant. Since the Indians were already here before the pilgrims arrived were they not the first real Americans? Therefore when we say American Indians, in effect we are saying American Americans! I know we say American Indians to distinguish between America’s Indians and folks from India! I just couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at the phrase.
What we had left was in real estate
Fortunately the country home my exe and I jointly own was at least paid in full from the stock we cashed out before Sept 11th. However, my exe still has not had steady work so I decided to stay here and continue to pay the property taxes. If I would have not moved back here from Warren, we would have lost this house. My exe has been living in the Warren house that is in my name rent free since 2005. He has not had a steady job since then and only helped with the property taxes 1 year out of the last 6 years. He continues to live in my 100 year old home rent free. My new husband and I thought of evicting him, but, it is better to let him live in the house then for it to be empty.
Someday we hope to sell our country home when the housing market gets back on its feet and split the proceeds 50- 50 as agreed upon in the dissolution. This way my exe will at least get something from what was left of his stock.
Thus ends my story of how September 11 affected me personally.