Boom!!!

Miimii took it well--I'd told her before, during our long walks, to expect it one day. It was only one year, and we'd survive. I would spend a year alone in Korea and then return to my loving wife and cats. I could deal with it, I kept telling myself.

Then things went from bad to worse. My mother phoned me on the morning of June 28...my sister was pregnant. I casually told Miimii. She'd been in a good mood but eventually got very quiet and after a few hours she felt sick and wouldn't get out of bed. Then, she started screaming at me as hard as she could, and it lasted 1 1/2 days. She'd told me before that if my sister ever got pregnant before she did, she would divorce me. She screamed that she wanted me out of the house (see, now this is why I didn't want to come back from Turkey). Don't ask me how, but after almost two days of this I calmed her down and we decided we wouldn't divorce, but she demanded I got to a room and close the door whenever I spoke to my mother on the telephone, so she wouldn't have to hear it. I was miserable in this marriage, and secretly hoped she'd die suddenly so I wouldn't have to be with her, but not have the shame of divorcing and breaking my vow to God. I sat alone praying, while she again napped upstairs. I opened my Bible to see if God would give me guidance, and the first passage I opened was Proverbs 21:9 "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife".

I couldn't take any more. I opened up to Mike Geary at work. I'd never said anything bad about Miimii to anyone before because I believed that a husband who honors his wife wouldn't put his wife down to others. But that day I couldn't hold back. Six and a half years of anger came pouring out and everyone at work was so surprised. They all thought we were so happy. Apparently they hadn't noticed the vein balling up in my neck.

We cruised the Hershey industrial park and giggled like two school girls. We arrived at this obviously empty building. All the birds were black crows, I said,"Look Sheep, chocolate birds!" We slowly walked up to the doors, and one was open so we wandered down a corridor a few feet when we ran into the Sunday cleaning crew-they were all black. I shot a quick look at Miimii, and as we bit our lips hard to stop from busting out laughing, I said,"We want to see the chocolate". They politely told us there were no tours that day, so we giggled a little and slowly walked out, staring at the shrine to chocolate. I told Miimii,"Stand in front of the chocolate sign and I'll take a picture. Pose like Vanna White". As I was shooting, one of the cleaning people came out and shot us a very confused looked. It was our last adventure, our last smile.