August 6, 1934 - March 13, 2007

Beloved mother to Lynn and Rick, dear mother-in-law to Holly and David, loving Grammy to Alexandra, Hunter, Tyler and Madeleine, wife to Ward Melby, Richard Tyler and Mike Fortman, loving sister to Melba, Georgia and Gerry, doting aunt to Jennifer, Sara and Kate, kind step-mother to John and Mary Fortman, wonderful daughter to Alpha and George Deters, cherished friend to many.

Life Roles: Homemaker, elementary school teacher, landlady, actress, philosopher, student of ethical living and positive thinking, and quintessential hostess-with-the-mostess.

Passions: Morning AA "attitude adjustment meetings," voracious reading, writing, friendships, enjoying the smartest grandchildren in the world, and the teaching of eternal truths.

Hobbies: Playing the piano, cooking, sewing, making quilts, gardening, yoga, riding her bike, participating in community theater, traveling the world, making herself useful, and napping.

Places She Lived: Spring Grove (Minnesota), San Francisco (California), Lakewood (Washington), Studio City, North Hollywood, Palm Springs and Ventura (California)

Maxims:
1. One day at a time
2. Acceptance is the answer to all your problems.
3. Have an attitude of gratitude.

Religion: None. But there was talk of a higher power. Like gravity, maybe.

Favorite Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the power to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

ONE WOMAN’S PATH, by Marilyn Tyler

My purpose—for me a matter of survival and, oddly, both selfish and unselfish—became clear many years ago. Until the discovery of my raison d’être, though, I had imagined I made my own choices; in truth I’d had much help in setting goals.

Had someone asked me when I was a child what my purpose was, I would have replied: “to get an education.” Parental instructions to my siblings and me were explicit.

“Our responsibility is to keep a roof over our heads, to feed and clothe you and to bring you up as best we can,” they told us.

“Your job is to go to school.”

Their expectations powered us to excel at book learning and the taking of exams. The Deters children won spelldowns and brought home report cards filled with A’s. Each of my two sisters became valedictorian of her high school graduating class and we all marched off to college, as was expected of us, to earn our degrees.

When I launched into marriage and adulthood, my purpose, based on small-town family values, was clear: to be a good helpmate and an exemplary elementary school teacher.

My husband also had a purpose in life: to become a millionaire. His passion for success as a builder/developer became the focus of our marriage. The two of us worked hard and for seven years postponed having children in order to devote all of our energies and resources toward realizing his dream.

When my husband decided he no longer wanted to be married, my life fell apart. My father had warned us that marriage brought the possibility of widowhood or other hardships, but no one prepared me for divorce.

“A wife needs to be a good partner,” he often told his daughters. “If her husband dies or becomes disabled, she must be ready to take over and support the family.” Yeah, okay. But what about getting dumped? That eventuality had not occurred to anyone in my family.

After eleven years in a marriage I had supposed would be forever, I found myself unmarried, with a four-year-old daughter, and nursing a severely wounded ego.

What to do? It seemed obvious: my new purpose was to regroup and move on. Using entrepreneurial skills learned from my former husband, I set out to become financially independent through my own efforts. By living frugally and investing modest savings in income properties, I fashioned a secure financial life for my child and myself.

Well along the road to solvency, however, I lost my sense of purpose. What had begun as social drinking got out of control and at age forty-three, twice-divorced, I felt depressed and hopeless. Alcoholism owned me and had become my guilty secret. How had my life gone so wrong? Neither my relative affluence nor my best thinking could solve the problem or lift me out of the incomprehensible demoralization in which I found myself.

An epiphany sounds like such a grandiose event that I used to doubt such a thing could occur, but it can and does. It happened to me.

On the night of September 21, 1977, I lay drunk on my bed, unable to sleep, feeling doomed to ongoing misery that could end only in death or madness.

From that despair, my voice cried out for help perhaps to the God of my childhood, whom I had long since abandoned. There are no words to describe the spiritual experience, but immediately afterward, a profound peace came over me. The certainty that everything was going to be all right brought the relief of untroubled slumber.

When I awakened, my first awareness was of freedom from the compulsion to drink alcohol. My Furies had vanished and have not returned.

What has all this to do with purpose? Or the power of purpose? Everything, in my case. Please understand that I haven’t joined a temperance movement—I’m aware that most people can drink and be merry, even though I cannot. My purpose in life is, and has been for the past twenty-six-and-a-half years, to be available when another alcoholic reaches out for help.

We sober alcoholics belong to an unusual fellowship. Having found a way of living happily without mind-altering substances, we learned that the best way to keep our sobriety is to give it away. So that is what we do. We don’t evangelize. We simply say, “If you want what we have, we’ll share with you how we rebuilt our lives—how we learned to ‘behave our way into better thinking, not think our way into better behavior’.”

Something more than being struck sober happened to me that night in 1977. My priorities shifted— attitudes toward people and money and death and the meaning of life changed—all for the better. For example, I have learned to see the similarities, not the differences between you and me. I know, now, how much is enough and have lost my fear of financial insecurity. My know-it-all-ism is somewhat diminished, which alone qualifies as a minor miracle.

Having become teachable is a gift of my epiphany. When this student was ready, teachers appeared.

“Utilizing prayer and meditation is like going to a gym and working out,” they told me. “You don’t have to believe in it, you just have to do it and you’ll get results.” Willing, finally, to take direction, I pray for guidance on how to be of service and for the power to do so.

“Meditation is listening to the silence,” the wise ones said. “Meditate on a regular basis and intuitive answers will come.” I tried it and guess what? It works for me.

The law of unintended consequences has brought unexpected benefits: old rifts have healed, damaged relationships were repaired, and resentments that used to plague me are gone.

Each morning begins with an attitude of gratitude for the gift of sobriety. I didn’t earn it or buy it or steal it, so it must have been a gift. On a daily basis, I rededicate my energies to a spiritual way of life and recommit to helping the alcoholic who still suffers.

The sun has risen as I write this. The first order of my day will be a meeting with my fellows. I’ll suit up and show up to bear witness that it is possible to recover from alcoholism. It is my purpose.

THE END

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great work.