How it all began...

I round the corner past the visitor’s center, and there it is. Stretching out as far as the eye can see. Water and grasses and marshland, that from this vantage point appears for all the world to be a surreal landscape from another planet. It’s vast and flat and the sun reflects in a hundred different ways from all the pools of water contained within. There are no trees. Just grasses and marsh and water. Everywhere. I’ve lived in New Jersey all but the first 2 years of my life. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

As I sit there for a moment just enjoying the view, a Great Egret flies into view and I’m startled and taken by the huge size, the gracefulness, and the gleaming white against the deep green grasses. I’ve seen them many times before, but not like this. Soon after that, there comes another, and then another….and I realize. This is where the birds live. This is where I belong.

As I get closer to making the turn onto Wildlife drive, I see a gorgeous blue bird perching on the sign that says “One way traffic, next 8 miles”. It’s a Blue Grosbeak. I’ve never seen one before. I’m not here 5 minutes, I have barely started my day, and I am stopping to take photographs of this gorgeous bird, proudly proclaiming this sign as his territory.

In that moment, I forget my life and all the pain. I am transfixed on the beautiful creation, and all I want to do is see if I can get some nice close shots, in good light. It was not to be. This time, the sun is mostly behind him, and I can’t find a good angle. The shots are nice, but it will have to wait for another time to get the view I really want of him. Luckily, there will be other times. Many other times.

Wildlife drive and it’s signs could serve as a good moniker for where my life is about to head. It’s one way. It’s a long drive. But it will be filled with revelations. Incredible sights. Beautiful scenery, and an inexorable pull and force that will reshape my life.

I didn’t know it on that day, but I was about to begin a journey that would save my life. That would give me reason to live, to go on, and to recapture what it means to be truly alive.

I would come to call this place home. The only place on Earth where I felt as if I had a chance. I had lost all hope. I had lost everything in my life. Everything I held dear. After almost a decade of turmoil, tumult, loss and destruction, I had nothing left. My life had been obliterated. I watched my dreams die. But here, in this place, I found my soul once more. I found a reason to keep on going, and the determination to do what I love, after losing all that I loved.

The birds of Forsythe would lift me on their wings and I would have a chance to soar once again. Truly, for the first time in my life. I couldn’t have predicted the year that was to follow this. I had no idea what was in store when I started this journey. All I knew was that it was a journey I had to take.

My life had become one of an unyielding series of crushing losses. In 1998, I moved with my wife and children into a gorgeous new home that we had built. It was our dream home. It was large but not huge, with an incredible yard. That was the main attraction for me. It was set on an acre in cul-de-sac, in the nicest part of town, with woods at the back, and a chance to create incredible gardens. Gorgeous paver brick patios. A Koi pond. Ornamental trees. Decks and a pool. Of course, many bird feeders and wind chimes. It was heaven. It was going to be my refuge for me and for my family. A place to live in until the kids moved out at least, and maybe, a place to enjoy retirement. It was imbued with nature. Both inside and out. I worked tirelessly to make it so.

I built that home and poured my love and my dreams into it. It was gorgeous by anyone’s standards. By the time I was done, there were flowering trees of all kinds. Thousands of bulbs that pushed through the earth every spring to blaze with color. Over 150 different kinds of perennials graced the garden beds. Hummingbirds visited the nectar feeders. Dozens of species of birds would come to the feeders and visit. The sounds of finely made wind chimes would add peace and beautiful music to the landscape. We’d lay in the pool and my wife would say to me “I can’t believe how lucky I am”.

Those words would come to not only ring so incredibly hollow, but would stand as the most ironic words ever spoken to me in my life. For only a few years later, it would all come to an end, and I would watch helplessly as the life I had…the marriage, the family, the home, the career, would all come to an excruciating end. I would lose it all. And then I would lose even more.

By 2009, I’d find myself in a hellish job with an abusive manager. A grueling 4 hour a day commute. Bankrupt. Living alone in a townhouse, the home long gone. The marriage long over. The children no longer at home with me. Huge alimony payments to my ex-wife for life.

In 2000, I took a vacation with my kids to our lake cabin property in the Catskills. My wife didn’t want to come with us. She needed time alone. Things were tenuous in our marriage. We weren’t getting along well, and things were already tense and difficult. There was a lot of fighting. She wasn’t happy.

When I returned from that trip, my world would be rocked forever. She confessed an affair. She had been with “him” while I was away.

To say that we don’t know what infidelity feels like until we experience it, is like saying we didn’t understand what a burn feels like until we put our hands into a scalding hot frying pan. You just aren’t ready for it. You can’t imagine it. You can’t speculate about how it would be.

I was rocked. I cried for days and weeks and months to follow. The betrayal of the trust I had was overwhelming. I never imagined it could hurt this much. I couldn’t function at work. I could think of nothing else.

She was diagnosed severely Bipolar. She went on medications. I tried to be the best and most supportive husband I could be, and to work with her on reconciling. It was a long and painfully difficult time. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I was never going to be the same. But I tried. I wanted to make it work. And I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose my intact family and my home and marriage.

Fast-forward to 2005. Things are again not going well between us. The stress of the finances, the house, and issues with her bipolar condition had us back almost at square one. We fought a lot. The kids now, almost adults, were tired of it and even they wanted us to divorce.

Then it happened.

Another affair. This time, the next door neighbor who had been sweet on her forever, became the man she would throw away our entire life for. I will never forget. Labor Day weekend, 2005. She invited both he and his wife over for a celebration around our pool in the evening. I watched as she flirted openly with him. I had wondered about things before this, as the behaviors were becoming unusual. Lots of trips out at odd times. Lots of excuses about where she was. What she had been doing. Changes in habits and behavior. By the time Labor Day had come, it was all but obvious what had been going on.

I confronted her. I accused. She reacted as a wayward spouse typically does. That I was insane. That I was crazy. That I was the one with the problem, not her. “How dare I say these things!” Still, the evidence was overwhelming.

By the time it was over I had hired a private investigator. Used sophisticated surveillance equipment. Searched phone records, and learned the truth. She had a full-blown affair going with him, and it was right under my nose.

By May of 2006 things had reached a head. On the day after my birthday, she went out in the morning saying she had to do a lot of shopping, and not to expect her for a number of hours. I lay on the couch and took a mid-morning nap. I got up in early afternoon to go put on a pot of coffee. She still wasn’t home.

I looked through the living room out the windows. I saw two police officers coming up my walkway. I answered the door.

30 minutes later I was at my parent’s home with a few pairs of underwear, my laptop, wallet and briefcase.

I would never spend another night in that home. Our dream home. The one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life in. The place that was to be our sanctuary.

She filed for divorce that same day.

I counter filed about a week later.

So began my journey into hell.

It would only get worse from that point on.