Dreams Die Hardest of All (Excerpt from the Book)

I have a photo album that shows what started as a bare patch of land, all the way through the building and creation of my former home. It’s a time capsule. It was supposed to be filled with cherished memories. What it is filled with now is scenes from some alternate universe. It feels like having a stake driven through my heart to look upon the pages.

In it are pictures with my mom and dad. My kids smiling and playing on the huge piles of dirt from the foundation excavation. The kids roller-skating in the freshly paved cul-de-sac, before any homes, even ours, were constructed. The newly poured foundation. The frame structure going up. The finished product. The grass having gone in, and the first few plants and trees. Then it ends.

If it had ended there, I’d have been happy. But it didn’t. It ended nearly 9 years later, and it was perhaps one of the most painful things I will ever live.
When I built that house, it was to be a new start for us. A chance to have a very nice home, with plenty of room, in a gorgeous new neighborhood. Lots of land and living space. A place to create a sanctuary for us, and fill it with joy and beauty. I didn’t care for status. It wasn’t the largest of the homes in the neighborhood. In fact, it was one of the smaller models. That wasn’t important. It was big enough, more than we’d need to live comfortably, and set in a beautiful lot with a chance to make it something wonderful.

And that’s exactly what I set out to do.

Over the next 9 years the local landscape and garden shop would see me almost every weekend. Over time I would create incredible garden beds everywhere. I’d plant mature and very expensive trees in order to have a semi-wooded lot once more. It was gorgeous. It was a labor of love. I could sit outside and watch hummingbirds and butterflies and birds of all kinds. I’d sit by the pond and watch the Koi swimming. Chipmunks would run down to the water’s edge to get a drink. Small birds would do the same near the waterfall as it tumbled across and down the rocks. The front walkway would be a winding path of pavers shaded by flowering trees, and bordered on each side by huge garden beds filled with shrubs and perennials for every season. There were flowers blooming there every month except in Winter.

The inside of the home was treated with the same loving diligence. Over time we’d collect nicer furniture, and turn it into a country-like home. We’d bring the outside in, with earthy colors, wood and stone.

When we moved in, the children were 12 and 10 years of age. They had their own spacious rooms, their own full bath to use. The master bedroom had it’s own sitting room, a walk-in closet, a bathroom attached with shower and Jacuzzi, and twin sinks. Everything was an upgrade. Tile floors. Window treatments. The works. There was a 4th bedroom that I had converted into a loft, for use an upstairs office and reading room. The basement was fully finished. It had its own office with desks and computers and French doors.

On May 22nd, 2006, I left that house, never to sleep another night in it. I didn’t know I was leaving when I woke up that morning. I also didn’t know I’d never be coming back.

During the full year that it took to sell the house, I watched helplessly as events occurred that would be like death by a thousand cuts. I loved that home. Not for it’s worth in money, but for the love I had poured into it and the grounds, and for the dreams that were wrapped up in it. It represented my hopes and future. My family. My marriage, and being able to enjoy a life filled with beauty and nature and peace and tranquility.

One of the most painful things I would have to do is list the house for sale. This began shortly before the divorce was final, in the summer of 2006. The housing market had been strong not long before this, but things were taking a downturn. By the time we would end up selling the house, the market was in a full collapse.
It was my responsibility to mow the lawn and insure the upkeep of the home. Remember, by this time, I don’t live there anymore. I’m with my parents, and I now have to ask permission to come over to get the tractor out of the garage, and take care of the property. Then, after I am done cutting the lawn, I get to park it, clean up, trim the weeds, then get in my car, and leave.

I wasn’t there to be able to talk with the realtor who was working to sell our house. After a while and in the summer months, she suggested strongly to my ex-wife that people needed to see more of the house from the road. That the trees in front should be trimmed or thinned in order to have a better view. More “curb appeal” to use their inane marketing lingo.

Well, my ex-wife didn’t consult with me, or attempt to hire an arborist or a professional. Instead, she asked the good old next door neighbor, her affair partner for some help. The man is about as intelligent as a brick, and has absolutely no landscaping experience.
I drove up to the home one day to pickup my daughter. As I was coming down the street, I saw enormous piles of branches with leaves on them, sitting at the edge of the yard, in the neighbor’s truck, and all over the yard.
He had taken a ladder and a chainsaw and cut off ALL of the lower branches of every tree I had planted in front of the house.
He butchered them. He massacred them. He took off branches that were 5 inches thick and represented almost half of the tree’s volume. To make things even more painful, he cut down to the ground 3 very special plants I had put in directly in front of the house. The only Hemlock tree in the entire town had a place of honor near one corner. Why Hemlock? Because it is one of the trees that grows natively by our cabin in the Catskill Mountains. A cabin and property that has been a part of my life since I was old enough to walk. I wanted one by my home, as a reminder of that beautiful place. A gorgeous and very special ornamental Cedar was on the other side. They were GONE. He had cut them off at the trunk, and thrown them in the trash. This in order to “open things up” a bit, I suppose.

Not only had this man played an instrumental part in the destruction of my marriage and family, now he had taken the things most precious to me about the home I had built and the gardens I had so loving created, and in one afternoon, obliterated years of loving work and of watching these beautiful trees and gardens mature. I stopped my car and looked out at the destruction, and I felt my heart sink once again. Yes, we had to sell the home and I would have to bid it farewell, but I never thought I’d see the gardens and trees destroyed. I was willing to think that maybe some new owners would enjoy them and love them as I had. Now, this bastard had taken a gas powered monstrosity to them, and forever destroyed what I had tended to all those years.

As it were, the massive pruning didn’t help sell the house. All it did was hurt me. Like hell.

My daughter hated the neighbor. She kept to herself in the house when he was over, but he didn’t care for him in the least. How could she? This was the man who had helped her mother toss her father out into the street.
So, one afternoon my daughter decided to talk about this asshole to a friend of hers. A male friend. She told him how she didn’t like him being at the house, and that she didn’t care for the way he looked at her. Well, this friend was a poor choice to confide in. The next time he ran into my ex-wife, he told her about what my daughter had said, and admonished my ex-wife for allowing him into the home.
This caused a furor between my ex-wife and daughter. So much so, that it erupted and escalated into a serious situation. My ex-wife had the audacity to tell my daughter “just look at all he’s done for us!”. My daughter finally had it. After months of being mistreated by my ex-wife for opposing her affair and standing up for her father, they had a serious argument. At one point, my daughter finally had enough, and slapped my ex-wife across the face. I’m certain she deserved it.
But that was all it took. Instead of dealing with the situation rationally, my ex called the police, on her own daughter, to file assault charges.
I was sitting at my parent’s house when the phone rang. It was my daughter. Feverishly calling me to come get her before the cops showed up. She just said “Dad, come over here and get me, PLEASE??, Now!!??”. So I did. I barreled over to the house, pulled into the driveway, and in she got with a bag that held some clothes. By the time it was over the police had tracked her down to my parents house, and were questioning her. My ex had made the claims of her slapping her, but there were no witnesses, and it wasn’t hard enough to leave a mark. Thank God. Because if it had, my ex wouldn’t be able to “change her mind”. They would have been forced to arrest my daughter, now a young adult, and she would have had to face the full brunt of the law.

The situation had now gotten out of control. Instead of just me moving in and living with my parents, my daughter would now be calling my father’s loft office couch there her bedroom, for the next 4 months. As if it weren’t enough to deal with for my parents, they now had their son and their granddaughter as tenants. I started to wonder what was going to come next. I kept thinking I’d seen everything, and the worst was past us. Then this happens and it turns everyone’s life upside-down, yet again.

But this wasn’t about to be the last of it. Far from it.
This left my son and my ex wife living at the house, and my daughter and I living together with my parents. The family had been completely split. Almost as if by my ex wife’s design. My son had always been very close to his mother. My daughter was always very close to me. My ex resented my daughter’s affection for me and because she would stick up for me. That enraged my ex-wife. Things were never easy between them once she had reached the teenage years. Now, it was full-blown hostility. During the times my ex wife and I had fought and argued and gone through the tumult of the affairs, the children got caught in the middle all too often. My daughter represented a friend to me, and my ex hated that. She wanted everyone to be aligned against me, and behind her.

My mother had an especially hard time now with both of us there. She was able to deal pretty well with me being there because I was isolated in a room, on a separate floor, and I was like a guest in the home. I had my own bath and shower upstairs as well. When my daughter had to suddenly move in and wasn’t able to have a bedroom, it meant that she was always sharing the same space in the home. My mom had no privacy left, and the mere fact that there were now two more adults sharing her home made it difficult.

Soon after the divorce, my wife left this man she had been with and met a new guy. After a very short time, she moved him into the house. My home. The place where my son still slept and lived. The place I’d built. And not only that, all of my things were still inside. I couldn’t remove anything except what we agreed to, and only personal effects. Only once the divorce was final and the home sold could I get any furnishings. Besides, I had no place to put any of them if I did.

He was, it turns out, a convicted drug offender on probation. He had no job. He was living in my home, sleeping with my now former wife, in my bedroom, and living off the money I was providing, which paid for the entire home and all of their expenses.
There was seemingly no insult and no injury I wouldn’t have to endure before this would be all over. All I could do is watch helplessly. I was powerless.
A feeling I came to despise, and was never again going allow myself to feel. Never again was I going to let someone else have that much power over my life. That much capability to destroy.

During the months that followed there would be huge blowups between this man and my son. To the point where the police were called yet again. This time, by my son. I could do nothing. I had no rights to even come to the property without her permission. The situation kept escalating. The home became a place where the neighbors would watch like voyeurs, waiting for the next episode in the seemingly endless drama.

My son and he were at war. He would tell me stories of how this new man would become so enraged at him, that he’d have to lock and barricade his room to avoid a physical confrontation. At one point, this asshole was so frustrated he turned off the main breaker to the house to try to stop my son from playing his music loud in defiance.
By the time it was over, and when the house was finally to be sold, my son would not be welcome where his mother was moving with her “new man”. In just one year, she would have managed to completely destroy and cast out her entire family. He husband. Her son. Her daughter. All gone. And for what?

While this jerk was living in the house, he had fits of anger. He believed that my ex-wife still had feelings for me, and it would enrage him. So, he’d destroy things. Like my entire collection of hand-made fine scale model airplanes. Some that had taken me over 100 hours to build and airbrush. When I finally came to the house to get my belongings and move them out, I even found a piece of one in my salt water aquarium.

He had access to all of the things I had cared about, or built or owned. My wide screen television, my stereo system. My music collection. The model airplanes, the rock and mineral collection, all my books. Everything I had. It was a wonder any of it survived intact.

There seemed to be no end to the losses I would suffer. The pain I would be inflicted with by people and forces I had no control over. Big or small, they all combined to continue to make me feel powerless. To have to watch as a spectator, as they tore apart my life, my things, my home, my family.

By January of 2007, my mother’s health was really suffering. After months of having me in the home, and then adding my daughter, the strain had taken its toll on all of us. My parents worst of all. So my father came up with an idea. He was going to cash in stock and give me enough money to move out and rent a townhouse. I’d move there with my daughter, and finally move everything of mine out of the house that my ex-wife, her new boyfriend, and my son were still living in. Until the house was sold, I couldn’t afford anything but paying for that. So, my dad took a gamble that we’d sell the house pretty soon, and we could resume some measure of a normal life.
It was a time of great joy for me. Finally I’d have a place to call my own again. My daughter would have her own room and bathroom. I’d have an office, a kitchen, a living room. Peace and privacy. My parents would be free of the burdens of having us living there, and could tend to their own lives.

So, we called the movers. We arranged to come to the house and take all my things. It felt like a victory of sorts. I had some power back. My ex and her boyfriend would just have to suck it up and watch as I took my property back, and out of the home. The king bed, mine. Half of the furniture. All my collectibles. The television and stereo and surround sound system. My movies, collections, music. FINALLY. I had a piece of ME back, and not in the possession of people I had come to utterly despise. Yes, they were only things. But they were MY things.

I felt fantastic that day. It was so liberating to be able to be able to have something under my control. I was getting my freedom back, and having many of the things I was used to would be a comfort to me in my new place. The day after the trucks unloaded and I moved in, we had 8 inches of freshly fallen snow. It was beautiful.

But the house didn’t sell. Not for 5 more months. It made things very hard for my parents, because they were financing this whole thing. But having that peace and security back was so valuable. For me and my daughter, and my parents.
As the Winter wore on, things began to settle in a bit. There were still serious problems between my son and this new boyfriend at the house, but they thankfully never became something serious enough to cause any major new crisis to have to face.
By Spring we finally had an offer on the house. We had to reduce the price to a point where we needed to short-sell it. That means that in order to be able to turn over possession, I had to come up with nearly 60 thousand dollars. Money I did not have. My father and I had discussed this, because the house was just not going to be able to command a decent price. The market had tumbled. The house was appraised 18 months before for $560,000.00. At that time, houses in the neighborhood were moving constantly, and at great earnings for the sellers. By the time we sold it, it went for $400,000.00 We were lucky to get an offer. The cost of the mortgages and the expenses was killing me and my parents. Something had to give.

Worse yet, the new owners knew they had us on the ropes. They demanded that we leave all the appliances. I had gotten them in the divorce decree, and was planning to store them away for a possible future home. I had financed them, and they were brand new, top of the line. Over 8 thousand dollars worth. Now, I had to not only keep paying for them, I had to leave them for the new owners. The new owners then went a step further. They insisted on a 500 dollar credit at closing to cover minor repairs of some wood trim outside one set of windows. They were going to take me for all I had, and turn the screws in at the same time. I quickly came to despise them. They knew I was desperate, and helpless. Powerless yet again.

So, after all my father and mother had done for me, they now had to refinance their own home to give me the money to finally be able to sell mine. My parents had given us a great deal of money to help us buy this house, in support of my dreams, and for their grandchildren. Now they had to come up with even more, to be able to watch those dreams die. We wondered when the blood-letting would end. It seemed that there was just no end to the cost of this. No end to how we would all have to suffer, just to be free.

The day of reckoning came in May. I would have to go with my ex-wife to sign over the house to the new owners. We would have only a couple of days to clear out the home. First, she and her boyfriend would move out and they would do some cleaning and emptying. Then, I would spend 48 hours finishing up, once they were gone. I would again need to use movers to take all of my garden equipment, tractor and things from the garage and move them into storage, along with some things I had left behind in the basement. There was a lot of work to be done, and almost no time to do it in.

I got a 2 ton dumpster delivered to the premises before the ex started her purging, and to hold the things I would need to dispose of. By the time we were done it was filled to overflowing. Many of the things in it were perfectly good and usable. There was just no time to sell them or donate them, and no place to move them to.
Oh, and since my ex-wife had no money other than what I paid for, my dad and I had to come up with the money to pay to move her out.

I will never forget those last days as long as I live. Some of the most heart-wrenching and painful things I’ve ever had to experience.

The movers came and took my ex-wife’s things. They loaded up a truck with my garden equipment the same day. One of the trucks was going to where she was moving, and the other was going to my storage facility. (A year or so later, after having paid thousands of dollars to store all of this equipment, I would give it all away. I couldn’t afford to pay for the storage facility, and I was never going to own a home and yard again. I needed things cleared out. I listed the items on Craig’s list. FREE. Contents of storage facility. The only condition was that they had to take everything. 8 pickup truckloads later, everything I had was gone.)

The next day, the cleaning began. First my ex and her boyfriend would take a day to empty what they could and clean it out. They did so. They left a few garbage bags for me. Very thoughtful of them. They also put a sizable dent in filling the dumpster.

The next to last day, I came to the house to get the rest of the few things I may have left behind, and to finish cleaning, and to add to the enormous pile of things we were discarding. It was back-breaking. So much stuff, accumulated over 23 years together. I was exhausted. My dad and my son helped me empty and move the fish tanks out, and carry out the last of the trash. I went home and slept. My hands hurt from carrying so many things and tossing them into the dumpster.
The only thing left to do was clean up and finish getting the house ready for the new owners.

The next day, the very last day, I went to the house late in the afternoon to finish cleaning.

The empty rooms and halls were silent. Every noise I made echoed. The outlines of where pictures once hung on the walls were visible. It was barren. Empty. Desolate.
After being out of there an entire year, this homecoming was to be so excruciating I almost could not stand it. The memories were flooding my thoughts. The kids when they were small. The day we moved in when my dad and I sat on the front porch at 2AM, with the sprinklers watering our new lawn. Relaxing and celebrating a new chapter in my life. The days outside. The work in the gardens. The life we had hoped for. The parties with friends and my children’s friends. Making love in the bedroom with my wife when things were still good, and fresh, and new. The sound of the wind chimes outside on a gorgeous day. The birds feeding at the feeders. The smell of the freshly cut grass, and of the thousands of flowers in summer.

Before I left I made an inspection of the upstairs. I walked the empty hallway. Past the rooms where I would say good morning and good night to my children. I stopped to look. I opened their doors and said out loud, “goodnight, Jenni”. “Good night, Billy”. “I love you”. There was no one there.

It was night now. I went outside and locked the door.

I got into my car and turned the key. I pulled out of the driveway, my face soaked with tears. I paused as I pulled back and out into the street.

I looked at that house, and in that moment, I knew what It was to watch my dreams die. It represented everything I had loved. Everything I wanted. Everything I had hoped for.

I said goodbye. One last time. I pulled away down that street and wiped the water from my eyes.

I would never go back to look at it again.