Thoughts on Nancy's life

How did she end up dead by her own hand?  It was a series of choices that took her journey to this ending point. 

She chose to secretly live with her boyfriend while at college.  I have to wonder why since her parents were probably paying her way to go to FSU and were devout Christians.  Her father was a Music Minister, and I was probably a poorly-kept secret that she was sleeping with her boyfriend wvery night.  her selfishness was showing itself even then. 

She complained about having to live in small towns after she got married.  Brunswick with it's paper mill stink, Decatur, LA, with nothing to do, and other places didn't give her what she saw on TV and read on magazines, which led to complaints and disatiafaction. 

Bentonville was no better, a nowhere town that she hated for a long time.  She developed friendships there, but always pined for the fun that was only available in the big city. 

Over the years she complained about her husband.  How he liked to read at night, which was boring, and how he didn't pay her enough attention in her eyes.  Not enough sex, not enough attention, never enough time, all while he developed a career that helped make the world's biggest retailer what it is today.  She hounded him for being a nice guy at work, for not being more cutthroat, and for not advancing as fast as she thought he should. 

She complained about him keeping the same old car, and for not getting it painted when she wanted him to get it done.  He was always too slow, not thinking right, or something, even though he was an interstate tennis champion, world traveller, and savvy enough to have their house paid off in about 10 years. 

She went on trips to New York City, Europe, and Hawaii, and would complain about the smallest of things.  She taught her daughters that the right way to do dishes was to stack them neatly for the waitress to take them, and thought she was getting her vegetables by eating spinach dip. 

Over and over she displayed her selfishness.  When the 1996 Olympics were held in Atlanta, and the hotel her family was staying at and the events they were going to were less than 30 mnutes from our house, ahe made it clear that wasn't coming to see us, she was coming for the Olympics.  They passed through Atlanta many, many times, but I can only remember one time that ahe let us know enough in advance so we could pack up the babies and rush to the airport to see them. 

She came to our house while she was plotting her divorce. She carried the book "The Good Divorce" around in a Barnes and Noble bag like it was gold, and studied it so she could get the most out of her husband when she left him.  She was encouraged by things she read and by a successful trade-up by her cousin, and began talking about how God wanted her to be happy and fulfilled.  She went on and on about how she wasn't happy and fulfilled and how it wasn't right that everyone had it and she didn't. 

When she announced her divorce I called her and warned her not to infect my wife with her thoughts and ways.  I also told her I didnt want her directly contacting my children, and told her bluntly I didn't want them to catch whatever she had.  For that I was labelled mean and wrong for feeling that way. 

As she lived her new single life she tried to share her thinking with my wife but got nowhere.  During one of her rare visits she told my oldest child that leaving he husband and family waa the "best move she ever made", and did exactly what I was afraid ahe would do:  try to teach my child to think like her.  Luckily he knew and understood and didn't take it in. 

She continued making poor choices.  She spent whatever large amont of money it cost to join eHarmony.com, then spent every minute at our house on the Internet trying to develop online relationships.  She spent money on lots of camera and computer gear that she didn't know how to operate.  She talked about the guys she liked, but they always happened to be married. 

After she had been on her own for a year Nancy sent me a book.  Her note explained that the book had really helped her get to where she was, and she thought I should read it.  I immediately threw it away.  My wife said I was being rude, but after I explained that I didn't want anything that influenced Nancy to make deciaions to even be on our house she understood.  I asked my wife if she would me to send it back with a note of my oqn, and she said no and made the book disappear. 

She said she signed up for a Masters program several times, but then always had some issue and dropped out.  After the second time I asked my wife if she was dong it for relief on her student loans.  After the third time we were pretty sure that's what she was doing. 

Her selfishness led her to leap at the opportunity to go to Costa Rica to teach English as a second language.  By this time she was about to be kicked out of the room she was renting, and she had to beg her friends and family for money to buy a plane ticket.  I wondered then if she was leaving the country to escape her debts. 

She said the rules had changed, but I think that it was more a case of her not understanding that you have to file all the right papers in order to work in a foreign country.  She got to Costa Rica and discovered that her choices had led her to a place where she had nothing, couldn't work, and had to move back Arkansas to be a nanny or something in order to pay for what she had done.  I hate to think this, but I wonder if she found the gun n the homeowner's nightstand because she was looking for something to steal. 

8/26 is the day before the anniversary of her father's death.  That along with everything else was apparently too much for Nancy: even though she had planned her move back to Arkansas and had made appointments for interviews with people she typed up an email trying to justify her decision, explaining that she was broke, homeless, in $18,000 of debt, lonely, tired of trying to find work, and generally hopeless.  She called her life a trainwreck, admitted making poor choices, and said she wanted to see her dad and desperately wanted the peace that only Jesus could give her.  So instead of facing up to what she had done she used someone else's gun to take her own life.  She supposedly used a pillow and a sheet, which means she probably read on the Internet that a pillow muffles the sound and a sheet catches the gore, but someone still had to clean up the mess like the waitress has to take awqy the plates.  And I have to wonder where the bullet ended up. 

Nancy's final sad and selfish act will reverberate in my life for quite some time.  I am spending nearly $2000 and three days of my life taking my famly to a memorial service in Arkansas, and others are spending money or losing money to go to this thing.  I have no desire to be there, but will go for my wife and family.