How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?

 I alternate between grief, anger, fear, and just being plain overwhelmed.  I'm sure I'm not feeling anything that any other woman hasn't been through when she loses her husband in some way.  But that doesn't make it any less painful or stop me from crying about it.  I think of all the women throughout history who's husbands were in the military and were sent away for months or years at a time.  They had even less opportunities for communication than I do (although, I haven't heard a word from Tom since he entered the prison and I'm assuming that it's because the prison staff won't let him write or call). They had to live in fear for their husband's life.  And, indeed, many of those husband never came back.  What a horrible thing to live with.

When I was a toddler, my father, who was a marine, was sent to Japan for 16 months.  My mother had three children under the age of five and the military didn't pay enough to cover our expenses.  So my mother had to move to Arkansas to be near her family so that her sisters could care for us children while she got a job for the first time in her life.

I remember bits and pieces of that.  My mother says I used to go up to different men and ask, "Are you my daddy?"  And, I do remember when he actually came home and he reached out to me and I pulled away, saying, "You're not my daddy."

He had another nine-month tour when my younger sister was a toddler.  And then he died when I was 12.  So I know my mother had a really rough time.

After Tom gets out of quarantine, he's supposed to have access to email.  So that's something to look forward to.  But it just seems unnecessarily cruel to keep him from any and all communication.  I mean, what is the point?  A show of power?  Just a way to cause misery?  I know that prison is not supposed to be pleasant.  But it's very hard to take when you know an innocent man (and his family) is suffering.  Also, the prison website goes on about how important it is for the inmates to maintain their family relationships and contacts.  Well, apparently, those are just words on the website.

So how did we get on this track with the IRS?

I've already mentioned that the IRS started in on us the first year we were married and that we suffered through several audits throughout the years.  Then came a time when Tom hit is big with a company that he helped go public.

I say "hit it big", but really it wasn't just a windfall that fell in our laps.  Tom was a workaholic.  He worked HARD for years.  We, his family, sacrificed time with him.  I think some people see others "hitting it big" as if they won the lottery or something.  No, years of hard work, sleepless days and nights, skipped vacations, weekend work, etc. goes into bringing a fledgling company to the point where you can actually see a return.  And many of those companies never even get to that point.  I rode that entrepreneurial roller coaster with my husband for years.

Then, finally, back in the 90's, the company went public and we were able to sell some stocks.  So when you are in that kind of position, that changes your status with the IRS.  Because we were selling some stock off during the year, we had to report and pay taxes quarterly.  We couldn't wait until April 15th of the following year.  So each quarter we wrote these huge checks to the IRS, trying to comply with their rules, trying to do the "right" thing and obey the law.  Then came the end of the tax season.  We received a notice that appeared to us to be saying that we overpaid and that we have to pay penalties and interest on overpayment.  Sounds outrageous, right?  Well, we WERE outraged.  After years of being harassed by the IRS, that was the letter that broke the camel's back.  Tom said, "There is something WRONG with our tax system."  And he set out to find out what it was.

If you know Tom, you know that he doesn't do anything by half measures.  When he wants to learn something, he learns it inside out.  He studied and researched until he became an expert on the tax system, tax laws, and by extension, the U.S. monetary system.  

That was the beginning.

To start at the beginning of the telling of this saga, click here.

On a lighter note, I've introduced Clodagh the Border Collie and if you want to follow along with her training, you can follow me on Instagram at mos8ics.  I try to keep it light and fun, so I'm not doing a lot of training at the moment because of my grief.  But hopefully, I'll get back into updating it soon.