FACEBOOK POSTS
Mien Lieblings,
Look up Stockholm syndrome. You may not realize it but you are victims of a similar phenomenon. You both will soon be adults (Que has already been there for nearly a-year). You should know the premise on which I stood and my history. Consider the facts of who I am and the circumstances surrounding the condition of your family. Do not allow yourself to remain as children---nothing good can come from you allowing your grandmother’s agenda to reign in your adult lives.
Unlike my previous postings, when you were children, these postings will contain more information about my and our history. My intentions are to make the information available. If you seek you will find. If you choose to ignore your history you will reap the consequences of that ignorance, not only for yourselves but for those who you become responsible for. My love is unconditional regardless of the path you choose (to remain ignorant or your family’s history and blindly cling to your grammy’s apron or to be an active participant in the family circumstances that will impact on your lives and that of your posterity my love for my you, my offspring cannot be ebbed).
Put everything in perspective my Sweets. Why is it that the only person on the planet who ‘fears’ me and seek court orders to protect her from me is the one person who robbed you of the Christ ordained family that you were born into for a sub-par court appointed family life. The ‘bich should fear me. However, I have the sensitivities of a mother and as long as I have a dependent son in her care I will exercise restraint and the patience of Job against her wiles.
My fear is that she’s ‘a fool who never learns’… (a wise man learns from a fool’s mistakes. A smart man learns from his own mistakes. A fool never learns). I am not a ‘kitten’ to be played with when it comes to my ‘cubs’. There were only two living-breathing-minor-child reasons I did not come to Aiken in 2012 with a one-way ticket when I was summoned there on her behalf (she wanted court protection from me). You are no longer minors and all is fair in love and war! If she has not taken these 10-years while you were growing into manhood to learn to steer-clear of my existence, then que sera-sera!
April 3, 2016
These are the basic tenets that were instilled in me beyond my upbringing and the home training of my youth. Your dad also as a cadet and army officer was indoctrinated with these creeds. Your grandmother never put a ruck on her back, low crawled through the mud in the pouring rain, dragged her derriere through a bramble push searching for a point during land-nav, endured a road march with an M-16 at port arms, used a rock for a pillow and bed of leaves for a cushion, in services to our country; yet, it is her values and antics that are protected by the courts. The singletons essentially did a 180 regarding our religious beliefs and practices concerning, marriage, family, the raising of the children and various other basic tenets and teachings of the Christian faith; yet, when I stood against these people and their wiles, it was deemed by the judicial power-that-be that it is I who owed a debt to society and should be punished. They deemed that it was I who was unfit to raise my sons and that I should be striped of my parental rights. The laws of the land did not protect me or my posterity from the enemy and when I acted on our behalves it is my behavior that needed to be punished and reformed. It is all so very ‘twisted’ in my opinion.
My father, all of his adult life had to ‘fly beneath the radar’ to do what he needed to do to provide for his large family allowing us to live well. The jim crow laws of his time were an obstacle to his inherent rights to secure the blessings of liberty for his posterity. Thus he shunned the laws and did what was necessary for his family to thrive and be successful. And we were. I am not flying beneath the radar but I will continue to secure the blessings of liberty for my posterity as well (by any means necessary). You should not be passengers along this journey. You are old enough now to have a say on your own behalves.
CADET CREED
I am an Army Cadet.
Soon I will take an oath and become an Army Officer committed to defending the values, which make this nation
great.
HONOR is my touchstone. I understand MISSION first and PEOPLE always.
I am the PAST: the spirit of those WARRIORS who have made the final
sacrifice.
I am the PRESENT: the scholar and apprentice soldier enhancing my skills in the science of warfare and the art of
leadership.
But, above all, I am the FUTURE: the future WARRIOR LEADER of the United States Army.
May God give me the compassion and
judgment to lead and the gallantry in battle to WIN.
I WILL do my duty.
SOLDIER'S CREED
I AM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER.
I am a
warrior and a member of a team
I serve the people of the United States and live the army values.
I WILL
ALWAYS PLACE THE MISSION FIRST.
I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT.
I WILL NEVER QUIT.
I WILL NEVER LEAVE A FALLEN COMRADE.
I am
disciplined
,
physically and mentally tough, trained
and proficient
in my warrior tasks and
drills.
I always maintain my
arms, my equipment, and myself.
I am an
expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States
of America in
close combat.
I am a guardian
of freedom and the American way of life.
I AM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER.
Love, Diene Mutti
April 1, 2016
At age 17 I was a soldier in the United States army going through training and learning the skills and discipline necessary to defend my country against all enemies foreign and domestic if called to do so. What was your grandmother doing at age 18? She was spread-eagle below the torso, making a baby with a marine she was not yet married to (if her son’s calculations regarding his conception is accurate). Fact check, ask the ‘bich. She raised you. She did not make it out of her teen-years without bearing offspring (and that was the 60s)! Is that outcome also your destiny because you did not have the counsel of either of your parents both of whom made better choices as teens and young adults regarding propagation?
If you do not think that your children’s futures begin with you and the choices you are making now as young men, you are surely mistaken. All too often in African American communities young adolescent ladies fall in love with these young adolescent men and strap their futures to theirs. It is almost a recipe for remaining marginalized and landing on the roles of welfare. If you are to one day be the provider and protector of your family do your off-spring a ‘solid’ and at least get the wind beneath your sails before you allow some PYT (pretty young thang) to strap her future to yours. Before you can ‘soar with the eagles’, if you have someone else strapped to your back you will have to be able to lift not only your weight and baggage but hers too. You have a heavy baggage of issues from your past that you should lighten and work through before you take on someone else’s baggage of issues from their past.
These millennials, many of them with daddy or family issues do not have the wherewithal (positive modeling of effective and complementary roles in a healthy relationships or family) to weather storms that come up within a relationship and they will not put up with the ‘bull’. If you do not take the time to understand and examine yourselves first so that you can recognize and know what a complementary relationship looks like and how to maintain it once you have found that connection, you are setting yourself and those who are closest to you up for a world of hurt and dysfunction. Give these ladies a chance to explore themselves and know what they want out of life before they strap their futures to yours and start having babies.
When I was a young lady, before I got the ‘wind beneath my sail’, we (other ladies of the time) did our own hair, nails, and facials. These millennials (one of which you will someday marry) need to go to the salon and spa to get their ‘beauty on’. They need designer clothes, bags, shoes, jewelry, drinks and everything else upscale. I and the ladies of my time adorned ourselves within our means. Living on welfare and maintaining these ‘Hollywood’ standards of today often comes at a cost to the most vulnerable. The children. The meager financial resources that could be put aside for their post-secondary ambitions is squandered on vanity and they didn’t even have say.
One way to avoid the common pitfalls of our culture that can keep you from rising above the social determinants of your family’s circumstances is to delay gratification. Learn your family’s history. Avoid the pitfalls of your ancestors’ folly. Use your biology (your XY chromosome) to you advantage. There is no reason for young men to marry before they can support a household and family. Your ability to spawn is not on a ‘biological time-clock’ the way a woman’s years of fertility must be considered. If the young lady loves you like she think she does, she will be patient and selfless, she will allow and encourage you to put yourself in a position to be able to adequately and successfully fulfill the roles that are incumbent upon you as the head of your household and provider and protector of your family. It is in your and your future family’s best interest for you to establish a career before taking on the responsibilities of a family.
Raising a family and securing a future for your children is not rocket science. It’s done all the time. But you have got to have a plan for success or you may as well be devising a plan for failure. I pray that you will wait a good-long time and guard your loins before you start allowing someone to hitch their wagon to yours.
Love, Diene Mutti
1-18-2016
You know my sons when parents raise their children as God intended, they usually have a period of 2 decades (by American social norms) to impart wisdom, advice, and the positive role modeling and to share stories from their lives that had a significant impact in shaping their life’s journey, beliefs, and values. You all, due to your life’s tragedy did not have that. Everything you know about your parents come from a third-person’s account. Everything you learned about manhood came from a woman, fictive-kin, mentors, or otherwise. That was not what your father or I aspired to for our offspring. It is aberrant, dysfunctional, and indicative of dreams gone awry.
We-three are the survivors of a tragic situation. We did not create this folly, it was initiated by your dad (and supported by your grammy) but we survived it. We are emotionally and psychologically compromised but we survived! I will continue to pray for your success, that you will overcome the circumstances of this aberration and become your best selves. That’s what I am doing. Being the ‘best-me’ in spite of my husband’s neglect and abnegation of his responsibilities to the family he created and was he Head of. As long as there is breathe in me, my duty is to ensure you are privy to the advantages and privileges you were born to based on the sacrifices and choices of those who came before you.
All that you have learned about me has been through my enemy’s perception of who I am based on my responses to her son’s decision to abnegate his responsibilities to his two minor sons. I stood in the ‘gap’ for my sons. I stood as your advocate at a time when you did not ‘have a say’. Where was your grammy? Imagine if when your dad was alive (before it was too late for her to make a difference) that your grammy had ‘stepped-up’ advocated for your best interests to protect the privileges you were born to. Imagine that! She did not step-up. She opted to be a part of the problem instead of being a part of the solution. We have survived her folly also!
God doesn’t wait until you arrive here on earth to have a plan for you journey through life. Your steps have already been prepared. I did not wait until I had children start planning for your existence-your success. Since puberty I have been making the ‘right choices’ for my future children. I had 3 major heart breaks in life that has led me to profound decisions that secured my children’s futures.
•
1st, In 9th grade my boyfriend ‘dumped’ me because I would not copulate with him. I cried many tears on my pillow that day. But it was through those tear-filled eyes that I decided I would NOT have a boyfriend again for the rest of my high school years. I told my 14-year-old self that I would rather be crying because he dumped me now, than crying because he knocked me up and dumped me. I did not have a boyfriend again in high school (just good male friendships) until the 2nd half of my senior year. I decided that I wanted a boyfriend so that I could have a date to the prom and many other senior activities. I dated the Commandant of Cadets of JROTC.
1st, In 9th grade my boyfriend ‘dumped’ me because I would not copulate with him. I cried many tears on my pillow that day. But it was through those tear-filled eyes that I decided I would NOT have a boyfriend again for the rest of my high school years. I told my 14-year-old self that I would rather be crying because he dumped me now, than crying because he knocked me up and dumped me. I did not have a boyfriend again in high school (just good male friendships) until the 2nd half of my senior year. I decided that I wanted a boyfriend so that I could have a date to the prom and many other senior activities. I dated the Commandant of Cadets of JROTC.•2nd: I got married at 21 years old. He was my first true-love. We agreed to marry so that we could be together but we agreed that we would not start a family until we both had earned our college degrees. We were halfway there. After he earned his degree it was time for me to earn mine. I was only waiting for acceptance into the University of Hawaii Nursing Program (he had gotten stationed in Hawaii while I was finishing up my prerequisites in San Antonio TX). When I had a break in my semester after about a year that we were apart, I decided to surprise him and go to Hawaii on a semester break. The ‘surprise’ was on me. I found out that he was no longer living in the barracks for ‘single soldiers’. He had moved into off post housing with the mother of his 9-month old daughter (who incidentally had two other children by two different men. My husband’s baby was her 3rd child by three different men). My marriage ended in divorce. Although he apologized and wanted to move forward with our marriage. I was heartbroken and did not want to stay in the marriage unless we adopted the child and he would not have any communication with the child’s mother-ever! That was not a possibility, so we had to agree to go our separate ways. Through the tears on my pillow surrounding this matter, I made the profound decision to not date men with children, previous marriages, who were in a relationship with someone else or who had other complicated issues in their lives. I did not want to bring children into the world with a man who already had liabilities and responsibilities (financial or otherwise) outside of our family. My Ex is alive today, you can fact check. He nor any of his family is at enmity with me. If any of us passed on the streets we would easily exchange a hug or other pleasantries. This is unlike the relationship I have established have with family with whom my sons’ linage is tied.
2nd: I got married at 21 years old. He was my first true-love. We agreed to marry so that we could be together but we agreed that we would not start a family until we both had earned our college degrees. We were halfway there. After he earned his degree it was time for me to earn mine. I was only waiting for acceptance into the University of Hawaii Nursing Program (he had gotten stationed in Hawaii while I was finishing up my prerequisites in San Antonio TX). When I had a break in my semester after about a year that we were apart, I decided to surprise him and go to Hawaii on a semester break. The ‘surprise’ was on me. I found out that he was no longer living in the barracks for ‘single soldiers’. He had moved into off post housing with the mother of his 9-month old daughter (who incidentally had two other children by two different men. My husband’s baby was her 3rd child by three different men). My marriage ended in divorce. Although he apologized and wanted to move forward with our marriage. I was heartbroken and did not want to stay in the marriage unless we adopted the child and he would not have any communication with the child’s mother-ever! That was not a possibility, so we had to agree to go our separate ways. Through the tears on my pillow surrounding this matter, I made the profound decision to not date men with children, previous marriages, who were in a relationship with someone else or who had other complicated issues in their lives. I did not want to bring children into the world with a man who already had liabilities and responsibilities (financial or otherwise) outside of our family. My Ex is alive today, you can fact check. He nor any of his family is at enmity with me. If any of us passed on the streets we would easily exchange a hug or other pleasantries. This is unlike the relationship I have established have with family with whom my sons’ linage is tied. •3rd, My third major heartbreak is that which I incurred at the hands of your father. This heartbreak ended in a major calamity with many unforeseeable ripple effects. The stakes were much higher (in my opinion) because now children are involved. There were two lives created as a result of this union. As a result of the vows, commitments, and tacit responsibilities we have to those we spawn I knew this relationship would not end with ‘mere tears on my pillow’…and it did not. If it were not for the lives brought forth by our union this wayward husband could also have become a fond and distant memory. But it would be over my dead body before life is propagated with me and the baby-daddy will just trollop-off and start anew. That is reckless and unconscionable (in my opinion) to have so little regard for the futures of the innocent lives God entrusted with us. I knew that if my offspring were going to be without their father in their lives it would not be because he is raising another family. Over my dead body!!! Your poppy was not an adolescent or young adult when he elected to reject the family he created in pursuit of a more frivolous relationship. He was nearly 40 years old (38 y/o in 2002) when he put his signature upon a document to dissolve our family and tread upon me and the birthrights of our offspring. What I have gleaned through these tear-filled-eyes is that the ‘gift’ of my existence is not song and dance, painting or creativity, acting or live-performance but ‘insight’. I have an ability to extrapolate. Recognizing where I am now and based on the characteristics and circumstances of the present, I can extrapolate what is likely to be the circumstances of my future if all things remain the same and is not acted upon deliberately or otherwise. I am blessed. Because of my ability to have insight and extrapolate, in-spite of the folly of others I had tied my future to, my life does not consist of my ‘non-negotiables’ for me or my offspring. I have trod the path least traveled or blasted a new path untrodden; whatever the case, I have few regrets, the future of my offspring was not compromised on my signature! “You will overcome the folly of the singleton’s legacy. If you do not, there are implication that go along with that and are best to remain tacit. Know this my sons, I will do my duty!!!
3rd, My third major heartbreak is that which I incurred at the hands of your father. This heartbreak ended in a major calamity with many unforeseeable ripple effects. The stakes were much higher (in my opinion) because now children are involved. There were two lives created as a result of this union. As a result of the vows, commitments, and tacit responsibilities we have to those we spawn I knew this relationship would not end with ‘mere tears on my pillow’…and it did not. If it were not for the lives brought forth by our union this wayward husband could also have become a fond and distant memory. But it would be over my dead body before life is propagated with me and the baby-daddy will just trollop-off and start anew. That is reckless and unconscionable (in my opinion) to have so little regard for the futures of the innocent lives God entrusted with us. I knew that if my offspring were going to be without their father in their lives it would not be because he is raising another family. Over my dead body!!! Your poppy was not an adolescent or young adult when he elected to reject the family he created in pursuit of a more frivolous relationship. He was nearly 40 years old (38 y/o in 2002) when he put his signature upon a document to dissolve our family and tread upon me and the birthrights of our offspring. What I have gleaned through these tear-filled-eyes is that the ‘gift’ of my existence is not song and dance, painting or creativity, acting or live-performance but ‘insight’. I have an ability to extrapolate. Recognizing where I am now and based on the characteristics and circumstances of the present, I can extrapolate what is likely to be the circumstances of my future if all things remain the same and is not acted upon deliberately or otherwise. I am blessed. Because of my ability to have insight and extrapolate, in-spite of the folly of others I had tied my future to, my life does not consist of my ‘non-negotiables’ for me or my offspring. I have trod the path least traveled or blasted a new path untrodden; whatever the case, I have few regrets, the future of my offspring was not compromised on my signature! “You will overcome the folly of the singleton’s legacy. If you do not, there are implication that go along with that and are best to remain tacit. Know this my sons, I will do my duty!!!It is in my opinion, as I reflect on the annals of my existence that the key to success in Black culture is NOT what we accomplish but what we avoid. I made all the right and responsible choices in my life that would lead to a ‘life well planned’ for me, my offspring, and my spouse long before I knew if I would ever marry or have kids, yet I still fell short of fulfilling all of my hopes and dreams of having a family because of the shortcomings of the person I chose to share my life with but I avoided living a life (or having my offspring) burdened with all the choices I rejected early in life. Thank God!
1-20-2016
My Dear Sons,
No matter what you may think or have been told, when I met your father I was quite secure, established and stable in every aspect of my personal, professional, financial, and spiritual life. I had already resigned myself to growing old and feeble alone happy and childless. I knew where and how I wanted to spend my retirement years (renting out a cabin and sailing the seven seas in a cruise ship). I had a sound retirement plan that would have assured that I would have met my retirement goals. With all my love for children and desire to have some of my own I resigned myself to knowing that it would have been selfish of me to purposely bring children into this world at a disadvantage (fatherless and in single-parent female headed household). Although that is how you ended up, it was not on my signature or a plan I devised for my off-spring. Your father came into my life at a time when I was NOT looking to share my life with anyone. He courted me and won me over with his charm. We married and started a family. We had everything in place to raise our children in a nuclear family as we were both raised (with different dynamics of course). I felt very blessed because I would be able to have children and raise them in accordance with my religious doctrine uncompromised. Unfortunately for us all, the devil was allowed to enter our household. I went to Hades and back, wrestled with Lucifer-himself (he lost both of his horns tussling with me!) to ensure the advantages and privileges you were born to were not traipsed upon. I lost the round but not the battle! You were raised in a parentless female headed single adult household by your elderly grandmother. Not a plan that I would devise but considering all things my standards had been met---denying you your nuclear family did not come discounted. You are privileged yet; you also have momentous losses that you cannot begin to understand until you have a family of your own.
My career had gotten a 4-year head start on Reggie’s. When I met him I was NOT still trying to reach my career goals, I had ‘arrived’! I was a pediatric specialty nurse---from there all was left for me to do was ‘grow’! I had a diversified portfolio for my retirement on auto-pilot, I had auto-purchases of savings bonds, and auto-savings account deposits were made through payroll deductions. I had invested in a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom customized home in San Antonio that I had built from the ground up (if you ever have the opportunity to have your own home custom built for you, please do so, it is an experience you will never forget).
Reggie on the other-hand had not ‘arrived’ yet. He was still aspiring to get to his career destination. He was an M.D but he had not yet completed his residency. He was a 1st year OB-GYN resident when I met him. He was living in an apartment paying rent and he did not yet have any investments or savings account (just a checking account). Reggie did ‘arrive’ in 1996! He completed his residency and we were married. He became board certified thereafter. The world was our oyster all that was left for us to do was to grow in our professions, raise a family and live well happily ever-after! But no, not us---Black culture doesn’t allow that in some families. We just gotta find a way defecate on our blessings and eat our young. And so he did and here we are.
Your dad and I had a home automation business in San Antonio. We named it S-Cube Services (meaning, Singleton-Singleton-and-Singleton; Terrence wasn’t born yet and Que was a ‘bun in the oven’). Your poppy was really driven. We started the business going door-to-door out of a suitcase. Then it progressed to a garage-office that we rented from one of those U-storage places. Then we got a kiosk at the mall (North Star). Finally, we progressed to a 3,000 square-foot store at North Star Mall adjacent to Sears (or J.C Penney’s, I forget which). We hired actors, a camera crew, and used co-workers to have a commercial made. It was the coolest thing to be watching TV then all of a sudden see our commercial come on the air (of course we knew which slots they were to air in because we had to choose and pay for the slots we wanted them to run in but it was still cool to see them so we watched for them regularly). Reg had distributor’s rights to the home automation products in our area which meant that we got a percentage of any sales done by other home automation salesmen in our area. It wasn’t lucrative at the outset but the potential was definitely there (look at where automation is today---your dad was ahead of his time!). We had 4 employees to cover the shifts at the store. He did the technical stuff and inventory and I managed the books (payroll, taxes, personnel, etc.). Reg and I were a good team (we, in my opinion were a ‘power couple’). We kept the store open when we moved to Germany. He hired your auntie Wonn’s long-time boyfriend (Lenny) to manage the store while we were abroad. It did not survive. We had to close it down. Sad but true. We had hoped to build a Dynasty. Keep it all in the family multi-generationally. Employing family whenever possible and using the children as tax shelters (nieces, nephews, cousin…everybody would be slated for a piece of the proverbial pie).
Another tidbit I can share with you about your poppy’s entrepreneurial spirit is his idea about drinkable yogurt. We were driving to our store one morning. He grabbed a yogurt cup from the fridge. We were in a hurry and he forgot to grab a spoon. Well, he had to make due so he did his best to drink the yogurt from the cup. He then said, “you know, they oughtta make yogurt in bottles so that we can drink it”. I thought that was a great idea. I told him we should submit the idea to one of those inventor submission places and get it patented. We submitted the idea. They responded and told us his idea had merit and that we should do a patent search and have it patented. They wanted $3000.00 to start with and that was just to do the patent search. Then more would have been required later if we were to patent the idea. Because we were already invested in S-Cube we opted to not pay for the patent search. The company made it clear that if we do not pursue a patent after 1-year from the submission of the idea, they can then use the idea and apply for a patent. A few years later my sons, drinkable yogurt in a bottle was in the grocers’ fridge… There is no way for us to know for sure whether it was his idea or not because we never did the search to find out if there was already a patent on that idea. But I believe it was his great idea. The inventor’s submission people capitalized on his idea (of course they did nothing wrong…. It’s just a cool thing for you to know that that was possibly your dad’s idea). If you were ever so inclined to do so you could research the history of drinkable yogurt in the U.S. and see if you can discover its origin. We submitted the idea around 1996.
Another cool and funny thing to share about your poppy is that he was creative. When your bedroom in Germany was too small to accommodate all of your furniture, the crib, trundle, and chest of drawers…laughing-out-loud-reminiscing. He came up with the idea to hang the chest of drawers on the wall. Instead of having it taking up floor space. He took to the task of securing it to the wall over the trundle. It was a perfect plan. It freed up the floor space and was accessible in your room for its utilitarian purposes. Your dad had so much potential to be the man God intended. It is a pity that his mother did not support God’s perfect will for her son’s purposes here on this planet but instead embraced and encouraged the lowest common denominator approach of allowing him to be transformed by the world.
There was so much potential in the family your father discarded. It’s a travesty that he came from a family of educated –heathen-fools. He was not beyond redemption; he could have been helped when he lost his way if anyone in his family had exhibited mature Christian leadership. He was transformed by the world and became a lost soul. He allowed our successes to taint his path and his parents led the way to his condemnation. Research your family’s history.
Love, Diene Mutti!
1-30-2016
One should always know the premise on which they stand. You two did not jump into the fox hole with the elizabich, you were put there by the ‘laws of the land’. I did not spawn children to be subject to family codes and custody laws--- but you were. That is a result of your poppy’s deliberate immoral and unethical choices. These were spurred on by your grammy’s seal of approval and bad advice (she gave him a ‘thumbs-up’ and seal of approval to abandon his family and ‘start-over’). He could not abandon his sons; I would not let him! I put you to live with him. He expected and would have preferred that I would have kept you with me full-time and sent you to visit him as arranged by the courts or a joint custody agreement. Bull-manure!!!! I would not dedicate one brain-cell to manage such an arrangement! Hades, we could have had ‘consensual de-coupling’ without matrimony! I required him to be a full-time parent to his off-spring. I can control no one’s behavior but my own. I knew your poppy would not be devoted or concerned with your well-being if you were not with him and within his household; therefore, I put you with him because I knew my commitment to my young was unyielding and uncompromised. I would never be amenable to affinal ties for my offspring (unless I were dead). Being amicably-divorced was not an option. I would not have the consanguineous ties of my off-spring muddled. Over my dead body!!! I stood my ground to secure your futures!!! And I would do so again. It was the right thing to do.
What is the premise on which your grandmother stands? In 2001 she told her son that it would be better for him to get divorced now than to stay in the marriage for 35 years like she and David only to become divorced after 35 years. That was her advice to your father sons. You boys were still in nursery school when the matriarch of the singleton family bestowed that advice on her 36-year-old son. Compare that to, her and David’s divorce. Both of their children had completed advanced degrees and were no longer living at home. There is something very-very strange and cult-like going on with those people and you should sort it out before you repeat the same pattern of disregard against your offspring. What is the premise on which she stands presently? You are in her foxhole and if you chose to remain there as adults you should at least know the premise on which y’all stand.
Love, Diene Mutti!
March 28, 2016
As men you will decide to allow your grandmother’s legacy to prevail or you will decide to educate yourselves so that you can begin to heal and do not become a liability to those you spawn. My eldest son has spent nearly a year in adulthood and has not reached out to get his family’s truths. My dad would say, “your future is only limited by the depths of your horizons”. If you choose not to broaden your horizons but instead to lie in the bosom of ignorance, you are living beneath your privilege. We are survivors of momentous folly. God did not bring you through the madness of your early childhood to lose you to the world of drugs and alcohol as forlorn and angry adults because you failed to examine your family’s history.
As children you did not have a choice. You had to live out your father’s legacy to have you raised in a single-parent female headed household with his contribution being a check in the mail. It was HIS unilateral decision to allow the courts to make rulings regarding the relationship he and I would have with the gifts God gave us. I believe in nature-over-nurture. The elizabich has nurtured you since your elementary school days but your biological roots and early bonding experiences are strong. The responsible choices that were made on your behalves and took root before you were conceived, the bonding and responsible behaviors that took place while you were in utero, and advantages you experienced when you were protected in the confines of a healthy, secure, loving and stable family life with both of your parents as your greatest fans in your earliest years is very powerful and I believe nature will prevail and allow you to rise above the circumstances of how you were nurtured. Only time will tell but the ball is surely in your proverbial court.
Love, Diene Mutti
February 5, 2016*
Your dad came home one day in 2001 waving a piece of paper he had gotten from his divorce lawyer telling me he wanted the big screen TV, Jacuzzi, and the Italian and Belgium furniture. He said I could have all the German stuff and anything else I wanted (just put it on the paper) … I laughed. It was funny to me then (its not so funny now---its rreeeeeeaaaal sad!). Its sad because, how much of that stuff he ‘wanted’ went into the tomb with him. You were there. Did you see them lower any of the ‘stuff’ he wanted to ‘fight’ for get lowered into the ground with him? He told me if I don’t fight him for the house (the rented castle as my dad called it) he won’t fight me for custody of the kids. Sad-real-sad. He painstakingly went through the processes of vetting me to insure that I was not marrying him for his future wealth. He did a good job of vetting because clearly I did not marry him for his (our) ‘stuff’. I did not touch that document he brought home from his lawyer as there was nothing in that house I wanted. Everything we accumulated was for the FAMILY down to the last screw and paper for the printer/fax machine. I took and wanted nothing from that house but the four souls therein!!! He would not have to relinquish the rented castle in lieu of fighting for the kids. I gave you to him because I would NOT have you become an after-thought or have you banished to the periphery of your father’s existence and take a back seat to half-siblings and affinal kin. That is the premise on which I stood.
When you marry someone who is NOT marrying you for your (the family’s) ‘stuff’ this is what you get. You get someone who is marrying you-for-you. And if you can’t ‘deliver’…well, we are living one example of such an outcome. Your birth rights, birth order, your futures, your ‘slate’ (we are all born a blank slate… heredity plus environment is what makes us who we are) is what I was fighting for, NOT ‘stuff’. It was all protected and affected by my choices to secure the blessings of liberty for my posterity (in my opinion I was protecting you from what I considered to be obstacles and threats to your existence) these outcomes and intangible relics of a ‘time-gone-by’ will go with me to the grave.
Learn from your family’s history. Will you be motivated by the material treasures of this world or will you value and seek the intangible treasures for yourself and those you spawn?
I, like my father before me, will die misunderstood. But I am not her to win a popularity contest; therefore, I accept my fate. We (my father’s children did not understand and appreciate the gravitas of the sacrifices our parents made on our behalves until we had families of our own). I pray that you will align yourselves to take advantage of the sacrifices that were made on your behalves.
Being ‘angry young men’ and acting-out accordingly is living beneath your privilege. ‘Angry’, is what you get when someone steps on your toe and does not say, ‘excuse me’ instead, looks at you as if you are at fault. ‘Angry’, is what you get if someone hits you over the head and tries to take your wallet. Anger regarding the circumstances that made you orphans (when everyone else around you, i.e. your cousins, are NOT orphaned, they are being raised in their nuclear household with both of their parents) is an UNDERSTATEMENT!!! When the terrorists attacked New York in 2001, the powerful leaders of the free-world did NOT get angry…. They got ACTIVATED! When your father set out to destroy our family and model a ‘wooden god doctrine’ for your existence on your ‘blank slates’, it did NOT ‘anger’ me…. I got activated!
You are adults now (and one, soon-to-be adult) will you get ‘activated’ on your own behalves or will you just ‘go with the flow’? I am emotionally tired. And I am in touch with my own mortality and aging morbidity. I will not sit idly-by and wait to live out the burdens of your grandmother’s legacy (to deny you your mother’s love and maternal history). I assure you, the burdens of her legacy will NOT be the tears on my elderly-pillow when I am aged and living in a nursing home with no visitors or no one to advocate on my behalf because you allowed her legacy to prevail…over my dead body!!!!!!!!!!!! Please step-up and secure my six as I have secured yours! Establish peace in the ranks…not for me but for you and your posterity. Haven’t you had enough tragic losses in your lineage?
Love, Diene Mutti!
February 10, 2016
Use your critical thinking skills to reflect on the similarities of your non-material existence in the 21st century to that of your 17th century ancestors. Why do Black people call one another ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’? There are many schools of thought on the matter. The one I have adopted is that, ‘in the days of slavery families were often torn apart through the selling off of their ‘property’ by the slave masters. When Black people are in the presence of stranger they could very-well be in the presence of a blood relative who they never had the privilege of knowing because they were sold away from their family at a very young age’ thus across generations they have begun to refer to one another as brother and sister.
I and your dad were blessed to be able to stand on the shoulders of those who trod before us to capture our dreams. We owe every aspect of our successes in life to those who ran a good race and fought a good fight, to those who had the compassion and judgement to lead and the gallantry in battle to win! To those who did their duty (i.e. to those who gave the final sacrifice or trained in the science of warfare and the art of leadership since the revolutionary war, through the civil war and those who fought for our civil rights and liberties). On a personal and more intimate scale, Reggie and I owe the credit for our successes to our parents. They did what they needed to do to do to secure our and our siblings’ futures. They ‘Rocked’! Martin Luther King and his act-alikes were in the world getting hosed, arrested, beaten and the like fighting our future and issues we were oblivious to, as we were busy learning our alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors, getting a command of the English language, and just being innocent children of that era. I am thankful and recognize that my life is blessed because I made good of those sacrifices for me and my posterity. When you were innocent children of the era of your family’s disintegration I was in the trenches fighting for your rights. Martin Luther King had immeasurable success in his efforts because those who had the power to effect a change did so. They did not put their heads in the sand and act like it would go away or determine that Martin should just ‘count his losses’. Your family suffered immeasurable failure because those who had the power to effect a change did not. Those who share your DNA and namesake did not align with me and advocate on your behalves (your dad’s relatives). I stood alone (if Martin had stood alone our civil rights would not have been acquired through his efforts… history would be rewritten).
I owe the fact that the scenes and segments of my life is not littered with the errs of the ways of my ancestors, contributing to the lack of upward mobility and transgenerational social marginalization of African Americans to the fact that I knew and respected my family’s history. I knew what and where the proverbial social determinant ‘potholes’ of my ancestors were and I avoided them like the plague.
There is in my opinion upon reflection from what I know about 2 generations of your “Y” chromosome (that which you acquired from your fathers---dad and grandad) a defect therein. It would behoove you and you brother to educate yourselves and compensate for this defect before you propagate and follow the same jaded path. The Bible says, that if a part of your body offends you, it is better to pluck it out than to have the whole body cast into Hell. I concur!
Elizabich was the ‘glue’ that held her (your dad’s) family together but she had the support of the ‘village’. Nancy, David’s mom did not stand as a ‘jealous lover’ against her daughter in-law, encouraging her son to ‘count his loses’ and abnegate the responsibilities he had to his family because he could not have his way. When I did not have my mother in-law’s support with helping me help her son, I did all that was left for me to do and that was to protect my young, to minimize the damages that would be inflicted upon your futures by her son’s patterning of his father’s bad behavior. If my baby-daddy is gonna run a bull-dozer over my children’s futures, he will have to roll over me first and so he and they did. And we are survivors of that outcome.
Your dad and his sister and me and my siblings were all able to stand on the shoulders of our ancestors to reach our dreams and become out best-selves because there was unity in the ranks. People were in support of one another and not warring factions (active or cold war). You, on the other hand were not able to stand on the shoulders of your ancestors. Those within your heritage who share your name did not stand in the gap for your dad when he sought to abnegate his responsibilities to his family. Imagine how strong and connected your family would have been had they done their part to fill Reggie’s shoes on your behalves when he was alive. What’s the logic in waiting until the man reaped what he sowed before they decide to step up and get involved in your lives and act like ‘heroes’? Ignorance is bliss. You can remain ignorant and allow them to keep pissing on you and telling you it’s rain or you can educate yourselves and learn how to recognize the properties of urination and that of precipitation and discern for yourselves whether you are honoring those who had the power to advocate for your inherent and birth rights and chose to allow a caustic and dysfunctional situation to run its course. My daddy is my hero, he saved my life and secured the inherent and birth rights of my offspring. Not by his ‘actions’ but by his alleged ‘reaction’ to your father’s actions (your dad was acting on the advice, encouragement, fears and insecurities of his mother).
You are living a 21st century example of 17th century practices. Although we ‘jumped the broom’ (your dad and I) our marriage was not honored within his ‘village’. Our children were treated as property. In the 17th century all people were not acceptable in southern territories. The slave master determined the worth and value of those brought into the ‘fold’ (i.e. on to his property) Is she worthy of being a house slave? should she be a comfort girl? Am I looking at a field nigga or maybe this nigga is worthless and I will take her down to the slave market and have her sold! After I had out lived my usefulness as a comfort girl, I was deemed worthless by the slave master and matriarch of the singleton plantation. I was sold for cheap! And, you. Well you (my offspring) you were deemed valuable not because you were consanguineous kin (that’s an intangible asset of which some people can’t relate) but because you came with around $3M in cash of cash and assets. Not by happenstance but by design my offspring were born to privilege. Not by happenstance but by design your poppy was worth more alive than dead. His goal (ask his frats) was to be a millionaire by age 40. He accomplished that in the spirit... Had he lived, his lifetime earnings and patriarch-worth to your existence and that of your offspring would have been invaluable and worth far more that an insurance check, survivor’s benefits, and the estate assets your grandmother acquired when she acquired you from me (as one would acquire property). Fact check my sons. Don’t live in ignorance.
Love, Diene Mutti!
February 16, 2016*
No one required your poppy to be who he said he was. They allowed his alter-ego to run amuck in our family. He’s a fallen angel and we are living with the fall out. We are the survivors of Satan’s reign in our family...his mama’s will prevailed. In my opinion, this is all damaging to the values that makes this nation great. It is caustic to a society when someone can unilaterally ‘wreck’ a family and it is not seen as a breach of contract. I have no regrets, no-not-one for standing in the gap for my sons and minimizing the effects on your futures from what could have been. I would do it again and live or die with the consequences just as Martin Luther King would likely not hesitate to repeat his actions on behalf of his posterity. He would be pleased by what his sacrifices have purchased for his posterity and all the rest of us. I pray that you will make good of the sacrifices that were made on you behalves. But first, you need to know what was done on your behalves when you were too young to have a say. Being responsible for securing the lives (to the best of my ability) of those who I have deliberately and by choice brought upon this earth is not a role that can beat out of me. Just as in the 17th century some slaves kept trying to escape even after they were severely beaten or maimed for trying to be free. You just couldn’t beat the ‘I want to be free’ out of ‘em. Same here, I will be on the other side of the dirt when I quit moving obstacles out of your way.
In 2004 I lost my parental rights when the elizabich put our family (and our relationship) on trial. I was accused of being an unfit mother because of my actions surrounding your father’s unilateral decision to ‘start over’. I was also accused of murder. I was accused of abandoning you and lack of maternal bonding. These were all accusation made against me by your grandmother in family court. She knew how to navigate the system (social work is her profession). Her colleagues, the social workers who were supposed to be acting on your behalves, sided with her from the start.
Reunification for our family was never the plan. They had me jump through all the proverbial hoops and I did. But it was all for naught. I was out of my league; I knew nothing of the inner workings of family court but I trusted the system, yet my trust was once again misplaced. I should have filed an appeal when I lost my parental rights but I had lost faith in the system. Instead, I quit my job in Texas, moved to Charleston, purchased a boat and all of the necessary non-perishables, waterproof and safety gear necessary for our voyage. I got an online boating license. Typed up a letter requesting asylum from the Cuban government. And my plan was to take you from school or church and navigate the inter-coastal water ways to the tip of the coast of Florida then navigate the open seas to Cuba. I figured the Cubans get here on boats, surely we could make it there. I was incarcerated in 2005 for attempted kidnapping X 2. I spent 3-years incarcerated in the Charleston County Detention Center for my efforts to reunite our family. I am now a convicted felon. I had lived my life honorably and respectfully. I had a spotless criminal record and never-ever had to have any dealings with or step foot into family court. It was not until I began to “wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12) that I acquired ‘scarlet letters’ and was persecuted for wanting to live a righteous and Godly plan for my life with my family. But long before I was born the Word had already prophesied my plight in doing so (“All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” 2 Timothy 3:12). It is me and my behaviors that world wants to reform, rehabilitate, punish and incarcerate. It is I who had to repay a debt to society. I trust the Word and I know that in-spite of how the world has judged me in my struggles to secure my children’s futures, the only judgement that matters is how I will be judged by the Holy-one. The Word says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 5:10)
After I was released from Charleston County Detention Center in August 2007, I hired an investigator to check in on you to see how you were getting along. If you had been failing to thrive in your court appointed situation, I assure you, the elizabich would not have been going home to a comfy bed and keeping salon appointments. If you had found your way into the austere environment of the juvenile detention centers on her watch …let’s just keep it tacit and I will say I am glad you were able to adapt and overcome and I found you thriving and doing well. God is good.
You will not know what you have been deprived of until you have a family of your own. Nor will you understand the sacrifices made on your behalves until same. This battle is not mine, it’s the Lords, but I fight against these principalities and the rulers of the darkness so that you can have every advantage to launch your futures in spite of what you were deprived of. The XXs (mom-vs-mom) in your lineage are fighters and we are both in the battle for the long-haul (‘til death or incarceration do us part). It’s such a shame (and to your disadvantage) that our muskets are pointed inward at one another instead of outward against those outside our village who can pose hindrances to the pursuit of your dreams. She wants me in prison and I want her in the grave, one of our wills will prevail. This is the legacy your father left behind. What will you do as adults? Will you sit idly by and watch his legacy play out---be passengers in your own lives? Or will you actively affect this situation and redirect the muskets. Only you can change this trajectory. It’s getting late in the day and the sun is going down. If I had my druthers, I’d have peace in the ranks. I want to put down my arms and know that you are in charge of your own destinies and not allowing my enemy to run her agenda in your adult lives. It was a bad outcome when she did that to her adult son and I will not sit idly by and look-on while she run her wooden-god-cult doctrine in my sons’ lives.
Love, Diene Mutti
January 6, 2016
Your poppy was indeed a good man. I would not have laid with him and propagated if he were not. I was very selective regarding who would potentially sire my offspring. But all good men need time. They need prayer. They need time to learn how to be, not just a good man but a good husband---- a good family man. A good father- a model of manhood. The elizabich did not give her son a chance to’ be all that he could be’; to watch him grow old and become a good family man; a model of manhood for his sons to emulate. She was only concerned about her damned self! I think there is a special place in Hell for parents who lead their children astray. Your poppy conquered the peer pressure in primary, secondary, and tertiary schools to reach his goals but when he got married and started a family the ‘serpent’ comes into the garden and faithfully executes the works of Lucifer (the elizabich is his minion).
Use your critical thinking skills. Who benefitted from the death of your father, not you…. you were orphaned; not me…I lost my most precious gift from heaven (my sons) and a very good friend (your dad); not your dad..., his new address became the Mt Carmel Cemetery in some hick-town in SC. Your grammy became a multi-millionaire. By gaining custody of you and all that came with (our possessions, Reggie’s military and civilian life insurance policies, his monthly survivor’s benefits from social security to you two, and the assets that we accrued in matrimony). The devil is a liar... it looks as if she’s lived ‘a life well planned’. She DID NOT, if she had not gained custody of those I and Reggie spawned, she would be living on a social security check and the aid of her son’s generosity throughout her golden years. Contemplate that my loves!
My disdain for your grandmother is not that she is raising my sons. There is no one more suited to raise you in my stead than she is, if there were, I assure you, you would not have been in her care for all of these years. She is putrid to my contemplations because of the role she played in our family’s crisis. Our family was in a crisis. She was in a position to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution, she chose the former and the father of my children died as a result (in my opinion). How would you feel if, for instance, your friend was lost in the woods, he asks his mother for guidance and she gives him guidance that is completely opposite to finding his way out and getting back on track to fulfill his goals and dreams. Instead of getting out of the woods, he dies there, lost…? How would you feel about his mom? How much respect would you have for her as a fellow-human? Reggie was my friend and he was lost and he needed guidance but instead of guidance he got dead. You can blame me; I blame your grammy. My love for your father was not unconditional nor was my sensitivities regarding what happened to him innate. But you, you should want to know your family’s history from both the paternal and maternal perspective. If for no other reason but to try to avoid allowing history to repeat itself.Your grandmother injected her will on her adult son’s life regarding me…you both will soon be adults, will she once again attempt to inject her will regarding me in a grown man’s life, your life? Reggie allowed her to do so (she could not have if he had put a stop to it…he did not) and we-three are living with the outcome of his failure to contain his mother. Will history repeat itself?Love, Diene Mutti!
January 3, 2016*
You, my sons are on an untrodden path in both my family’s history and the singleton’s family history. I can live with that and accept every consequence therein. I abhorrently, with every fiber of my Being, objected the unilateral plan your father devised for our family...” over my dead body” was my mantra for his unilateral plan regarding our family. His plan was consistent with the wiles of heathens and I would have no part in it. It robbed you of every privilege and advantage you were born to and traipsed upon the inherent rights you had by virtue of being born in wedlock. What-the-*uck!!!!......Where was his mom! Standing her ugly-Black derriere in his corner and giving him the proverbial thumbs-up is where her donkey-tail was!!! Know the premise on which you stand.
If as adults, you choose to adopt your grammy’s premise regarding me (you had no choice when you were wee…. the courts decided) that is your decision. My love is unconditional and I will always love you dearly; however, your choices do have implications. My sensitivities regarding you is maternal but you have been placed by-law in the bunker of my enemy (my one and only mortal enemy). I have lived my life honorably and respectfully and I had no enemies until I crossed paths with the singletons. This is aberrant and dysfunctional! I WILL NOT jus ‘settle-in’ (this is a bramble bush for me and it is a ‘cold war’ because my youngest is not yet an adult. That will change…everything has a season). You have an opportunity to ‘have a say’ an opportunity you were denied when you were wee.
I would suggest that you contemplate, what is the value-added to your existence by avoiding your maternal perspective of your current situation (you were orphaned…why!?) Ask yourselves, how can letting your grammy place her agenda on your adult lives (as she did with her son’s) … how can repeating that history end well?
Love, Diene Mutti!
January 31, 2016
You were born to privilege NOT by happenstance. Choices were made for you by me before you were born that would insure you would not have the social determinants typical to that of the average African American born in America in the 20th century. Just as Jesus goes to heaven ahead of our arrival to prepare a place for us, my duty here on earth was to prepare a place for my offspring ahead of your arrival. And I did!!! If you think your future for success in life is not determined until you ‘arrive’ here on earth and choices /decisions regarding the factors that would promote your successes and give you a ‘leg-up’ in life are as a result of just ‘going with the flow’ making decisions as the crop up, then you are severely mistaken and you should educate yourself on the matter for the benefit of your offspring.
There is something aberrant going on with your ‘Y’ chromosome (examine your paternal family history) that you should figure out and compensate for before you marry or propagate or I believe you are headed for a forlorn existence and your children will inherit the ‘new-low’ established in the singleton family’s lineage by your father’s failure to be the provider and protector of his family and keep his family united in spite of his hind-brain pursuits. Make a better life for the next generation than that which was afforded to you is the American dream. It is still alive but you have to actively participate in planning for the successes of your posterity…I did that for my posterity. You-two are indeed recipients of the American dream in spite of the defects in the ‘Y’ chromosome of the male of which I attached our futures.
Love, Diene Mutti!
February 5, 2016*
I know my family’ history. I owe my successes to knowing and avoiding the ‘potholes’ exposed by those who came before me. You-two are NOT living the social determinants of a gene-pool of folks who ‘sacrifice’ their young for their own carnal pursuits and selfish ambitions or just ‘go with the flow’ because I made sacrifices on behalf of my offspring before I ever knew you or before you ever arrived here on earth!
You are not my children to do with as I please. You-two were GIFTS to me and your dad to do with as He pleased. Our God-given tasks were to care for you and secure a place for you here on earth so that you can do God’s works and return to him someday and receive the praise and blessing of hearing God say, “Job well done my good and faithful servant!” I am not responsible for anyone’s behavior but my own thus when your father lost his way (and no one from his family advocated on your behalves) the only way I could assure that affinal obstacles and kindred were not going to deprive you of the resources available for you to launch your futures and access to your father’s counsel was not diminished was to put you with him…. And so I did. I know the premise on which I stand. Do you know the premise on which you stand? What is the premise on which the elizabich stands? You should know, you are in her ‘camp’ (by law initially… eventually by choice).
Love, Diene Mutti!
January 31, 2016
We are approaching another crossroad. Reggie’s legacy as he gave the courts the power to make rulings regarding the condition of his family was to have his children raised in a single-parent-female-headed household with his contribution being a ‘check in the mail’ (you don’t even need to get married to have that outcome for your posterity so why did he bother…it’s asinine in my opinion!!!). He accomplished that and paid the ultimate price for that folly…sad-but-true. Choosing!!! to leave you fatherless was NOT the path of least resistance nor did it come-for-cheap (and that is as it should be). My two sons will soon be raised. The court appointed ‘job’ for your poppy’s mom will soon be fulfilled. What then I ask you?
Your poppy wasn’t corrupted by his parents when he was a boy or young man coming into maturity. David and elizabich f****ed him over as a mature adult male with a family in tow! David modeled bad behavior (he was a married man ~60 years of age) intimately involved with a woman from our church ~20 years his junior with her young kids in tow and your dad paralleled his father’s behavior by dating a woman from our church 10 years his junior (he was still married) with you-two in tow), The elizabich put her agenda on his proverbial ‘back’ and encouraged him to abandon his family and ‘start-over’. She used her influence over her adult son to carry out her agenda. Shame on Reggie for allowing her to do so (none of the children my parents raised would have allowed someone to put asunder what God has ordained). It will be over my dead body before I allow the ‘bich to do to my sons what she did to hers. Reggie’s legacy is not for you to be separated from the mother God gave you and not know your family’s history…. That is her agenda. She wants me in jail- I want her in the grave. One of our wills will prevail. Will you come along for the ‘ride’ as ‘passengers’ in your own adult lives (in 2001 you had no choice but to come along for the ‘ride’) or will you step-up and require a truce amongst your people (once again the elizabich and I love the same man (men) and our goals are polar opposites (she wanted Reggie to divorce and I wanted him to stand-fast; She wants you to ignore your maternal relatives and be oblivious to your family’s history…I want the polar opposite). One of our wills will prevail.
In 2001 they mistook my kindness for weakness. In 2016 will you mistake my calmness (10-years without incident) for acceptance?
When your poppy was in the family he had the protection of the family (my parents did not lose a daughter when my dad ‘gave me away’ at the wedding, they gained a son). But when he left the family to ‘start-over’ then the protection of the family does not apply.
Mutti
February 15, 2016
When two adults make a unanimous decision to consciously uncouple there’s nothing that can be done. Everyone just has to make the best of it and work through whatever issues (including issues with affinal kin) that come up along the way as the two go off to lead separate lives while sharing the responsibilities of raising their offspring. On the other hand, as in the case with your poppy and I, his decision to divorce was unilateral. I not only had a right but a responsibility to look to his family for help with figuring out your father’s defects (because I knew what my non-negotiables were regarding my offspring and he was traipsing upon them). I know what sacrifices I made to secure your futures before and after you were conceived.
Ask your grandmother, what sacrifices did your dad make for your family (our family of 4)? What sacrifices did he make for you (his two sons)? Ask her how many times did she or anyone in the singleton family come to our home to visit you before your dad died? Ask her why was your family disposable (our family of 4)? Ask her what went on in Reggie’s home life when he was a dependent child that made him grow up to think relationships outside of our marriage was okay? What made him think that taking you (his sons) on dates with him and his playmate was okay? Ask her why he had such a skewed view of Holy matrimony and raising children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; how’d those basic tenets of Christianity get lost on him (he was in church 3 times a week and twice on Sunday practically all of his life) …ask her, how did he lose his way? Children live what they learn men. The social determinants of your existence did not begin in 1997 and 1999 when you were born. They began loooooong before then and likewise with your children. What you do with your present will impact on their futures. The matriarch of the singleton family knows your father’s history. Will she answer your questions and help you to avoid the potholes of your generational curses (paternal folly)? Or will she avoid your questions to keep up appearances?
There is something definitely afoot with that Y-chromosome you inherited from your father that he inherited from his father…and so on. There is no one more capable of helping you understand why your family failed and was not worthy of ‘saving’ than she, (the matriarch). You should inquire. It is to your benefit (not mine). The elizabich is ‘dead’ to me. If she and a maggot were on their death beds and an Angel came from heaven and said to me, “I can only save one of them, which of them do you want me to save, the elizabich or the maggot”? I would say enthusiastically, “please save the maggot!”. I would want the maggot saved because when he is resuscitated he will go back to decomposing or whatever God given job he was to do upon this earth. The elizabich would not. She would continue living out her own cult-doctrine at your expense. This is the dynamics your father left behind between two women who loved him…the one who bore him and the other who bore his children. You may not realize it until you have a family of your own but this is aberrant. The fact that your mom and grand mom are enemies in a cold war is an extreme aberration and should not be emulated.
Please wait on the Lord before you propagate. Know that as men, time is on your side. Your father had issues when he married me (I did not know he had issues at the time) but God already had the answer and had given him the victory over these early childhood issues. He was given the tools necessary to neutralize the dysfunction and poor role modeling his parent’s exhibited in their home but he rejected God’s plan in favor of his own, acting on his mother’s bad advice. And so here we are, survivors. Learn from your parent’s history and do better.
Love, Diene Mutti
February 16, 2016
Imagine two scenarios. In scenario one you are engineers put in charge of building a home. You were told to make the sure the home is very strong and capable of weathering many powerful storms. You are handed a set of blue prints and told to make sure your home is built based on the design therein. So you go about the task of building the home.
In scenario two, everything is the same as in scenario one except this time, when you are handed the blue prints on which to base the design of your home you are told that sections of the blue print are flawed and the defects makes the home incapable of weathering any storms You are shown which segments of the blue print has defects. So, you go about the task of building your home. I ask you, what do you do about the defective areas in the design? Do you ignore the fact that it is defective and build according to the design and have the same structure as the engineers in scenario one or do you take advantage of the fact that you know there is a defect in the design and seek guidance from other experts in the field to shure up the design and make the home capable of weathering powerful storms? What would you do?
Also, consider this analogy. You and your partner go about the painstaking and arduous task of building a luxury condominium. You and your partner are heavily invested in this luxury condominium but your partner unilaterally decides one day that that the luxury Condominium is no longer pleasing to him and is a hindrance to his carnal pursuits and he schedules it for demolition. What do you do, just ‘go with the flow’, count your losses, and go with the idea of ‘demolition of the property’ or do you stand your ground and protect the invested interests for your offspring)?
Legally if the property is demolished, my partner would be liable for all losses associated therewith (this is all material worth and the laws of the land is on the investors side). However, if this were a ‘family’ instead of’ brick and mortar property’, material worth, the laws of the land would be on the demolitioner’s side. When our family was in the path for demolition there weren’t any laws to protect our interests (yours and mine). One can call themselves a Christian, act like a heathen, and live by a wooden god doctrine and there is no law in place to be able to sue him for being a fraud (if he bought a bag at a dollar store and put a Prada label on it, one could take him to court and sue for damages accusing him of fraud). Marriage isn’t forever (‘til death do you part), divorce is. One cannot unilaterally stay married but they can unilaterally acquire a divorce and it is binding, the marriage is not (although there was a church full of witnesses and a certificate of matrimony signed by two witnesses to attest to his intentions). Your father put our family in the court. I ask you, what could the courts do for us? I am sure you did not come up with an answer and you would be correct. There was not a darn thing that the courts could do for us. This was a family matter and what his family (specifically his mother) could have done for us was momentous. They did nothing. Jesus was left in the hands of the authorities of His time…look what they did to him!!!
Love, Diene Mutti
February 16,2016*
You will not know what you have been deprived of until you have a family of your own. Nor will you understand the sacrifices made on your behalves until same. This battle is not mine, it’s the Lords, but I fight against these principalities and the rulers of the darkness so that you can have every advantage to launch your futures in spite of what you were deprived of. The XXs (mom-vs-mom) in your lineage are fighters and we are both in the battle for the long-haul (‘til death or incarceration do us part). It’s such a shame (and to your disadvantage) that our muskets are pointed inward at one another instead of outward against those outside our village who can pose hindrances to the pursuit of your dreams. She wants me in prison and I want her in the grave, one of our wills will prevail. This is the legacy your father left behind. What will you do as adults? Will you sit idly by and watch his legacy play out---be passengers in your own lives? Or will you actively affect this situation and redirect the muskets. Only you can change this trajectory. It’s getting late in the day and the sun is going down. If I had my druthers, I’d have peace in the ranks. I want to put down my arms and know that you are in charge of your own destinies and not allowing my enemy to run her agenda in your adult lives. It was a bad outcome when she did that to her adult son and I will not sit idly by and look-on while she run her wooden-god-cult doctrine in my sons’ lives.
Love, Diene Mutti
March 24, 2016
Watching these GOP candidates clown is amusing. I do not know if you have been following current events in this election year but it has reached an all-time low with Donald Trump seeking the nomination. Some have called Donald Trump the ‘anti-christ’ but even he takes offense to someone verbally attacking his wife (and her act of posing for nude photos in the past). Ted Cruz the other GOP candidate also became activated when his wife was verbally attacked in a GOP advertisement. You see men, that’s what men do when their wife or family is attacked. They speak-up and say, ‘cut it out’!!!! They don’t just ‘buy’ into the rhetoric!
Your father had a moral obligation to ‘shut his mother down’ when she took to bad-mouthing his wife (the mother of his children). He should have told her that, ‘she is either for-us or against-us, and if the latter then, ‘GET BEHIND ME SATAN!!!’ He did not and we are the survivors of the fall-out of that folly. At the wedding, the minister asked, ‘are there any objections to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace?’ She didn’t speak up. She should have, then at least I would have known that in discourse as paramount as that which we were faced in 2001 that she would NOT have been an ally.
I knew my family’s history. Do you know yours? I knew that my mom’s parents did not approve of my dad when she brought him home and later agreed to marry him. They thought he looked like a ‘crook’ and they encouraged her to divorce him (even her eldest brother aligned with their parents). She did not divorce. After my parents started their family (5 years later), my grandparents and her brother stopped bad-mouthing her husband and began to support the union (for the kids’ sake). They were married for over 40 years…never divorced, my mom is now a widow with grand and great-grand kids (my parents raised 7 kids all of whom are raising their families and involved in the lives of their grandkids if they have ‘em---except me). My father in his lifetime made my mom the envy of all her friends as he promised her as a young man that he would. Where was this ‘chivalry’ (for lack of a better term) on your behalves. Your father and I did NOT elope. His family knew his intentions with me were honorable. When he lost his way and began to exhibit his father’s (David’s) ‘skill set’ in matrimony, why was I standing alone against this dysfunction? Why did they allow him to dishonor me, you, our union, our faith and expect me to ‘just go with the flow’? I cannot answer these questions for you. Only the Matriarch of the singleton family can address such queries…you should ask!
Whatever issues those in-laws had with my dad, they were never evident as my parents continued to grow their family. Growing up, I and my siblings witnessed and were the benefactors of healthy relations between my parents and their in-laws (both paternal and maternal). There was nothing but love and respect within these affinal kinships. Children live what they learn. I expected to have a healthy and supportive connection with my affinal kin too.
Imagine how different your lives could have been growing up if your father would have protected us and secured our place within his family as a family unit instead of ‘counting his losses’! It wasn’t his ‘losses’ that were innumerable it is yours (shaking my head).
Love, Diene Mutti!
February 15, 2016
I have no doubt that God has a plan for your success in all aspects or your life (the financial, professional, spiritual, and personal…the four corners of your existence). He knows where you have come from (what was and what was not written upon your ‘blank slate’), and He knows where He want you to end up. He will send you someone to compensate for what you lack in leadership regarding how to build and maintain a strong family foundation on which to build your family but you have to wait on Him. I assure you, your father’s ‘womb to tomb’ story would have been different had his mother allowed God’s plan to prevail in her sons’ life. The elizabich made your father’s selection for a life partner more about her and the relationship I had (or failed to have) with her than it was about the relationship Reg and I had with one another. God had big plans for our family but when the devil is within the confines of the family structure (our family was attacked from within) he will do what he came to do. He came to kill (your dad was killed acting on her advice) steal (she used her knowledge of the workings of the family court system and you were stolen from me after your daddy died) and destroy (this has not happened yet). It is up to you whether the elizabich will complete her job in her role as Lucifer’s minion.
Will you be ‘destroyed’ or will you allow God’s permissive will for your family to prevail.? Will you educate yourselves and work to compensate for your family’s tragedy before you choose ineffective or poor coping mechanisms to help you cope with the complexities of your young lives and many years without the family God gave you? Allowing God’s permissive will for your family gives you a big leap towards getting back on track to allowing His perfect will in your individual lives and you two deserve that.
I am not perfect (none of us are) but I guarantee you, whatever ‘defects’ I am afflicted with (by heredity or by environment) those defects are NOT that I am inclined to eat my young nor is that I will be sitting idly by at home crying in my ice cream allowing someone else to rob you of your futures.
Love, Diene Mutti!
April 9, 2016
Unlike my previous postings, when you were children, these postings will contain more information about my and our history. My intentions are to make the information available. If you seek you will find. If you choose to ignore your history you will reap the consequences of that ignorance, not only for yourselves but for those who you become responsible for. My love is unconditional regardless of the path you choose (to remain ignorant or your family’s history and blindly cling to your grammy’s apron or to be an active participant in the family circumstances that will impact on your lives and that of your posterity my love for you will remain undaunted). I have zero-inclination to deal with your paternal grandmother with frontal lobe contemplations (I tried that in 2001 and look where that got us). You both will be men soon and there will be a final resolution to this quagmire in our story. Will you have-a-say or will you just come along for the ride?
In 2001 I made frontal-lobe efforts to lock elbows with the mothers in your paternal family to form a protective circle around you to protect you from the hindbrain activities of the son-of-an-elizabich our futures were tied to. My pleas fell on deaf ears. Those 20th century mothers (21st century grandmothers) were all about themselves. They were no help to our plight. Thus I locked elbows with my Hindbrain-Functioning-Paleolithic era mothers of a-time-gone-by and sought counsel from the lions and tigers and bears of our day. I was reduced to a primal state of mind acting on instincts regarding my young when our den was encroached upon by people from outside of the pride.
Consider the incongruity, while your dad was using his hindbrain to engage in activities that would rob you of your birthrights, no one accused him of being crazy or unfit…it was just the ole ‘boys-will-be-boys sentiment. Yet, when I have a hindbrain reaction to his actions, I was accused of being crazy and unfit to be a mother. Go figure!
You, your rights and your ‘blank’ slate was protected and that’s all that mattered to me. This is a battle that never-ever should have occurred but when you have people within the ranks serving the devil then it became necessary to wrestle against those principalities and rulers of the darkness of this world. And I would do it again if I ever needed to because your futures were at stake.
Ich Liebe Dich, Diene Mutti
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