I was raised in a Catholic home that believed marriage is until death do us part, my parents were married 72 years. I had a loving, childhood full of adventure fostered by my dad, Troy Madden, who was a popular Seattle Fire Chief, 2nd in line to the Chief of Seattle. Dad brought Medic One to Seattle. He ran into burning buildings. Mom was a stay-at-home mom from a Belgium immigrant family who homesteaded in Ketchikan, Alaska. We spent summers and weekends at a primitive cabin on one of 172 islands in the San Juan Islands in NW Washington State, with no electricity, or indoor plumbing. We heated with wood, had an outhouse and a hand pumped 20 ft. well I galloped big race horses on the beaches, boated and clammed and fished and played Hide and Seek in the woods after dark.

Yet, as I grew into my teen years, God put it into me, there was something more about love than what I had experienced. There was a deeper call within me that YEARNED for the intense MEANING OF LOVE and the expression of that love. I didn't know I was walking in my destiny.

I thought I wanted to be a nurse to express that, so I took all the college prep courses with a 3.8 grade average, but in 1955, at the age of 16 I'd met a handsome 18 year old sailor on a blind date and fell head over heels in love with him. 2 years later, I graduated, the ship was leaving, and he wouldn't wait for me, so we married September 14, 1957, right out of high school in a large beautiful formal Catholic wedding with friends and relatives.

Jack (name changed) resembled Elvis Presley with his tall dark good looks ,deep blue eyes and heavy eyebrows. He was a highly intelligent, moral and principled man, who loved dogs and kids, and reminded me of my dad. With a promise for the future, destined to be a naval officer, I wanted him to be the father of my children.

He had closet anger, Rum and coke was his drink. God was about to show me HIS love-chase after the alcoholic, my husband, a man obsessed with generational rejection and abandonment, since childhood, back several generations. Jack, with all his intelligence had "aced" Officer Candidate School for the U.S. Navy, but got cold feet and thought he couldn't do it. He then rejected that opportunity to become an officer, that would have given good pay and a higher standard of living in nice Officer homes. He abandoned our dream, stayed in Enlisted man corps, saying, "I'd rather be a big fish in a little pond, than a little fish in a big pond". I felt that he had sold himself short to what he was capable of doing, but needed to choose his own career.

Disappointed, but I didn't want to be responsible for a choice he'd resent and blame me. Jack did advance to the top of his career in 30 years as a Radar Chief with an arm full of 7 gold hash marks, one for every 4 years of unblemished service and a good Retirement.

However, along the way, he manic/depressive with a large loud violent and maniacal temper that erupted into frightening episodes from slight offenses taken over innocuous remarks. He escalated into character assassination, and false accusations. His Controlling, jealous, and accusing nature became more of a problem, in outbursts of sudden violence interspersed with more drinking. By the time I was 23 I was jerked out of bed by the hair torn out and my jaw dislocated my mother's milk soaked my gown. Just 2 weeks after childbirth, because I didn't respond to him. We had 4 sick babies under 5 1000,s of miles from home.

He was not the man I thought I'd married. He told me it was my fault and I if I ever left him or reported him he would hunt me down and kill me. He said he'd have me barefoot walking the streets looking for a place to live. I believed him and I lived in terror. There was no help. The family down the street were happy, but had no answers, even with a big bible on the table. I sought a psychologist who asked me, "What did you do to cause it?". I didn't cause it! I had to scrounge money for bus fare and risk my life to get help. Now he said it was my fault, but I was the victim!

I was 24, and didn't know what to do. I remembered him as the man he could be.I cried and hung out baby clothes in the winter snow. I heard a great sound of singing in the heavens that hovered over my head. The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me in a solid resonance to my bones, the message to "Pray that he be converted", and swept away into the distance. By the time I was 26 we'd been married 8 years and had 6 children, 4 sons and identical twin daughters born in 5 duty ports all over the United States and Hawaii. God gave me a miracle!! In 1965 I asked God for twins, and they were born that year! on Christmas Day! I was either pregnant and moving, or I'd just had a baby and moving, but...I was moving!

Our many military separations up to 6 months at a time provided a buffer between us to recover from the abuse. Military ship movements actually enabled and prolonged our struggles . Although he'd hurt my heart many times, I was a Catholic with hope for his change, kept me from leaving. Half way through our marriage of 25 years,1971 war in Vietnam loomed dark on our horizon. We were stationed in Long Beach,Ca. which was 1,000 miles from home in Seattle. He prepared to go to war off the coast of Vietnam for 6 months. The ship, U.S.S. Henderson DER (Destroyer Escort Radar), went to sea on training exercises. As a Radar Chief, he was responsible to lob heavy artillery into enemy strongholds. However, an incident happened prior to the ship being deployed for Viet Nam that hurt us. Jack got drunk on rum and coke with pre-deployment jitters for what he was facing and concerns about leaving family alone. A discipline problem came up with our youngest son, 8 years old was seen playing with matches by stomping them out in a dry field that could have set the field on fire.

Jack asked him if he was playing with matches, he admitted it, then blamed his 10 year old brother!. I was in the kitchen, totally unaware. Jack grabbed the little boy's hand to burn his fingers with fire! He held his finger to the match until the flame went out against his finger tips. Screaming "No dad! No dad !" Three times, the fire and pain from fire was forced on him escalated, no stopping him, and looked like no end.. His innocent 10 yr. old brother was next. I jumped in to stop him. Joey hollered, but grasped in his father's grip, couldn't break free. I grabbed his arm and screamed for him to stop it! Don's face contorted with hatred, as he threw out his arm, pointed a finger in my face and shouted, "and YOU STAY OUT OF IT OR I'LL MAKE IT WORSE!". Ohmygod, he'll make it worse, I reeled back, and they both broke free and ran screaming past me out the door holding their burned fingertips up in terror down the street through our Navy housing in anguished trauma driven by pain and betrayal of their father; the father is the man who is supposed to protect them. My 8 year old was last seen still running and screaming 3 blocks away. They were both lost and stayed out all night. The Shore Patrol wouldn't help with "Spoiled kids who need to be spanked"

Jack stormed into the kitchen, smashed his drink into the sink, glass flew everywhere as he spat at me, "You take care of these kids!", threw his bags together and left for the ship, ordering me "and don't be on the dock when the ship comes back!". He meant it. I usually took him to the ship in our only car, but he took the car and left me stranded.

He wanted a divorce! He'd had a meltdown and had left. I was alone with the family. He was done and abandoned us, forever.. But God had another idea, and would not leave us fatherless.

Standing there helpless in the hallway; my husband had left me, my boys were gone, and I didn't know where they were, and I had no car. Our 5 year old twin girls and sons 9 and 12 were home. I bedded the children down, but my 2 youngest sons didn't come home for dinner, or even for all night. I stayed up worried, scared, brokenhearted, pacing all night. One little 8 year old boy slept in a dumpster that night, 12 miles from home in Lakewood, California. They ran different directions; the 10 year old found a bush to sleep under.

I stayed in my grief, fighting for my husband, for my man I married, in a forever marriage that I could not let go of. Divorce and going home to Seattle a welfare mother with 6 kids was not an option for a Catholic woman with six children who needed a father.

I had anger I dealt with, but loved him with loyalty because I saw the good in him, the childhood issues that triggered him, and I thought he could change.Sunday Mass had no answers.

The only other option I had was to fight to keep the family's father and get him restored "for the sake of the family", rather than divorce "for the sake of the family". Now, in those days, we didn't have support for abused women or even shelters, and there I was with no understanding, about to pioneer.

My mother in Seattle, told me about a 6-week course of study for the Christian wife that taught how to love and understand her husband. She had told me, "You made your bed, you lie in it", but thought this might help me, "lie in my bed" so I found a class in a Nazarene Church. I bravely went outside my protective the Catholic Church, guarded as I dared to enter the Protestant Nazarene doors. I was so desperate for answers I'd do anything to save my marriage.

Thankfully, the course emphasis was on understanding and appreciating your husband, not on salvation. The Bible was "dumbed down" or I probably wouldn't have accepted the teachings. I learned that my mother hadn't taught me much. I had used my dad as a good example of someone I wanted to marry, and thought that I had found him in my husband. I learned to see my husband as a man with a man's feelings in ways I'd never thought about before, to understand his emotional need to feel appreciated and admired, and to see I had misunderstood his masculine reactions. I learned how to support him in ways that didn't hurt his masculine pride, that would soften him and arouse his desire to protect and love me.

As my eyes were opened, I realized I had a part in our troubles, and owned my sins of omission rather than commission. I never swore at him, called him names, or was mean, I didn't have a mean bone in my body, but I had not shown him appreciation for his role as our protector and provider, or in his fiscal leadership, nor had I expressed encouragement for him to be the man he could be, and praise for the man I loved. Is that all there is to it? learned he may have lived a life of quiet desperation as he sought to gain recognition and respect from me. Starved for my love expressed by appreciation because there wasn't much to appreciate him for, turned into resentment and exaggerated his suppressed anger, making it impossible to talk with him. A cycle I could break.

SOMETHING I COULD DO.

I wasn't responsible for his rage or decision to turn to alcohol, but I was grieved over what I could have changed, and could have mitigated.

I began a letter writing campaign to him on the ship off Viet Nam. I asked him to forgive me and give me another chance. However, there was no forgiveness; everyday I received nothing but dead silence. The mailman passed my door his rejection was driven home to me. After two months, and 60 rejections, I got a letter. I excitedly ripped it open, only to read: "If you write one more letter I will throw it in the ocean!". I reeled back like I'd been shot, for he was bitter with no reconciliation in mind. I went to my room and cried.

I was devastated, and felt slapped down. Give me a week I'd rallied back, determined not to take "No" for an answer. By God, the stakes were high, but I was determined to count the higher cost to myself for the sake of the family, and so like "water on a rock" I came back stronger writing about his family to a man who didn't want us. He had turned his back and lost himself in his work, isolated on a ship lobbing shells into Vietnam with enough guilt and anger from the war to last a lifetime.

Finally, after five months I was losing hope. Every day I'd look down the street of Navy Housing duplexes for the mailman, coming down the row as he delivered mail from door to door, and then crushed as he passed our door. Every day another rejection stabbed my heart and I turned and wept. The other wives received mail from their husbands which they joyfully shared together under the clotheslines. Their friendly inquiries to me only drove home the point that I didn't have a husband. Rejected and left out, I realized Jack would be home soon. I watched time slip away as I was forced to face reality and give up. I didn't think I would have to try this long or this hard. Hope has taken down the biggest.

My dad had taught me, "never give up hope" that was deeply ingrained in me, I was a "daddy's girl". He was my role model, but I found was impossible to do. Jack's directive, "Don't be on the dock when the ship comes in" rang in my ears, in conflict against my dad's admonition, "Never give up hope. If you give up hope you might as well be dead". He was right; I might as well be dead. He never gave up hope to rescue lives. His heroism was documented in the newspaper many times, and I was his daughter.