341 Meeting
I had a 341 meeting in Lansing last week. This is where a bankruptcy attorney has a meeting with their client and the Chapter 7 trustee. The Chapter 7 trustee has a bunch of questions for my client.
This hearing is so routine. At this point in my practice I think a monkey could do it. My clients are always anxious and nervous even when I tell them not to be. This goes with the territory of being sworn in under oath and having to discuss the most intimate and humiliating reasons why that individual needed to file bankruptcy in the first place. It is financial failure at it’s finest. I feel for my clients. I am often humbled by their struggles.
My client insists that I attend this meeting. She wants me to go. I could have hired another attorney to attend. This would have saved me both time and money. I never have enough time. There is never enough money.
I really care about my client. So I go. As I pull off the downtown ramp I feel my body tense. I know this town well. I lived here. My past self walked these streets. She feels far and distant from me. I see her as a stranger. I bump into her at the courthouse.
I ask her if her struggles were worth it. She smiles. It could have been easier she assures me. If she would have known this and that. She could have remained single and entered law school. It took her some time to figure her path out. Would haves, could haves, should haves.
Yes but there are the children. You can’t ever wish them away.
She reminds me that she had two small children when she entered law school. She also started an in home day care to help pay their bills. She would get up at 4 a.m. every morning and read until 6 a.m. The children would come and she would watch four additional children until 5:30 p.m. When the last child was picked up she would run out the door with her books to class. It was a 6 p.m. to midnight haul every night of the week. Weekends were library days unless she had to grocery shop. She did this for four years of her study.
I know her husband was not very kind or supportive. If you ask him he would tell you he was. He would tell you a lot of things about her and none of them were very nice things. I wondered why he wanted to marry her in the first place. What did he really see in her to begin with? She wonders why he objected to their divorce. He constantly would remind her that she was really quite worthless. I mean couldn’t she see that she was a horrible wife and mother? His words were stones. He really liked throwing them.
There were a lot of arguments. She really couldn’t do much of anything right. One night her law books ended up in a mud puddle in the middle of the street. Another night he tried to throw her down the stairs. Police were called. Too many times they came and went.
It was easier for her if the suppers were hot and on the table at 6:00 before she left. Laundry ironed and folded. House cleaned. Bills paid. She was only lacking sleep. She would anticipate what he would complain about and take care of it before it became an issue. This was also very taxing and exhausting. It started to become an exit strategy.
When she softens and attempts to defend him she will blame herself for the currents that pulled them apart. At the time neither party could really define with clarity the currents that tugged.
She wanted a law degree. He wanted a stay-at-home wife.
He wasn’t her soul focus. He began to hate her for it. She began to lose respect for him. His anger was violent and volatile. She never knew what would set him off. Lack of money didn’t help. Her lack of attention didn’t help.
The library and the school became a safe place to be. She loved it there. She loved her professors. She loved her classes. She loved the intellectual challenge. She would stay as long as they would let her.
She will tell you that there was a moment of complete despair. That moment where you face that wall of self-doubt. She was left wondering why she was put on this planet. Thinking it would be so nice just to sleep and never wake up. Wondering what drove her to this. Why wasn’t she just happy being a wife and a mother? Why exactly was she working and trying so hard? Questions that bombard her—what are you really doing? Do you really think you can make a difference? Do you really think you can become a lawyer? There are so many of them. Look at the hours of study. Look at the lack of sleep. You are never going to make it. You are not smart enough. This is so expensive. You don’t have any friends because you have no time for them. Your children miss you when you are gone. Your husband can’t stand your class schedule and your marriage is falling apart. He is right you should just up and quit.
You are facing the tax code, rules of evidence, and the UCC. This is that moment when that distant stranger is in the library. She puts her head down on that table and just closes her eyes.
This is too hard. She and I can’t do it anymore.
And then there is silence and she squeezes out a silent prayer: “Please God, just let me make it through. I will do anything if I can become an attorney. I want to help people. I want to make a difference. I want something for myself. I want to provide an example for my girls. I want to contribute to the financial well being of my family. I want to carve out something for myself. I want this to belong to just me. I want to make my parents proud. This is what I would like to become. Please just help me.”
She is back on the courthouse steps and I am looking at her. I remember her story when the security guards make me take off my shoes and belt and ask that I open up my briefcase. I am reminded of who I am when they scan my driver’s license and check my bar card.
I am asked to give my appearance for the record. I feel needed and wanted when my client hugs me and thanks me over and over for helping her though this very difficult time.
When I get back to my car I am relieved. I want to leave her and those difficult times in Lansing. They are hard to look at. When I look up, I see her smiling in my review mirror.
She is nodding and waiving goodbye, “Yes, it was definitely worth it.â€
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about 12 years ago
Powerful determination.
about 12 years ago
They say hind site is 20/20. We all make mistakes but it is important that we learn from it and notch it up as expereince. If we keep making the same mistakes we just did not learn.
I have learned my mistake. This guy took her for granted. He did not cherish he as he should have and did not treat her as God’s daughter. I think when most people get married they do it becuase they are in love but somewhere along we take each other for granted.
This is the danger point. Men tend to see their wife as a prize or a completed step. Once they get married they have accomplished their goal and now must concentrate on the next task of providing for their family. Women want more than that and often many men cannot provide what they want “love” until it is too late.
I learned the hard way but I learned. I have learned to treat my future wife with respect and love. I want to make sure that I support her in what she wants to do. I think if a wife knows that she is free to accomplish her goals and her husband is there to support her that she will love him and earn that respect.
A wife also needs to apprecaite her husband. He needs to know that when he comes home there is someone there to love her and respect her. If she decideds to stay home and take care of the kids then he needs to appreciate that. She also needs to appreciate what he is going to provide for the family. Many women do not realize that God trusted them with a wonderful gift to take care of children. It is often (not always) that a mother holds and loves her child when they hurt. I do know that God did not give me a womb to carry a child but gave it to my wife so he trusted her with it than a man.
This woman will be fine and so will you. God loves you both and will take care of you. Marriage is hard work and after serving the Lord, it should be the most important task in a couples life.
about 12 years ago
I struggle with the issues concerning control. This is a theme I constantly think about. I also think about envy and jealously and how these behaviors can wreck a relationship. I am not sure why, once a couple is married, they feel they can wipe their feet on the other. You don’t expect your date to behave poorly. If someone throws a glass of water in your face I am sure you aren’t going to go out to dinner with them again. “Poof” nor more dating. But this is exactly what happens in a marriage. You think you can treat someone horribly and get away with it. You have years tied to each other, you have finances together, you have children together. It was only a glass of water and I was angry. How many times do you let someone say, “I am sorry?” You don’t end a marriage for a glass of water thrown in your face (or do you?) how many glasses of water does it take? I don’t have those answers and I think every person has to draw their own line.
For me it was a simple click of a light switch. Not doing this anymore. I have value and life is too short.
Often it is the woman who is economically dependent, has no place to go and has children to take care of. She is guilted, humiliated, and at an economic disadvantage. Often I see a weak woman jump from man to man because they won’t pull themselves out of their economic hole. They look to be taken care of instead of caring for themselves. I get frustrated with them for being victims. But I see how this happens.
We are evolving. You can see how someone can use their physical strength to control and dominate. A man does not have the right to control a woman with his physical strength. A man does not have the right to use children against their mother. Women, most often, are valued for their beauty and sexuality—not their smarts or independence.
Education is key. Learning is key. Women have the tools to become educated in this country to better themselves. This, in my mind, is the way to break free from control.
No one has the right to define someone else without their say, their consent, or their own choosing. No one—-regardless of gender.
about 12 years ago
I love how you write. you make me cry.