Karma and Consequences

Today I heard some sobering news that made me realize that we do indeed reap what we sow.

Several months ago (right after Thanksgiving), my daughter-in-law, a drunken drama queen, set into motion a series of events that have cost me dearly.

She awakened me on a work night long after I had gone to bed and screamed into the phone: "come get your son or I'll call the police!" I didn't ask any questions, just said, "I'm on my way."

I arrived to find my son in bed sleeping and his wife pacing the floor in a highly agitated state. I woke my son and told him to come to my house; his wife was throwing him out. He got up and we drove back to my house. As I was getting bedding for my son to sleep in the guest room, she rang his cell phone. He didn't answer as it was obvious that she only wanted to continue ranting at him. She didn't leave a message but began calling my home phone number. I also didn't answer and after the second such call, unplugged the phone.

Several minutes later she was banging at my door. I opened the door to tell her to take her drunken self home and sleep it off. When I closed the door, she banged on it louder. I grabbed the phone intending to tell her that I would call the police if she didn't get off my porch. When I opened the door, I never got a chance to say anything as she immediately backhanded me, pulled my hair and tried pushing her way into my home. I reflexively "reached out and touched someone" upside her head a couple of times with the cordless I had brought with me.

She is a pampered princess who has never been brought to task for her behaviors so she was shocked that someone would actually strike her even though she was publically intoxicated, trespassing, forcibly entering a private residence and commiting assault and battery. She left and immediately called the police on me. They mindlessly arrested me despite my protests that it was she who had committed the A&B and that I was defending myself.

I spent a night in jail, missed the next days work (had just started a new job), posted $150.00 bond, paid an attorney $4,000.00 and missed 4 more days of work over the next few months for court appearances which she never bothered to show up for even though she had been subponoed. The D.A. wouldn't drop the charges even though he admitted I was within my legal rights to hit her and said, "she's lucky you didn't shoot her." Four days ago the case was dismissed as she once again ignored a court order to show up and plead her case against me.

Her mother consoled the little princess by callously stating the only way my son and her daughter would ever get back together was if I was dead. Four days later (today) the co-dependents' enabler died.

I have refrained from breaking out into a chorus of "Ding, Dong, the wicked witch is dead" but half the problems that my son and his wife had were due to her constant disapproval and interference in the marriage. My daughter-in-law always sided with her mother and never with her husband. She had never cut the apron strings or grown up. Her mother was very important to her sense of identity. She called several of my grown children looking for sympathy today and, to their credit, they consoled her.

I don't rejoice in her misery even though she's given me plenty but when I heard the news today I thought, "how ironic." Sometimes karma takes years to cycle full circle and sometimes, like today, it comes swiftly. It makes me realize that we do reap what we sow and that we should treat people the way we expect to be treated.

I am so sorry for all you had to go thru.

What drama!

Look, i am a mother in law myself, and i keep my nose out of my daughter in laws business. I dont ask how much they make, are the utilities paid, who's doing what, poke thru their drawers to "find" stuff..its not in me to be that way. My Stacie tells me she loves me more than she loves her own mother- in fact, we are best friends!
I hope things will straighten out for all now- that the drama is gone.

[edit on 20-4-2008 by dgtempe]

Thanks dg. I live a pretty peaceable life; don't go anywhere, do anything and I'll be dam**d if they don't come to my door! Last few months have felt like an episode of Jerry Springer. Glad to be back to my boring existence. Do miss the 4 grand, though. LOL.

Did make me speak a little kinder today to those around me and have a little more patience with those who kept stepping on my last nerve. No one is guaranteed tomorrow or even the rest of today. Life can end before you have time to tie up loose ends or make restitutions or offer a hug to someone who needs it.

If what goes around comes around, I'm probably due for a cosmic smack-down myself.

Plenty of people doing good things get punished, while plenty of people doing bad things get rewarded. Karma is a state of mind. If you want peace you have to become the peace you seek. Even when bad things happen to you, you stay with peace, refusing to make the world a worse place for someone else just because something bad has happened to you.

If you want evil, you become the evil you seek. even when good things happen to you, you look for ways to get more, no matter what it costs other people, because nobody is worth anything unless they benefit you in some way.

reply to post by ThePiemaker


I agree that people don't always get their just deserts and that much in life is "unfair". Still, for lack of a better word, "karma" is how I describe the cosmic tally score that eventually-one way or another-balances the books. Maybe not always in a way that is satisfying to the injured party but in a way that is a life-lesson to the injuring party.

As the saying goes: No good deed goes unpunished. But in the grand scheme of things (if you believe in grand schemes), the evil that is done to us and the injustices we experience can, and should, serve to strengthen our character, making us more willing and able to do good to those who obviously don't know how to do good.

It's true, too that what we seek from our experiences is what we'll find. But as I return good for evil, the evil is weakened and an environment is created for more good to be ABLE to come forth.

Everyone is "good" in their own eyes and usually the most atrocious actions are justified or rationalized as serving some better purpose. Or at least as being "not my fault". If one stops to see how the other party is experiencing an event or action then it's much harder to justify or rationalize one's actions. It's been my observation that "walking a mile in another's shoes" is rarely done. This creates a cycle of an eye for an eye or "karma".

Karma is not set in stone. Each of us can alter the "tit-for-tat" by sowing good seeds in our own lives as well as the lives of others, ensuring a harvest of blessing for us all. At least, that is my dream (and ambition).