Are You My Father?

by Margo Walter

  Chris was beside himself and dragged me to one more medical specialist, a rheumatologist. The diagnosis was systemic lupus erythematosus. The prognosis was not very promising. I began a treatment of Prednisone, Plaquenil, and Prozac. The three Ps. Slowly, this new disease started to respond to the medications, and I made it down to the living room (where you are supposed to live). Unbeknownst to Chris, my first telephone call was to our minister, to tell him that I needed my marriage annulled because of this deadly disease, which would be too significant a burden on my husband. He listened, called Chris, and came to our house for a visit. We are still married.

  There was a lot of fallout from lupus: I quit my job, I dropped out of school, I stopped playing golf, I let all the drama engulf me. When I did not bounce back as everyone had predicted, my mother ascended into town. She was living in California at the time and insisted that I get the best care possible. We flew to La Jolla, California, to the experts on lupus, Script’s Institute. The trip was bizarre. I was dependent on my mother, which I had not been since I was five years of age, or ever. We had not spent more than five days together in twenty-five years. Finally, I had never forgiven her for the deception, the lies, and the life she had dished out for the past thirty years. Something big happened on this fortuitous journey.

  Forgiveness does not always come in one fell swoop. My experience was just the opposite. It was gradual and reminded me of watching the tide go out at the beach. The water subsided oh so slowly, and if you stared at the tide line, it was hard to see the progression. However, over time, the waves were not coming in as far. The seaweed was further away from where I was sitting, and the sand fiddlers were sticking their heads out of holes that were once covered by water. Not drinking or drugging was giving me a fresh perspective on life, my friends, and my family.

  ***

  Everyone blames their troubles, trials, and tribulations on their childhood, at least everyone born after Freud. I was no exception until I realized that I just did not have it that rough. At least I had a nest that I fell out of. I have met extraordinary people who had no parents, no home, and no love growing up. That was a bottom that I never hit. And yet, these courageous individuals survived, they prospered, and they loved themselves and others. These incredible triumphs of others caused me to look at my family and my mother differently.

  My mother had a difficult childhood and wore the scars from her battles. She never had good mentors who taught her the values, ethics, and morals that are so important. She was a survivor and could only pass on to her kids what she was so freely given. It was time that I give my mother a break. I did not have to like her or who she wanted to be, but I could love her for who she was. This insight happened somewhere at 35,000 feet altitude above the Midwest plains. I am sure it was a long time formulating but there was that “aha” moment on that flight where I realized my mother was trying to save her daughter.

  We landed in San Diego in late October. My mother had arranged to rent a car and to have a wheelchair meet our plane. We had a lot of time to kill before our appointment at Scripts so we decided to go to the San Diego Zoo. That seemed logical to both of us. However, my mother was exhausted, and pushing me in the wheelchair was taking its toll. No problem. We switched positions and rode the hills in the zoo with my mother in the seat and me standing on the back of our new chariot. Sometimes you just need to take risks, and we laughed until we cried. I never loved my mother more.

  Three days at the hospital in California confirmed the lupus diagnosis, but their prognosis was much more optimistic, as it had not grossly affected my organs or my muscles. “Stay out of the sun and take your meds.” That was the opposite of my psychiatrist’s instructions. “Stay in the sun and take your meds.” You just cannot win.

  I visited my mother at her house in Santa Barbara for a week and returned home a new person with a new lease on life. My physical ailments were about the same, but I definitely felt like I had some kind of spiritual experience. I was not an orphan anymore. The tide was receding. The anger, the hate, and the burning resentments in my stomach were slowly subsiding. I told my sponsor and my husband that I was ready to start forgiving my mother and move on with my life. My sponsor responded with one sentence, “Why don’t you forget the ready to start and just do it?”

  ***

  One rare occasion, I called the Admiral. I told him about the lupus, my trip to the West Coast, and my visit with my mother. I think that I expected a congratulatory comment but I heard this: “Life is way too short to hold on to resentments. Tell your mother that you love her. Oh, please don’t call me at this number.”

  August 6, 1991

  “Dear Janet… I take it your mother now lives in California. You had a wonderful Christmas from what your letter says. I wonder if Alex the dog is a Labrador for I have my ‘girlfriend,’ Virginia Belle, a nice yellow lab we got at the kennel in Middleburg, VA. I am the dog type not the cat kind! The Mayo clinic is only a short distance from where we live. Most people don’t know they are located in Jacksonville as well as in Scottsdale and Rochester, Minnesota. They really have a plush set up and are real outstanding professionals in what they do. I guess I am a living testimony to that today. I will be eighty-three in November and have been operated on five times since 1986 when they first discovered my cancer. At the moment the cancer is in remission and I can even play golf if you call the 96 I shot golf. I swim and keep writing away on all the journals I kept during my life in the Navy and after. I couldn’t do much for a while but am now up to where we go around the world in 1966, and I become President of a graduate school, Love, Matt”

  September 7, 1991

  “Dear Admiral… Yes, Alex is a yellow lab…. I knew you had to be the ‘dog type’…. Is the cancer still in remission or what’s the prognosis? My lupus has been in remission for about six months and it’s wonderful not to be in pain all the time. You mentioned that you still play golf (me too) and that you shot a 96. Was that on the front nine or the back?

  I am in a period of transition right now. Last Friday was my last day as a real estate broker and I ended a fifteen-year career in management. There was no challenge there anymore and I needed a change…. There is nothing holding us in Rehoboth and we want to make a move to the mountains next summer…. I would like to be near a university so I can go back and do some graduate studies…. The lupus is OK; I’ve been clean and sober for almost six years; my marriage is wonderful; and I really do not know what’s next. One of the things that I want to do is breed labs…. I am very serious about breeding labs and we need some land to do that. So, we are saving every penny that we can and will be selling our house here so we can buy up in the mountains…. I do want to see you and would like to know when and where is best for you. Chris and I will either fly or drive up north or to Florida whenever it is good for you and we can get away.

  I did want to mention that my mother was just here for a visit and it was the nicest one ever…. Family is very important to me and I have never had one. Chris and I and our labs are probably as close as I will come. My children and I have a very good relationship, but it is distant, and their lives are totally separate from mine.

  My oldest son, George, starts Colorado University at Boulder this year, and I am very proud of him. He is very intelligent, responsible, good-looking, and loves me very much. We talk once a week or so, and he is undecided as to what he wants to do with the rest of his life. George is very strong in the sciences (he gets that from his mom) and gets along extremely well with people. He has worked since he was fifteen and will blaze his own trail somewhere. George is just shy of six feet (unless you ask him his height), and has lost the sun-bleached blond hair that he had as a young tot. He has a beautiful smile that lights up my room. He is the serious one. I don’t think his mind ever slows down and he challenges everyone on everything. ‘Why would you do that, Mom? How does that really work? Why do you say that?’ It is scary how smart he really is.
George really does not like to hug and when I embrace him he is very stiff. I do not know when that started, but I do hope that changes and he will be soft and cuddly again.

  My middle son, David, is sixteen and a straight ‘A’ student in high school in Colorado. He is my sensitive one and we are very close. His bright-red, orangey hair sets him apart in the family, in the world. His hair is usually unkempt and going twenty different directions at any given time. There are lots of freckles and I love every one of them. David was born with a special gift. Since second grade he has been sketching very detailed drawings on a scratch pad. In third grade he was selected to attend a special school for the artistically gifted and talented. Going to those classes sparked David’s creativity and he began drawing comic characters, which he invented, and people that he saw in his life travels. Much to the chagrin of his older brother, my red-headed son towers over six feet tall. He lost all his baby fat in his teens and is very thin. David has very few close friends but has a reputation for being a really nice guy. He is attracted to quiet kids like himself and hangs around the nerds and the geeks most of the time. His arms are very long, and when he puts them around me, I feel very safe. David plays soccer like his brother but never takes it too seriously and probably plays so he could be more like George. He worships his older brother and tries to do everything that he does, but better. That is a hard act to follow. I remember when he was six, he tried to ride his two-wheeler (no training wheels) down the driveway to catch up with his brother. There was a crash into the mailbox and David ended up with a cracked jaw. Fortunately, it was not too serious and healed on its own. As a youngster, David cried easily and bounced back way too fast. Maybe he does wear his emotions on his sleeve.

  Then, there is Kate, my fourteen-year-old daughter. There is something special between mothers and daughters and it is not always smooth sailing. Kate came to visit for five weeks this summer and we got along extremely well, but she is having all kinds of problems with her father, Wes, in Colorado. I don’t know what the future holds for Kate. Following her older brother, Kate also has beautiful red hair. Hers is softer and has some blond overtones. Her hair is gorgeous and full of natural curls. There are fewer freckles and she never has had the acne problems which plagued her brothers. Kate also played soccer and her first game set the stage for her future role in sports. The referee blew the whistle for Kate’s first game to begin. Since she was on the front line, she was face to face with the opposing team. Recognizing one of her playmates from school, she and this little boy on the other team walked over to each other, held hands, and together sauntered over the sideline into a field of daisies. Her personality was alive and well at age five. Kate also does well in school, but she has to work for it. She is every bit as smart as her older brothers, but she is easily distracted. With lots of friends and more important things to do except study, Kate does have constant altercations with her father over grades. Adolescence is tough and is becoming more difficult for Kate as her self-esteem decreases and her weight increases. She is overweight and uses food like any addictive drug. I love her dearly and don’t know what more I can do for her other than continuously pray for her, which I do…. I feel safe telling you these things and hope you will write back soon. Love, Janet”

  ***

  The following summer, Chris retired from the Coast Guard. Since I had already left the real estate field, we decided to make the major move and trade the ocean for the mountains. Moving away from the beach was a big decision, but it was calculated and seemed to satisfy all the immediate goals that we had for our life together. I wanted to go to graduate school, and Chris wanted to launch a new career teaching in a middle school. That is how we ended up in our new home in the Appalachians.

  Before our moving, Kate made a special request. She wanted to leave her father’s house and live with us. Everyone agreed, and I was ecstatic. Being separated from my children was a loss that had been unbearable at times. I would fly out to Colorado, book a hotel room with an indoor pool, and we would spend time together having fun. In good weather we would hike the trails, and on a couple of occasions, we rode horses in state parks that were close to their father’s home. I made multiple visits each year to see them, and each trip tore me up when I had to end our time together. Chris helped through the years with the emotional turmoil, and his acceptance of Kate was a gift.

  ***

  The Big Move! After making a couple of trips to visit southwest Virginia, we ended our area search and settled for a location around Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech University. Chris attended several teaching interviews and was hired as a fourth grade elementary school teacher. He would be the only male teacher in his new school and one of the few in the county.

  Having a real estate background, I was specific with the real estate agent as to what kind of home we were seeking. It had to have two stories, four bedrooms, a fireplace, maybe a hot tub, and a fenced yard of at least one-quarter acre. After an exhaustive search with no success, the agent announced that there was a new home on the market in the country and that we might want to see. There was a long gravel driveway, and you could not see the house from the road. We passed a small barn and continued down the drive to the most spectacular view we had ever seen. It was a 360-degree view of mountains with no neighbors and lots of pasture and trees. We fell in love instantly and broke all the rules by showing our agent how motivated we were to buy. Did I mention that it was a two-year-old ranch home with three bedrooms, no fireplace, no hot tub and included twenty-eight acres of gorgeous land? We drove around the back of the property and someone somewhere said, “Cue the deer.” A family of four, including two fawns, was standing on a back road to the farm. That did it! We did look at the house but really did not care about the details, since we would have been willing to pitch a tent to own this property. Two days later it was ours. It would be almost two months to the day, after our family vacation, that we would move in. Chris and I are still here twenty-eight years later.

  Before settling into our new location, Chris, Kate, and I decided to tour the United States. Packing a Ford Explorer and a pop-up camper with our daughter, three Labradors, and all our gear was a challenge, but we did it. We were towing the camper that we had rented in Rehoboth Beach. I had lots of experience towing boats and could even master backing up. You just do the opposite of what you think you should do and that camper whips around where it wants to go. Piece of cake! It took quite a number of practice runs, but we did master camper 101.

  We had two months to spend on the road in awfully close quarters. This trip would make us or break us. Traveling is always an adventure, and who would have guessed what awaited us around the next bend?

  One of the highlights of our trip was visiting our boys in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Our oldest son had moved there with his finance to finish his undergraduate program, and our youngest son enrolled part-time to begin his studies. It was the middle of July, and we were all ready to take a break from camping, check into an air-conditioned hotel, and have a few days off the highway. This family reunion was going to be unique with all the kids and three dogs in one place. We met the boys early in the morning at our hotel so we could all go out to breakfast and catch up on everyone’s life. Simple plan, right? We were sitting in the room visiting with Alex, Briana, and Calli, our canine kids, and I asked George to please go start our car to cool it down. Then we could move the dogs to their nesting spot in the back of the Ford. George came back to the room with the car keys and asked where it was parked. I gave him my “you are not that stupid” look and told him that it was right at the end of the short walkway immediately in front of our hotel room. “Mom, it is not there.” Finally, we confirmed that it had vanished from the parking lot.

  Chris asked the policeman when he thought they could recover our stolen car. I will never forget that laugh. He was very polite and informed us, “Your Ford Explorer is already in 10,000 pieces across the Mexican border and you will never see it
again.” Yes, we were grateful that the dogs were not in it and we had unhooked the pop-up camper, but what were we going to do? The insurance money would not kick in for thirty days, and no one would rent us a car or truck when we disclosed that we were pulling a camper. Our summer trip had undoubtedly hit a snag. Thank God that I was sober and was flying straight so this event did not become another crisis.

  It really does help to have an eccentric mother that can be heroic and thinks outside of the box. When my mother heard our dilemma, she offered to drive her pickup truck from California to Las Cruces and lend it to us until we were able to buy a new car. She flew back to her home in Santa Barbara, and we were once more on our way. The entire episode made for a great family saga, and you can still hear the embellished version from time to time.

  There were other highlights of that summer vacation that are worth mentioning. I did most of the driving across the country, and Chris was the navigator. Kate kept an eye on the dogs and provided a great sense of humor. The seating arrangement was entirely different from the Ford to the Chevy pickup. We had a cap over the back end of the truck, but there was still six inches between the truck cab and the rear end. It made it very noisy in the back, not as cool as the front. It was hot! There were three of us and only a bench seat up front for the driver and one passenger. That was a challenge. Ingenuity does run in my family. Since one of us was going to be riding in the back with the dogs, we purchased a comfortable lawn chair, cut off the chair legs to create enough headroom, and bought a thick pad for nap times. There was still one big problem. You could not hear the people in the front if you were in the back, and the dogs were still not talking. It got kind of lonely back there. Surely you have heard of putting a string between two cans and talking to each other by holding the can up to your ear. We did not do that. I still am not sure who had that brilliant idea. We took a ten-foot piece of plastic dryer venting hose and ran it between the front seat and the person sitting in the rear. Not only could we talk to each other, but we could hear the radio and get a little air from the front to the back. It was creative and did the trick.