by Margo Walter
Chapter 13: Soaring like an Eagle
This memoir would not be complete without describing the father that was so difficult to find and what he passed on to his daughter, me.
My father was an eagle. He soared above everyone else in everything he did, especially in his career. This part of the story is easy to reconstruct, as he wrote an autobiography that chronicled his life from birth to his death in 1999. A friend of his who had followed his Naval career used a 300-page diary of the Admiral’s to coauthor the book. My father gave the biography his blessing before he died.
You know how I felt during his funeral. Isolated, ignored, not welcomed, profoundly sad, and unloved describe the emotional roller coaster that I experienced that day in Arlington cemetery. How did I feel after discovering who he was and hence, his influence on me?
This journey begins with the first letter that I received when I was nineteen and was signed “Love, Daddy.” Where do I go from there? Just like my AA sponsor suggested, it is like peeling an onion. There are layers upon layers to be uncovered which reveal different experiences that I had with my father. Most of these were revealed, but who is this man that I can now call “Dad”? First, I referred to him as “Matt” or “the Admiral” and never “Dad.”
After dropping out of high school, he enlisted in the Navy when he was sixteen, which was under the required age. No problem. Matt went out in the park adjacent to the recruiting office and found two hobos to forge his parents’ signatures. The day he enlisted, he lined up with fellow newbies and was shorter and scrawnier than any of the other men that were in front of the recruiter. The big old bosun’s mate was sizing up his recruits and made this statement to Matt: “And how in the hell did a little scrawny thing like you get in here amongst all these grown men?” Through the years the Navy chose to overlook his fraudulent act of the age discrepancy and advanced Matt through post after post until he became a Vice Admiral, a nuclear physicist, and a father of five children (or six).
He was an overachiever and extremely competitive. Sound familiar? It was not until I read his book that I understood the connection between the Admiral and my family. Except for the apparent connection, me.
In 1949, Matt was moving his family from the East Coast to Palo Alto on the West Coast. He spent the Christmas holiday with his two older girls driving cross-country and his wife, and the three younger children would join him after he found a house and got settled. They were on the road and made it to California on New Year’s Eve. Matt headed down to the bar and was buying drinks for several young women until his oldest daughters found him and reported to their mother the impropriety. It was shortly after this trip west to California that Matt met my mother. It was a one-night stand, and I was the result. That is how my mother had described the affair. The Admiral talked about chemistry and the love that he had for my mother. I would guess that the event falls somewhere between those two poles.
At this time, my mother was married to Bruce King, a Navy doctor, and they had one son, Edward, who had just turned seven. You will see how the connections to the Admiral do not stop with both being in the Navy.
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I was born November 25, 1950, in Norfolk, Virginia. My mother and my oldest brother had flown to the East Coast the previous September so my “then-named” father could start a new tour of duty in Norfolk. This father was supposed to join us from California in the spring of 1951. My mother received the devastating news in movie fashion. Two uniformed naval officers showed up at our front door. Dr. Bruce King was dead, and it was their job to inform my family of the loss.
Being a flight surgeon suggested that Bruce liked to fly, and even though I know next to nothing about his naval career, I did confirm this story. February 1951 was the time when the Navy was testing a new airplane, the AJs. After several crashes and mishaps, the plane was being revamped and refitted to accomplish new goals for the Navy. It was supposed to be fast, carry a large payload, and exceed the performance of anything that came before it. Bruce was having lunch with his buddy, Lt. Matt Hollins, and asked if he could go up in the AJ for the fun of it. Matt found him a ride with another pilot that afternoon, and one-half hour off the tarmac, they crashed into the sea.
My mother told me many, many years later that Bruce knew about her affair with Matt and left evidence of that knowledge. There was a life insurance policy signed by Bruce King that named Dottie King, Edward King, and Janet “Hollins” as the beneficiaries. There was no doubt that the different last name was intentional, and I guess Bruce King did get the final word on that matter.
In the Admiral’s autobiography, the crash was mentioned in half of a paragraph and was just a blip in Matt’s history. He was much too talented and too busy with his naval career to slow down and take responsibility for his other children or me. They might disagree, and I will never know their story or wish to interfere with the connections that each of my half siblings had with their father, the Admiral. I do know he had a brilliant and robust wife who stood by his side and raised a family with little help from her husband. She knew nothing about me, and Matt Hollins wanted to keep it that way. Was Matt distracted from having a relationship with his bastard daughter? Absolutely!
Early in Matt’s career, he learned that book-learning was extremely important and would be the key for his ticket up the ladder. After being a high school dropout, he graduated top in his class at the Naval Academy and flying became his passion. Whenever or wherever there was an opportunity to pilot a plane, Matt grabbed it and logged more hours in a cockpit than any of his contemporaries. He kept studying and taking courses on the side to become a nuclear physicist, which opened up a whole new world for him. The Admiral was a pioneer and assisted not only with the creation of the atomic bomb, but his team discovered the best way to carry this weapon to its enemy. During the war, he received numerous commendations and awards for chivalrous acts and courage beyond anyone’s expectations.
There was no doubt he was brilliant, and I was able to pass those genes to my three children, three grandsons, and my granddaughter. What else did this ancestry do for me?
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Demanding perfection is a double-edged sword. The favorable consequences are you exceed expectations of others. It puts you in the limelight and makes you eligible for promotions, possible fame, and an exciting life. The downside is a driving force that makes you highly competitive, subject to burnout, and sometimes challenging to be around. Boy, did I inherit that trait! For the Admiral, the results catapulted his career and took him to cutting-edge projects his entire life. Of course, there had to be a payoff. Something had to suffer, and I would say it was, most definitely, his relationship with me.
Tim Russert, an NBC bureau chief once said: “The older I got, the smarter my father seems to get” In my twenties, the absence of a father just plain hurt. There was no one to give me away at my wedding. There was a missing grandfather to introduce to my children. However, in my thirties, it was my incredible drive and persistence to have a better life that saved my a*$ and taught me how to soar. I credit this tenacity and perseverance as a gift from the Admiral.
Since Matt did serve during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency, it seems appropriate to share a Coolidge quote: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” This statement was my father’s ethos, and he passed it down to his daughter. It served him well, and it continues to help me with my daily life.
Being perfect and doing your best leads to a competitive spirit which also plays out in everyday life. The Admiral was a golfer and started at a young age to beat his father on the links. He finally did lower his score to the best golfer in his famil
y, but that was not good enough. While enjoying the sport, there was always that drive to lower his handicap and work harder to improve his game. The same was true for water polo. When he was at the Naval Academy, it was crucial to make the cuts to be the best and play for the Navy. I never played water polo in my life, but I have been playing golf for thirty years. My claim to fame is that I can outdrive most women and a few of those men that I already mentioned. When I get up on the tee box, it is imperative that I do my absolute best. Anything less is a disappointment. Please understand that I can be out on the golf course playing by myself with no pressure, out for a beautiful sunny day to relax, and my competitive streak kicks in. My mother was competitive, and this might be a curse that I inherited from both my parents.
During one of our rare luncheons that I had with the Admiral, we talked about being “too” competitive. He asked me to elaborate. I shared that a game of croquet with my family could turn bloody. Card games, especially Bridge or Skip Bo, were especially cut-throat and I would usually set the tone by doing everything in my power to win. A friend of mine and I were sharing breakfast with another acquaintance, Lisa, and she referred a massage therapist to both of us that she thought was quite good. I turned to my friend and told her that I needed the massage most, so she should wait and let me have the first appointment. Her response was: “You are too damn competitive. You always have to be first.” After telling my father these examples, I expected some words of wisdom that I could live by. My father said: “What’s wrong with being first?”
Comparing my father to an eagle is not by mistake. It is very intentional and meant as a compliment. You see, I have come full circle. I am no longer lamenting this complicated story of finding a father. I am genuinely grateful for the ones that I have had. An eagle stands majestically at the top of the tallest tree, surveys the land below with his keen eyesight, uses his broad wings to soar, and remains acutely aware of everything below him.
My father, the Admiral, was a great man and accomplished so much in his lifetime. I realize how fortunate I am to not only have known this wonderful man, but to be “his daughter” and proud of it. My legacy to my children and my grandchildren is rich because of who I am and who I am becoming.
Epilogue
I do not wish my childhood on anyone. I know that the search for my father and the discovery of my family would not have happened if I had not fallen out of the nest. Many people have it so much worse. I am not unique. My journey caused chaos, crisis, and damage to my loved ones. I wish that I could take that back, but I have been taught not to regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. Like most, we learn from our experiences, and we discover choices from our mistakes.
All the fatherly needs of feeling safe, protected, wanted, comforted, nurtured, and loved are right here. All my life I have compared my insides with everybody else’s outsides and always come up short. I believed everybody else was all “put-together,” felt loved, protected, and did not feel needy, vulnerable, or unsafe. It was an easy assumption to make because I never let anyone get close and I kept friends and family at arm’s length. It can be a big cruel world if you travel alone always seeking something outside of yourself. It does help, as a young child, to have a knee to sit on, a firm arm around your shoulder or a large hand to hold as you walk down the beach. The persistence, the grit, and the willingness to go forward when going backward might be the easy way out are “my” choices. It is time to turn roadblocks into stepping-stones.
Taking responsibility for my own parenting and being free to make healthy choices is a massive change in my thinking. I awaken to a new idea that I can love the child inside and stop the self-hatred that has dominated fifty years of my life. In this quest to find my father, I found myself, and I like what I have discovered. I am intelligent, attractive, capable, teachable, have self-dignity, self-worth, sobriety, and can stand on my own two feet. I like the quote: “I am woman; let me roar.”
Many women and men in this era grow up in families defined in new terms, blended, single-family, gay, raised by grandparents or relatives, adopted, and yes, cloned (in the near future). Families are no longer structured or judged by who the parents happen to be. It is the love that bonds the family and the values that bind the family. Love is the glue that determines the outcomes of happiness or emotional wellness.
Spending half a century and spanning half the globe, I acted frantically at times to locate one relative—my biological father. Just like the little bird in Are You My Mother? I looked in many of the wrong places but tirelessly continued the search for my lost father. He was not lost, and I paid a high price until he was found.
Do we do this in other areas of our life? The career that requires the eight-year commitment to a doctoral program, where all other aspects of your life must be put on hold, including family, friends, or other employment, is a good example. The goal is sometimes so focused, it can create a wasteland along its path. There is the young mother who when she was sixteen gave her daughter up for adoption. She is now forty-three and has spent twenty-seven years painstakingly searching for her lost daughter. This mother also has two biological sons, and they have suffered unquestionably and relentlessly through her efforts to locate this other child who is now an independent adult. These real-life accounts go on and on and will continue as we search for “true” meaning and “completion” in our lives. Continuing to look outside of ourselves does not work. I had to learn that the hard way. This life lesson did result in a shattered family that is still putting back the pieces. I paid a hefty price for my search, and my only hope is that what I learned be passed on to others so that they might benefit from my experiences. After all, that is the gift that we are genuinely given in life. We each have the opportunity to freely give to others what has been so freely given to us.
Today, I genuinely do live one day at a time, and I try to stay present and mindful in that special place. I am blessed to be surrounded by my black Labrador, Trooper, and my sweet Labradoodle, Chloe, who give me unconditional love on a regular basis. My devoted husband, Chris, continues to journey with me, support me, love me, and appreciate me for who I am. My son, my daughter, my three grandsons, and my granddaughter bring me incredible joy. All our parents have passed, but our family continues to grow with a new “daughter-in-law” this past year and two new “granddogs.” All the promises that people pledged would come true in my life are here, right here in my spirit. My biggest sorrow, the loss of my son David, remains a hole in my heart. It is incredible that twenty-five years after my son’s death, the feelings are still raw and ache all the way down through my body. Sometimes I do cry, but most of my emotions about my son continue to stay choked up in my throat. I do not think anyone can fill that hole, but I do try to be thankful for the twenty years of his life that we did share together.
Learning to fly, flying solo, flying straight, and soaring like an eagle have given me the courage to help others and be of service to my community. That is a significant endeavor, but I continue to put one foot in front of another and do the next right thing.
I invite you to do the same.