And I even looked better; my skin was clear and I didn’t look like death warmed over. I could actually breathe; I smelled good, I looked good—and I almost felt good about myself.
One of the few people who have ever touched my soul was Heather Nichols. She had the ability to talk to me in the innocence of youth, and yet she had desires and emotions equal to my own. In many ways we were a lot alike, looking for ourselves among the crowd of kids that surrounded us. We both wore our feelings on our sleeves, but found it incredibly hard to communicate exactly what we really felt—except to each other. Inside we had issues in our own minds and in our own hearts, and we understood the difference.
It was as if emotionally we were the same, the only difference between us being that I was almost twenty-three and she was coming up for ten.
Of all the kids and all the different personalities that made up the Nichols home, Heather was the one that I wanted to understand the most. I thrived on her ability to express herself. As with most nine-year-olds, she often didn’t know what it was she wanted or needed, but she was able to talk to me in such a real and honest way. I wished I had been like her at that age.
I guess throughout my short years with the Nichols family, I always thought of myself at different stages when I looked at Heather. I could relate to what she felt inside, even though the confusion and unsorted feelings were caused by such different events in our lives. Of course, she was oblivious to how I knew of the importance of sharing your feelings. She just did it because it was part of her style. It had taken me years and years to get to that point, and she was already there at the age of not quite ten.
About the same time I was having those issues with Steve and becoming aware that I had to grow up and be my own person, Heather taught me something that made the transition from teenager to adulthood meaningful. As we talked about everything from having a “dumb younger brother and mean older sisters” to the feeling we sometimes shared that “no one loves or understands me,” I realized that she had no idea of just how innocent her world was. She never knew anything of this at the time. She had no fears of sleeping at night, no fears of being hurt or belittled beyond ridicule. She certainly couldn’t comprehend one symptom of the fear and pain I carried around: oftentimes I would catch myself crying as we talked. It just touched me so much that a child could be that innocent and think the world was falling down around her when in reality she was free as a bird.
The biggest concern she had was the normal rivalry of siblings. I reminded her that her brother and sister, Steve and Wendy, loved her and didn’t mean to be older—they just were. Being the middle child, she had her share of being stepped on and over, but she never knew just how good she had it.
Heather had no problem speaking her mind or sharing her feelings with me. Often we would sit together on the back porch. She was able to talk to me as an older brother and as an adult as well. I had to hold back my true feeling that her concerns about being “lost in the crowd,” real as they were, were actually a blessing, and something I had always coveted.
So many times I wanted to just reach out and hug her, and cry with her. I wanted to just let it all out as she did so many times. I so desperately wanted to cry as a child would, as Heather did. In many ways I envied her the luxury of being able to talk. I recalled so many times when I was her age, having such a fear of adults that I stuttered constantly. I couldn’t string two words together, and yet here she was talking to me and sharing her feelings and letting me help her sort them out. In so many ways I wanted to be Heather, to relive my early years all over again. If she’d had her way we would have traded places. Or rather, truth be known, if I’d had my way, we would have.
Each time I sat and talked with her, I got a little closer to understanding myself. The feelings I’d had as a kid were so opposite to what Heather was going through that it made the difference as clear as day. Whereas I learned from Steve and Wendy the importance of being oneself, I grew to understand childhood through the eyes and heart of Heather Nichols.
I learned from Heather the importance of being a child.
The person that was the easiest to appreciate and get to know was Wendy. I had known her as a small child, but now that she was sixteen, she was very much her own person. She had a good sense of what was right and what was wrong. Her desire to embrace music and to achieve above average marks in school made her the brainiac of the family group. She had a sense of pride that I could only dream of.
Heidi, at the age of thirteen, was also easy to talk to. She was just getting out of the awkward preteen years and into the really awkward teenage ones. She had the ability to charm when she wanted to, and to stand up for herself when the occasion demanded.
The two girls were opposites. They needed each other, and yet were rivals. Their relationship reminded me of the one I always wanted Scott and me to have. We had our own issues with each other, and Wendy and Heidi Nichols did too. But Wendy and Heidi cared for each other, like sisters do. Heidi would never admit it out loud, but they needed each other both as sisters and as friends.
Wendy was able to make achieving one success after another look easy—it came natural to her. Her confidence and her desire to learn more and more were fueled by the support of her parents and a belief in herself. She went in for more activities than I can remember, and appeared to enjoy making order out of chaos. Heidi thrived on chaos, too.
Heidi was also an actress waiting to blossom. I would marvel at her ability to turn on the charm, and at her refusal to give in, no matter what the issue.
I had never really, deeply, loved anyone before. There were people that I enjoyed being around—and yes, people that I loved. But not like the twins, Adam and Amy. They taught me the meaning of brother-and-sisterly love.
They were the same age I was when my life was just starting to be a living nightmare. But Adam and Amy were so far from what I was when I was six years old. I loved being around them. I loved their freedom and their love of life. Often, when I thought of Adam, I thought of myself at that age. I so wished I’d had his love for life. But I couldn’t allow anyone to know that Adam was so special to me. Without knowing my background, it would have been just too odd to understand. I saw in Adam everything I’d wanted to be. I saw in him the little boy I never could be.
When I arrived at the Nichols home, Adam and Amy were five years old. They soon became the high point of any day for me. They were loving and carefree and I envied their innocence and the internal beauty they showed me.
They were also my safety valve. Whenever I felt sorry for myself, or felt like I was not moving along at the pace I should be, I would spend as much time with them as I could. They were able to remind me of what life should have been like for me at that age. I was so excited to watch them learn to express themselves and be comfortable as the children they were. They had no fear of anything. They were real and they were tender.
Adam and Amy were the reason I finally became comfortable with the notion of being a father. I thought a lot about eventually having kids, and wanted so desperately for my own kids to love me like they did. I was convinced that someday, when I got myself together, I would be a father and my kids would be just as beautiful as Adam and Amy, both on the inside and on the outside.
Just as I did from the rest of the Nichols family, I learned a great deal from those two. I learned how to be patient and how to love life as they did. (One of my few disappointments to do with this period of my life would be to miss them growing up.)
Secretly I struggled with the overwhelming questions:
Could I ever be a parent?
What if what Mom did to us was out of my control and was a part of me that I had yet to discover?
Was I going to be an abusive parent?
Walking Adam and Amy down the street in a twin stroller, listening to them talking to each other though not really understanding too much of what they were saying, I began to see that fatherhood was perhaps a dream for me. Something I wanted, and yet so
mething I was not sure I could ever achieve. I knew that anyone could be a father. The dream was to be looked up to like I looked up to John and to be respected and truly loved like I loved Darlene.
Adam and Amy helped me realize that even the most seemingly out-of-reach dreams can come true, if you truly want them to.
13
JOHN AND DARLENE
John and Darlene, in their early forties, were more loving than I, at the age of twenty-three, could comprehend. They loved life, they loved each other, and they loved their kids. But what shocked me the most was that they loved me: they actually loved me. John and Darlene nurtured and taught me as only a mother and father can do.
Darlene was the one that eventually got through that thick layer I created on the surface. She had something that I never did. She had real faith in herself, her husband, her children, and God.
JOHN AND DARLENE WORKED hard to keep the kids happy and clothed. I truly felt that having one more—me—wasn’t going to make much difference. John worked long hours and weekends, but he always managed to find time for the kids and for others, too.
Since I never really had one before John, it’s hard for me to define a father figure. He was strong and yet gentle, firm in his beliefs yet flexible in his judgment.
I have only a few select memories of my real father’s face. I spent most of my young life without a father. John’s fatherly love for his family was so foreign to me that I had to work to understand it. He tried hard to treat me like one of the kids. Inside, though, I was scared. He intimidated me. I wanted never to disappoint him, and to earn his respect. I know that oftentimes I fell short.
I loved my real father—he was my father.
But I loved John Nichols—he was my dad.
One of the mistakes I made during that time was not making that perfectly clear to John. Even to this day, I haven’t. Had I not been so angry at the drastic difference between my real father and my dad, perhaps I would have been able to share that. John’s ability to guide and support my emotional and spiritual growth was special to me.
But if there was one person who really saved me, it was Darlene. She taught me about self-respect, respect for my body as well as my mind. Her lessons, either by commission or omission, were always right on target. Her love for her children and her love for life were what I needed to see as a young man. She taught me so much more in the few short years I lived with the Nichols family than I had ever learned from my real mom.
Sometimes I talked to John and Darlene about my goals and what I wanted to do with my life.
I had been working at a Ford truck dealership with Ron. For a while I enjoyed the company and the work. But as always I needed a better-paying job. The Ford Pinto I was driving at the time was falling apart and I just couldn’t keep it running on the salary I had. I took another job, a better-paying one, as a parts delivery boy at another Ford dealership.
As I started to befriend some of the other guys my own age at the dealership, I quickly realized that I had to be strong in my resolution to remain drug- and alcohol-free. Many times after work some of the guys would go out for beers and we would go bowling. The temptations that I was exposing myself to were the worst part of being in that setup. I knew exactly what they were talking about each Monday after a weekend of getting high, drinking, and picking up girls. On the one hand I wanted to join them and smoke myself into the Stone Age again, and on the other I wanted no part of it. I wish I could say that the temptations went away and I overcame the desire, but the only thing I overcame was my sitting on the fence.
Richmond had several churches that were attended by young single adults only. They were designed to help people with the same beliefs and values to share and grow together. Some members went to the services or functions only on rare occasions. I could tell that sometimes they felt comfortable with their peers and other times they didn’t. I understood what they were feeling. As the weeks went by, I made a friend of one of the girls who had lived a lot like I had done. We talked and exchanged our memories of the good and the bad in that reckless lifestyle.
But the struggle to stay clean and drug-free ended up a losing battle for me.
Ron and Chris had been actively after me to go dancing with some girls they knew, and being as tempted as I was to go over the edge, I thought it a good idea and a safe place for me to be. So I agreed.
When I turned into the parking lot that evening, I saw that it was full, so I had to park around the back. Behind the dance hall, just a few yards away, was the house of one of the kids I worked with at the dealership. As I parked the car, he called out to me and invited me to the party that was going on at his house with his brother and a few girls they knew.
I turned and looked back at the hall, and felt that old feeling of confusion I knew so well. The decision I made that night was one of my worst.
I walked across the hall lawn, up the driveway, and into the house, then closed the door, leaving Ron and Chris wondering what had happened to me.
Within a few hours I was drunk and stoned out of my mind. But I wanted to be polite. I wanted no one to know that I thought the drugs at the party were too simple for me, childish. As usual, though, my mouth failed to obey my mind, and I made such a big deal about the choice of drugs.
“These are ridiculous. Don’t you have any real drugs?” I said.
It took all of about two seconds for me to see that I was out of control and making an ass of myself.
When the morning light reached the bedroom I was sleeping in and I realized that the girl next to me was a total stranger, I panicked. I knew where I was and yet I didn’t recall anything.
I gathered my clothes, but couldn’t find my contact lenses. I knew that I couldn’t drive without them, but I had to leave that house as soon as I could and make my way back home.
I spent the whole of the drive back thinking about what I would say to John and Darlene. They would be concerned if they knew that Ron and Chris had seen me pull into the parking lot, then not seen me again.
Darlene opened the back door before I could reach for the handle. The expression on her face changed from worry to disappointment the minute she saw me. I looked hungover, and I was. I looked like I’d slept in my clothes and I stank of smoke and booze.
The one person that I always wanted to make happy and whose confidence in me I was desperate to hang on to, was now seeing just what I was capable of—still—and how easily I could be tempted. It took a long time to live through the disappointment and the embarrassment. I vowed that I would never place myself in that position again. I’d learned that I still wasn’t able to handle temptation.
It was several weeks before Darlene talked to me again like she used to. I felt her disappointment, and I understood it. I was crushed and embarrassed, and so was she. I had to accept that I had limitations, and I had to not only accept them but live with them, too. For the first time I sat down and took an inventory not only of what and who I wanted to be, but of who and what I couldn’t be.
I’ll never forget the disappointment on Darlene’s face that morning. I vowed to always think of it when I needed a reason to turn around and walk the other way.
14
ON MY OWN
The three hardest years of my life—odd though this may seem—were between the ages of twenty-four and twenty-seven. I wasn’t a child. I wasn’t a teenager. But I wasn’t yet a man, either. I still didn’t know who or what I was. I was a tardy teenager, lost somewhere in the middle.
I was on my own and responsible for my actions, and for myself. I was truly alone. But it was the beginning of the change.
IT HAD BEEN NEARLY three years since I’d moved out of the Nichols family’s home. They had moved to another state, and the few friends that I’d made were off to college. I was left to figure it all out. I hadn’t spoken to Mom or any of my brothers for a couple of years.
It hadn’t been difficult, being on my own. I was working at a state job in Richmond as a weights and measures inspe
ctor for the Department of Agriculture. It was a basic nine-to-five job. There was nothing special about what I did. There was nothing special about myself, either. The constant reminder that my friends were off at college was aggravating. There was little chance of me getting into college. Despite all the love and care I’d received from Darlene and John, from the whole family, I didn’t have the self-esteem to even try.
I started to see more of one of the girls I had met at a singles gathering, and it wasn’t long before Jennifer and I were spending most evenings together. Being introduced to her family was difficult. I found that I really didn’t fit in. I had no family nearby, and my real one wasn’t a good topic for conversation. Jen’s parents thought it odd that I never talked about my family. Whenever they planned a family event, they would ask if I wanted to join in.
I learned a lot from Jen; I learned that honesty really is the best policy and that if you are going to build a real relationship there cannot be any secrets. But I couldn’t open up and share what I was before we met. Unfortunately, we didn’t last that long.
We had a normal platonic relationship. Often I would sleep over in a separate room after a long movie or after spending time together. Jen would get up for work, and I would leave as she did, for my job.
One evening after we’d all gone to bed, her father, Buddy, checked on the two of us. I was in the guest room sound asleep, and Jen was in her bedroom. As Buddy opened the door to the room, I sat bolt upright in bed, and as he opened the door farther, I moved away from him. His reaction to this behavior was more than surprise. He was shocked that I could jump from asleep to awake in a split second, simply from the sound of the door opening.
A Teenager's Journey Page 12