The rest is history.
That’s what I told my daughters, there in the car in front of the house, on the afternoon when I picked them up at middle school. Yes, I’d had an affair. And, yes, I was sorry. So extremely sorry. And, yes, God had wondrously, miraculously made all things new.
When I finished my story, I looked at my daughters, still through tears, and asked them what they thought about all this. To tell my complete story to my children, to admit to them I’d done things I felt very ashamed about, was at the top of the list of the hardest things I’d ever done.
Lauren stayed quiet in the backseat. I think she was still taking it all in.
Brittany spoke first. She spoke for herself and for her sister, as she had always done. “Mom, God has forgiven you. Dad has forgiven you. And we forgive you too.”
Lauren nodded and smiled.
God had brought about this day for a reason. It was such a difficult thing to tell the girls my story, yet I also felt happy that I didn’t need to carry the weight for another ten years or longer. God had brought us all back together, and now he’d brought about a new level of honesty. The secret was out. We were truly a team again.
Years later when the girls were in the early years of college, I was upstairs one night in Brittany’s room, hanging out with both girls. We were talking about something different, but for some reason my mind went back to the maturity of my daughters’ response that day in our driveway when they were both in junior high. Neither of the girls had gotten mad at me. Neither had shouted or stomped her feet or called me names, although they had every right to do so. They were filled with such graciousness and forgiveness, even as children. What they had said amazed me, and I wondered, Will they ever understand the priceless gift they gave me? It was still beyond my comprehension.
That night in Brittany’s room we were talking about Casey, a friend of theirs. She was the same age as the twins. Casey had experienced a much harder life, and we discussed our wonderment that she had traversed her experiences with such grace and strength.
Casey’s father had suffered a sudden heart attack and died when the girls were seniors in high school. I’d known her family. We all had. They were genuine, joyful people, high-octane types, and full of love as a family. This girl was extremely close to her dad, and seeing him die became for my girls one of the first seasons of suffering they had ever encountered on someone else’s behalf.
Casey’s family limped along without their father. Some days at high school, my girls told me, were very hard for Casey. She could be abrupt when she was around her friends, and she didn’t act like that normally. This girl was grieving deeply, letting the sorrow flow out of her.
Then, two years after her father died, another heartache struck. When it rained hardship on this family, it poured. Casey’s little brother Cody was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The disease formed a grapefruit-size tumor on Cody’s tailbone. He battled through chemo and radiation treatments, and for some time nobody knew if he would live or die.
This time, however, Casey navigated her family’s suffering with a new stance of determination.
I asked my daughters how Casey was able to do that. I was working to form an answer in the back of my mind, but I wanted to see how they might answer the question first. I thought about how life throws curveballs at everyone. Bad experiences happen to us all. Sometimes we bring about our own heartache—like I had done with my divorce. Other times the heartache is thrust upon us—like Casey’s dad dying and her brother getting sick.
Brittany spoke first again. The words tumbled out of her. “Casey told us there were moments of such huge pain that she just wanted to lie down and die. But because of her faith, she decided that no matter how miserable she felt, she wasn’t going to crumble under the weight of all the hardship that hit her. She vowed to keep going forward.”
Lauren looked up from the big, round, comfy chair in the corner of the room and brushed back a strand of hair. None of us knew it then, but a few years later her propeller accident would take place, and she would face a similar temptation to crumble under life’s hardships. I could see she was chewing on something big, perhaps a truth that had long existed deep within her character but had never surfaced before.
“That’s what courage looks like, Mom,” Lauren said, after she had thought awhile. “Even when life hits you hard, you keep on going.”
CHAPTER 10
The Beginning of a Calling
Lauren
Carter and I were dating.
Well, not for real.
I mean, Carter was the cutest guy in ninth grade, and we texted each other back and forth in the hallways at church youth group when we were both fourteen. We would tease each other about grades and the stinky sandwiches we brought to lunch at school and the crazy color of each other’s shirts. Some girls whispered how Carter and I were totally in love together forever, but I laughed at the idea. It was all just silly fun.
I met Carter at church. To be honest, I kind of hoped he would ask me out for real because he was a twin just like me and had a sly sense of humor, which always makes for a good friend. But I wasn’t going to do the asking. I doodled Carter’s initials next to mine on the front cover of my notebook at school, and we even went to a dance together once. Before the dance my mom called his mom, Sharon, and they compared notes like good mothers do. Mom saw right away where Carter got his kindness and quick sense of humor. My mom and Carter’s mom became lasting friends.
That’s how it went in early high school for me. The days were filled with innocent fun. Family life settled into that good routine of normalcy and security. Mom and Dad were together again. There were no more big secrets. Brittany and I dug into our schoolwork and played softball and practiced the piano and went to art classes and had crushes on guys and dreamed of the future—that was the extent of our world.
After school and on weekends, we hung out with a big group of girlfriends—Rebecca, Casey, Tiffany, McKenzie, and Caroline. We also got along well with a bunch of guys from our church youth group, and we would play “keep-away” wars with them. Somebody would steal somebody else’s hat and hide it, and then some guy would make a video showing the hat in different places all over town. We’d go to the park and play capture the flag at dusk, yelling and whooping as we ran around. Tiffany lived next to the golf course, and on weekends all the girls would end up at her house for sleepovers. We’d rent a funny chick flick and make dinner and play flashlight tag on the golf course. There was some girl-drama, but not much. We had a lot of wholesome fun together, and we created most of it ourselves. We weren’t wrapped up in any of the darker trappings of high school—drugs, alcohol, wild parties.
Of course, we cared about clothes. It’s a rule for teen girls. We even got competitive about it, which is easy to do, especially at that age. But the ultimate goal was for each girl to find her individual sense of style. Brittany and I weren’t wearing OshKosh anymore, like Dad used to get for us as kids. So that meant we needed to figure out how best to present ourselves to the world. I developed a passion for the style of clothes at Urban Outfitters, a store filled with racks of creative, organic-looking designs—hippieish stuff like cute-patterned tops, cool jeans, flats and wedges, a style that’s almost bohemian. Brittany’s style became more closely aligned with the store Anthropologie. She liked fitted clothes with empire waists—a more polished look than mine.
Our growth involved much more than clothes. Mom and Dad wanted to expand our horizons beyond Plano during those growing-up years, so during breaks from school they took us on trips around the country, and even on some international trips. We went to North Carolina, Colorado, San Francisco, New York, Greece, the Bahamas, and Canada. We visited relatives in Georgia, Ohio, and West Virginia, and quickly saw that not all of America grows up like we did in Plano.
“Plano is a bubble,” our parents told us more than once, and over time we learned what that meant. In West Plano it’s normal to receive a bran
d-new car for your sixteenth birthday present—and plenty of kids are bummed that their BMW isn’t the precise shade of red they wanted.
But that’s not how it was in our family. Our parents didn’t give us everything we wanted. We did chores around the house and worked in restaurants and at clothing stores to earn spending money. In eighth grade we began to volunteer at a community outreach program called H.I.S. BridgeBuilders in a not-so-affluent part of Dallas. We hung around with the younger children who lived there, playing games and doing crafts with them. It all helped shape a larger view of the world for us. “If you’ve been given much, then much is required of you,” Dad said to us more than once, paraphrasing Jesus’ words.2 It was a lesson we never forgot.
A lot of our friends started going to Prestonwood, a private Christian school down the road, and we transferred there at the start of our junior year. We wore uniforms at Prestonwood—pleated plaid navy-and-dark-green skirts, blue or white polo or oxford shirts, navy sweater-vests. Brittany and I didn’t mind the uniforms. We never had to think about what we were going to wear in the morning. Sometimes we didn’t even change when we got home from school because the uniforms were so comfy.
During spring break our junior year, our Spanish teacher arranged for students to travel to Cuba for extra language study. Brittany and I had grown up speaking a lot of Spanish, and the trip sounded like a real adventure—you couldn’t even get to the country directly from America. You had to fly to Mexico first and then enter Cuba. Mom and Dad came along as chaperones, which we didn’t mind. Once there, we were put into groups of four along with a national host, and we traveled out to the countryside to meet with people in their villages, speak the language, and talk to them about whatever was on their minds.
Mom, Dad, Brittany, and I were put in the same group, and everybody we met was superfriendly. Even though most of the people we encountered were extremely poor, they’d bring out coffee or tea or some food for us to eat. They’d invite us into their homes and tell us about the difficulties of living in a Communist country. There was no freedom of religion in Cuba, but everybody seemed to believe in something anyway. Some of the houses contained demonic-looking sculptures, images that the people worshiped, they told us. Some people were into Santeria, a mix of ancient African spiritism with some Catholicism thrown in. They asked what we believed, and we talked about Jesus. Nobody seemed to mind. Mom and Dad told the story of the split in their marriage being healed—a story that translated well in any culture.
One afternoon our interpreter invited us to his home in a little sugar mill town. In his yard was a huge pig. I thought about how great it would be to have your very own pig for a pet and asked what its name was, but our guide quickly made it clear that this was no pet. It was earmarked for dinner sometime soon. He took us on a tour of his house—two rooms total—and even showed us his closet. One lonely pair of pants swung next to a threadbare jacket. That was it. Those were all the clothes he owned. It was a real eye-opener to realize that plenty of people around the world live in similar ways. Before we returned to America, Dad emptied his suitcase and gave the man all the clothes he had with him.
The people who sponsored us in Cuba were Christians, and we were surprised to learn the depth of their faith. One day they looked tired. When we asked why, they told us they had been up until four that morning praying for us. It felt very humbling to receive that kind of blessing from them.
As it turned out, we had a reason to be extra glad they were praying. That same night we headed back to our hotel later than usual. We’d been driving in a little rental car—not one of those chrome-grilled 1950s American models you see driving around in Havana in the movies, but a tiny little compact—absolutely bare-bones transportation with a stick shift. Neither of my parents was used to driving a stick, so they’d been popping the clutch and stalling the car throughout the day. Brittany and I gritted our teeth in the backseat.
That night we were driving on a country highway and stopped quickly before making a left turn. The car stalled before we’d completed the turn, stranding us in front of oncoming traffic. Cars honked and swerved around us. Some drivers raised their fists. My parents frantically tried to start the car. I looked up and saw a huge truck, fully loaded, barreling straight toward us. The driver was traveling at highway speeds, and there was no way he was going to be able to stop or swerve quickly enough. “Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-m!” I yelled from the backseat.
Suddenly we felt something push the car forward. We cleared the lane just as the truck whooshed past us, its horn blaring. We thought another car had hit us from behind, but when we turned around to look, no one was there. There wasn’t another car in sight. Our car’s engine still hadn’t started. To this day, we have no idea what shoved our car forward.
After our adventures in Cuba, it was a relief to be back home. As we got older, we came to appreciate Prestonwood more and more. Almost all the kids who went there were serious about their studies. We immersed ourselves in chemistry, Spanish, history, Advanced Placement English, and Advanced Placement calculus. Calculus was probably my favorite class, simply because I loved our teacher so much. She was one of those highly dedicated, inspiring instructors that Hollywood should make a movie about. Brittany and I would go to her classroom during our free period and study calculus more just so we could be around her. I made a mental note to dedicate myself completely to my calling, whatever that was going to be someday, based on her example.
At this point, I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. Not an inkling. When I was a little kid, I’d dreamed of being a veterinarian because I loved animals so much. In high school, in addition to math, I loved anything creative—photography, fashion, and art. I didn’t like writing as much, even though the career aptitude test I took in twelfth grade indicated I should be a journalist. I certainly never loved writing in high school the way some kids do. I was more interested in style, color, and unique portrayals of people’s personalities.
Our graduating class consisted of eighty-eight students. Brittany finished second in our class academically and was the salutatorian. I finished eleventh, which I felt pretty proud of, although I knew I could have done better. Brittany stressed about grades, but I was more carefree. Grades mattered to me, and I was competitive in my own way, but I just didn’t worry much about grades like Brittany did. I had other things on my mind.
Much of what was on my mind centered around a football player named Tim. He was a year older than me and was good friends with Carter, my other close guy friend. At the end of his junior year, Tim asked Carter, “Would you mind if I asked Lauren to prom?” Carter said sure, so Tim asked me. I would have gone with Carter if he’d asked first, but he wasn’t making any moves. Tim played quarterback for our football team and was six feet tall with blue eyes and blond, slightly long, curly hair—a real Friday Night Lights type of guy.
At first, we just did a lot of talking; we were not officially dating. Then Tim was playing in an away game and got tackled head-on. He went to the ER that night with broken vertebrae in his back and was in a brace for months afterward. He never played football again. While Tim recovered, we hung out more. Soon we started spending so much time together that it felt natural to consider ourselves a couple. He was smart, funny, generous, and sociable—even when dealing with his painful injury. As he began to improve, we started going on more real dates.
We were never the type of couple who always obsessively hangs around each other, and we both liked that fact. It was a fun-loving, friendly relationship, a great introduction to the world of dating. We kissed and held hands, but that was the extent of our physical relationship. Brittany was happy for us; there was never any jealousy on her part. Tim and I dated all through my junior year and his senior year. When Tim graduated, he went to the University of Oklahoma, about three and half hours away, and for a while we committed to keep dating long distance.
I graduated high school in 2006 and attended Texas A&M University the next fall, along with Bri
ttany. I couldn’t tell you exactly why we picked that school. Some of our friends were heading there, and it was a good school academically with a lot of fun traditions. Both of us were General Studies majors at first—the equivalent of being “undecided.”
Texas A&M is located in College Station, about three and a half hours from our house, so we moved into a dorm on campus. The dorms were okay, coed but not wild, and mostly everybody did their own thing. We hung out with the friends we knew from back home.
Off-campus, it was more of a crazy environment, but even then not in a bad way. We went to all the football games and chanted along with the crowd. Everything with the Aggies is extremely spirited and rooted in long-standing collegiate traditions. We learned to do the drills pretty fast or else. During the games you put your hands up and shout “Woop!” really loudly. If you’re a freshman you point your hands one way, and if you’re a senior you point another way—and if any freshmen get caught doing the senior move, they’ll be punished. Everything is just silly and fun, and everybody says “howdy” and “Gig ’em Aggies!” I had a blast with that part of school life.
We discovered an awesome Wednesday night Bible study on campus that met in the basketball arena. Hundreds of students attended, and all these amazing speakers came in to encourage and challenge us, which was cool.
But sometimes I felt like I didn’t fit in at Texas A&M, and that feeling happened more and more often.
It took awhile to grapple with that feeling and even articulate it to myself. I began thinking through my life so far—what I liked and didn’t like, who I was and what I gravitated toward—and concluded I was more of an offbeat type of personality, while Texas A&M is more of an “onbeat” type of school. It’s like a tone or style or way of seeing the world. To me, onbeat describes a traditional, expected, staid, and predictable approach to life. Offbeat is quirky, unconventional, unexpected, and diverse.
Still Lolo Page 8