The Light in My Heart

by Jerry Rosendorn

  “Dr. Fox,” I said. “I feel good about myself. I’m on a road to success. I’ve worked hard on my education and spent sixteen years building my law practice. I’ve got a lot to offer a woman.”

  She took off her glasses and stared directly into my eyes.

  “Jake, your educational accomplishments and success as an attorney are not the entirety of who you are. A woman interested in you solely because you have a law degree is not the right woman. There are many elements that make up ‘Jake’ the person; I want to explore those with you. I realize that your work provides you with the satisfaction of helping others and you’re well paid for your time. But, can you walk in a park with a woman talking about things other than your work or your money? Can you look at a flower in that park and have something meaningful to say? Can you say the word ‘love’ in different ways? That’s what I want to explore with you.

  “You may have developed quite well in your ability to practice law and earn a living, but my feeling is that you have a lot to learn when it comes to relationships and understanding people. It takes a lot of sensitivity to understand the many variables of the human condition. People are motivated, stressed, delighted, and saddened by many things; it’s important to be able to honestly and clearly communicate these conditions with others so they understand who you are. Just as you learned to speak the legal language and think like an attorney, there’s a proper language to communicate who we are. This is a language expressing how we feel. Understanding this language will get you closer to someone and help you build a strong relationship. However, when people do not understand this language, they get frustrated and confused, and they end up pushing each other away.

  “The most important component to a relationship is communication. Would you like to learn more about communicating? If you learn that language and learn to express yourself correctly, it will open your mind to learning more about yourself and others. That information will be the key to helping you find the right mate. But Jake, it takes time and practice. It’s not something you can learn in one session. How long did you go to law school?”

  My face showed she made sense to me. “Three years.”

  After another long stare into my eyes, she finally said, “Are you committed to come and teach me about you and to learn from me?”

  I paused and looked away from her. I was at a crossroads wondering what to do. I looked back at Dr. Fox; I knew she was looking through me. She knew I thought I could come to her office for fifty minutes and walk away with the answers to all of my questions. Instead, she was challenging me to make a commitment to her.

  I was stalling with my next question. “Dr. Fox, has anyone else ever come in here with my type of problem?”

  She smiled, knowing I was buying time.

  “Patients come see me with a variety of issues dealing with their relationships. When I first meet each patient, I tell them the same thing:

  ‘The journey to resolve the problems in your life begins with an understanding of who you are and the only way to truthfully answer that question is to dig into your inner being.’

  “Jake, I want to explore many areas with you. For example, can you get close to another person? Do you trust people? How do you deal with the stressors in your life? How can you enrich your life? Can you learn to express yourself in a clear language of relationships? Jake, are you prepared to take a journey into your being?”

  I now understood that my approach was wrong. I wasn’t here to just listen to her give me all the answers. Instead, I needed to work and look inside of myself. I felt resolved and asserted, “Okay, Dr. Fox. I’m committed to spend time with you and take that journey. When do we start?”

  She opened her appointment book.

  “Can you come each Monday at five o’clock? Bring your mental shovel. You’re going to do a lot of ‘digging’ for me; you can’t spare any details.”

  The anxiety I’d felt when I entered her office was gone. “Yes, put me down. By the way, how do I pay you?”

  She wrote some more notes on her pad and then looked up.

  “My rate is ninety dollars per hour. There’s no charge for today. Starting with our next session, payment is due at the end of each session. I’ll see you next week.”

  Chapter 3

  1950-1962

  I was raised by two ostriches. When I was growing up, my parents always had their heads in the sand; they lived a simple life. Their advice to me was to work hard; keep my money in the bank (never in a savings and loan); keep my expenses down and get a job working for the government. Unfortunately, as I was growing older, their advice failed to address one of the most important aspects of life: Becoming part of a loving and lasting relationship.

  The ostriches were “creatures of habit” always staying close to home. They never invited our family or friends to come over to our house. I don’t remember when the two of them ever went out to dinner or a movie. Their idea of entertainment was to stay home watching television. Cultural events were out of the question; they never took me to a play or a concert. The only outings I looked forward to were a visit to the local cafeteria for my birthday and a short summer vacation trip.

  Cafeteria birthdays were simple: I was allowed to order anything I wanted—not exactly extravagant since no item cost more than a dollar. Their birthday gift to me was always the same: A five dollar bill. They claimed I had everything I needed; encouraging me to save the money for a rainy day.

  For two days every summer, we drove to San Diego where we stayed in a motel near the ocean. Our trip always included a day at the beach, eating at a local diner run by a guy named Eddie, and before we drove back to Los Angeles, a visit to the race track where my father placed two dollar bets on long shots.

  We lived in a sterile environment with one television set in the living room, a radio in the kitchen and one in my bedroom. There was no music to play on a phonograph, no books to read on the shelves, no photographs to admire on the tables, and no artwork to inspire on the walls. Our cold house was reminiscent of a picture I once saw of a Russian home in the 1950’s.

  Even though my basic needs were met, I developed an insatiable desire to experience the richness of life; to clothe myself in travel, books, art, and music. Most importantly, I wanted more people in my life.

  From an early age, when I became interested in girls, there was no one at home I could talk to about my feelings. I remember trying to approach my father, but he interrupted me saying, “Don’t get involved with girls. Keep your mind on your studies. If you get involved with girls, it’ll only lead to trouble. Look at me; I didn’t start dating until I was thirty-one.”

  He spoke with pride about not dating until he was thirty-one, leaving me to wonder what he did for all those years. Since my father was born in 1914 and he married my mother in 1945; she must have been his first date. In my mind, while my father saved himself for the right woman; he missed out on a lot of living. But it wasn’t just my father; my mother expressed these same feelings about getting involved with girls.

  My mother would constantly say, “Study hard so you can get into college; when you’ve studied enough, play sports.” This was the mantra I heard during my entire childhood.

  I always questioned my parents’ advice. Girls seemed nice; I enjoyed being with them. This created a conflict for me as I tried to reconcile my desire to be with girls against my parents’ advice to stay away from them. The answer to my conflict was simple: I would see girls, but not tell my parents; I didn’t want to disappoint them.

  My first close friend was the girl next door named Christy; we played together almost every day. I liked being with her and our play was very innocent. Yet, my mother discouraged me from getting too close to her. “You’re Jewish and she’s Christian; you can never marry her.” I received this sage advice at age four.

  In 1951, when I was one, we moved to Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. We’d
been living in an apartment in East Los Angeles, in an area called City Terrace. As an infant, I cried constantly. After many warnings, the landlady approached my mother, “You’ve got to go. I can’t stand his crying anymore; he’s disturbing the other tenants.”

  After receiving the bad news, my mother turned to my father and asked him to, “Go find us a house. You’re a veteran; go use your benefits.”

  My passive father yielded to my mother and began to look for a house. After seeing several advertisements in the Los Angeles Examiner, he drove his 1946 Dodge to the Valley to see a new housing project in Van Nuys.

  Having no idea what type of house he wanted, my father visited three furnished models in the housing development. Once he heard the price, he knew he’d found our family the right home.

  The house was about thirteen hundred square feet with two bedrooms, one bathroom and half of another, a den, a living room, and a very small kitchen. The property included a one-car garage and a small backyard. The selling price was eleven thousand, five hundred dollars. Since my father signed all the papers on the spot, we were able to move in that same summer.

  My father was never into material things. He was very utilitarian; with price being the most important selling point for him. He looked for bargains and was always willing to buy something used. The only new car he ever bought was a 1962 Dodge Dart for two thousand dollars. The rest of his cars were used; among them was a taxi he purchased in the early 1960’s for two hundred, fifty dollars at a Yellow Cab auction.

  I remember the day my father drove home with that taxi. My mother just learned to drive so he gave her our other car, a 1958 Buick Special. When I first saw the taxi, it looked funny, but it was fun to ride in with the taxi signs and a big comfortable taxi-style back seat. With the taxi bright yellow; my father took it to Earl Schieb to have it re-painted beige.

  To my father, a car was nothing more than a depreciating asset whose sole purpose was to get you from one place to another.

  I quickly discovered the best thing about living in our new neighborhood was its many young families with kids. I had plenty of playmates including my next-door neighbor, Christy.

  The neighborhood streets also served as a playground. The lightly traveled side street I lived on became our favorite playing field: A baseball diamond in the spring and summer; a football field in the fall and winter.

  But, when I was five, I went from joy to sadness when Christy’s family moved away, leaving me heartbroken. I remember staring out the window as their belongings were loaded into the van; then, they drove away. I wondered if I would ever meet someone like Christy again.

  That year was important to me for another reason. In September, I started kindergarten. I remember the first day of school and walking five blocks hand-in-hand with my mother to the local elementary school where she delivered me to my teacher.

  When I arrived, I looked around the room at the kids who’d be my classmates for the next thirteen years. With my long thin body, I was one of the tallest students in my class.

  In those days, most kids attended public school staying together from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Society wasn’t so mobile; families didn’t move away from their neighborhood.

  While private schools existed in Los Angeles, they catered mostly to kids who were behavior problems. Everyone else in the neighborhood went to the local public school for their education.

  On my first day of kindergarten, once I became interested in my female classmates, I found myself forgetting about Christy.

  As much as I enjoyed elementary school and having rarely missed a day; things changed in the fall of 1960. In October, when the New York Yankees were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series, I desperately wanted to watch the final game.

  In 1958, when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, I became a big baseball fan. Most summer evenings, I’d go to bed listening to the game on my radio. The best part of the game was hearing Vin Scully describe the action interlaced with his stories about the players and the history of the game. He had a way of bringing the plays to life; I credit him with educating me on the finer points of the game and I became a better fan by listening to him.

  In addition to following the Dodgers, I liked the New York Yankees; Mickey Mantle was my favorite Yankee player. In 1960, I hoped the Yankees would beat the Pirates as the series was tied at three games each coming down to the final game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. My problem was the game was being televised live on a school day morning in Los Angeles.

  Because I had to see this game live, for the first time I faked an illness so I could stay home from school; I complained of a sore throat and fever. I put on such a great act, my mother bought it; I was able to watch the game while she went grocery shopping. It was a thrilling game and I got to witness one of the greatest moments in baseball history. Bill Mazeroski, the Pittsburgh second baseman, hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Yankees. Disappointed as I was that the Yankees lost; I felt some guilty joy in having fooled my mother.

  In the third grade, my elementary school love life began in earnest. On the first day of another school year, along with my old classmates, I saw a new girl named Annette. She was tall, with long light brown hair, blue eyes, and a pretty face. Best of all, she was wearing a party dress; she stuck out like a swan among ducks.

  The kids in my neighborhood never dressed up for school, but our clothes were always clean; simple everyday attire. The boys wore T-shirts and blue jeans while the girls wore blouses and skirts. A party dress was reserved for very special occasions. Even though I’d never experienced a special occasion, I still knew party dresses were over-the-top for elementary school.

  I kept staring at Annette and felt drawn to her. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get to know her, but I was nervous. Should I approach her and strike up a conversation or just admire her from afar? Just when I was most frustrated with my dilemma, the answer arrived on top of my desk. During the second week of school, I received a note from Annette asking me to meet her on the school yard at lunchtime. I couldn’t believe it! The pretty girl wanted to talk to me; what should I say to her?

  At lunchtime, I slowly approached Annette. I was still trying to figure out what to say, when to my amazement, she was quite bold asking me to come over to her house the next day. She lived in a blue house on Hatteras Street, a more upscale neighborhood in Van Nuys. I was excited, but what would I tell my parents? They would never let me go over to her house; they’d never understand my desire to visit a girl at the ripe old age of eight. I had to figure out what to tell them.

  While pondering this dilemma, my classmate Darryl walked by; the answer suddenly came to me. Darryl lived around the corner from Hatteras Street, and even though I couldn’t stand Darryl because he was a liar and a cheat, I was willing to set aside his shortcomings and offer him my friendship in exchange for a play date at his house.

  Since my mother encouraged me to play with the boys in my class, I told her I was going to ask Darryl if I could ride my bike over to his house after school. Once my mother agreed, I approached Darryl, who was always eager for friends. He quickly agreed and my plan was now in motion.

  The next day after school, I rode over to Darryl’s house. I told him it would be fun to ride our bikes around the block. Once I convinced him, I pointed him in the direction of Annette’s house.

  We started riding passed Annette’s house several times. I was too scared to knock on her door; but I hoped she’d hear us and come outside. Each time we rode past, I made lots of noise until it finally worked.

  Annette came out of her house and approached me wearing casual clothes, but looking every bit as pretty as she did at school. She looked at me with a big smile and said, “I’m so happy you came over.”

  I had butterflies in my stomach; it was hard for me to speak. Finally, I muscled up the courage and said
, “Annette, I like you a lot.”

  Her expression changed; I could see a cunning look on her face. After a few seconds, she inquired, “What are you going to give me to show how much you like me?”

  Her question took me by surprise; I’d never associated giving gifts to people except for birthdays. I thought about my parents for some help, but it was hard for me to remember ever seeing them being affectionate toward each other or buying one another a gift. Then, I recalled my mother telling me about one gift she bought my father.

  “I once bought your father a shirt for our anniversary. He opened the box and frowned; he didn’t like the color. I returned the shirt knowing I’d never buy him another gift.”

  I had to carefully think about this; I didn’t have any role model to follow. What types of gifts did men give to women? Then, it came to me that I’d seen enough television shows to know the answer. A man gives a woman a ring. But how do you describe a ring? Finally, I remembered a show about someone getting engaged. I told Annette, “I’ll get you a ten-carat ring.”

  She looked puzzled for a second and then threw her head back and laughed, “Oh, I get it. You’ll give me ten carrots. That’s a funny joke.”

  I had no clue what she was talking about, but I was happy I made her laugh.

  I rode back home from Darryl’s house floating on air; my thoughts were consumed with my sweet Annette. However, this wonderful dream was to be short-lived.

  One week later, it was over for me. Annette became interested in one of the other boys in my class who had a fancy pencil and eraser set. In fact, in the weeks that followed, she decided she liked every boy in the class; she even kissed a few of them. This was the first time I encountered the phrase, “loose girl,” when another girl in my class used this term to describe her.

  By Thanksgiving, Annette was gone. Her parents took her back to the private school she previously attended after leaving a trail of at least a dozen broken hearts in the third grade; as well as alienating almost every girl in my class. I could now understand why her parents put her in private school to begin with.