My Days

by Marion Ross

  That evening, we returned to the Happy Days Farm, and by the time we got home, he seemed to have calmed down a bit. The next morning, whatever it was that had been bothering him seemed to have passed, and we went out for breakfast. After we ate, we returned home, and I told him I was going to run a few errands. He was doing what he always did when we returned from breakfast: sitting out on the patio, smoking a cigar. I remember it was a very hot day, and as I got ready to leave, he came inside to answer the phone. It was one of his sons, who told him he had made plans to come and see him for his upcoming birthday.

  After he hung up, he mentioned something about the heat and said he was feeling a little light-headed and was going to lie down on the couch. That was not like him at all, but I figured that it was awfully hot out and that perhaps if he took a short nap, he would be feeling better when I returned.

  A few hours later, when I arrived back home, I was surprised to see he was still asleep on the couch. “Hey!” I yelled at him. “What are we doing? Sleeping the day away? What’s that all about?”

  Having heard me return, Gwen came downstairs from the office and began going over some messages that had come in. As she was talking, I stood watching Paul, who had never responded to me. I felt a wave of panic rush through my body.

  “Gwen! I don’t think Paul is breathing!” I yelled as I ran over to him.

  She immediately called 911, and they gave us instructions on how to perform CPR. I frantically followed their directions until the paramedics arrived and took over. I had gotten no response from him, and neither did the paramedics, who finally made the decision to transport him to the hospital. Once he was there, they managed to get his heart started again. I don’t know how long it had been that his heart wasn’t beating, but it had to have been at least forty minutes by that time, and he was incapable of breathing on his own. When they let me see him, they had him plugged into everything imaginable and his condition was dire. To be honest, I think if it were not for the machines, he would have really already been gone. And yet I was convinced, in spite of what the doctors told me, that he would somehow pull through. They kept him on the respirator for two days, and then, when it was clear that there was no evident brain activity, we let him go.

  It was July 8, 2011, and for the first time in twenty-three years, I returned home without the welcome of that big grin, hug and kisses from Paul. I was completely numb, and I have only the foggiest recollection of that night and the following few days, as we informed friends of his passing and made his funeral arrangements. His funeral service took place the following week at Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon Church near Beverly Hills. I don’t remember much about that week or even the service. I have always been the type to accept things and move on, but this was different, something like I had never before experienced. I felt as if things weren’t real, and when I would come out of my numb fog, I would feel such pain that I didn’t see how I could move on, or even know if I wanted to. I was as broken as I had ever been.

  I do have this foggy memory of sitting in the church, listening to Paul’s son Matt give a beautiful eulogy and seeing all the people who had come to pay their respects to Paul. There were so many people—dear friends of ours and even friends of his whom I had never met. They seemed to have come from everywhere. Along with Paul’s son, he also had five great nieces who were there, and they were just wonderful to me. That’s what I remember. Beyond that, it is all a blur, as was much of the remainder of 2011. I had experienced loss in my life—my mother, my father, and my brother, Gordon, who had died in 1995—but the loss of Paul truly broke me in a way I didn’t think I could be broken. He was truly my soul mate, and there was no doubting the fact that when he went, he took half of my soul with him.

  The holiday season of 2011 was especially difficult for me. Paul loved the holidays—all the decorating and cooking and family and commotion. That was his thing, and having that first Thanksgiving and Christmas come without him was unbearable. I really have no idea how I got through it all, and had it not been for Jim, Ellen, Gwen and a few other close friends, I don’t know if I would have. I was physically and mentally in a place that I had never been before. And yet I knew that, just as in many other instances throughout my life, somewhere deep down inside of me, I did have the strength to be able to eventually accept Paul’s death and heal and move on. It wasn’t easy to muster up that strength; in fact, it was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my entire life. But as the weeks became months since Paul’s passing, I could feel that strength gradually returning and clearing away the fog.

  As 2011 gave way to 2012, I began to think about returning to work. In fact, I actually started looking forward to it. I had committed to doing a play in Canada—Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers—before Paul died. The plan was that he would accompany me, but heartbreakingly, that was not to be. I knew it would be good for me to get out of the house and to be back on the stage. The preparations to leave for Canada, rehearsals, opening night and the run of the show diverted my thoughts, and for the first time in eight months, I felt life creeping back into my body.

  During the final week of the play, Gwen flew up to meet me, and we prowled around Toronto for a few days before heading on to New York, where we spent a few days before taking a train up to Connecticut to visit Gillette Castle, the home that was commissioned and designed by William Gillette, the actor best known for his numerous theatrical portrayals of Sherlock Holmes from 1899 to 1932. The reason I wanted to see Gillette’s residence was to do some research. I had committed to doing another play, The Game’s Afoot, in the fall in Kansas City. It was a comedy about William Gillette that took place at his grand mansion overlooking the Connecticut River.

  After doing that play, I returned home to Los Angeles and continued to take on roles in various television series and made-for-television films. Doing what I loved, and being with people that I loved, was all a part of the healing process for me.

  I have often said that the nice thing about life is that within our one life, we can have many very different ones. For so many years, the love that I so desperately hoped to find—that all of us hope to find—had eluded me. But I was lucky. It took me sixty years to finally find it, but I did, and my years with Paul were truly the happiest of my life. I just wish they could have lasted longer. No, let me take that back. I wish they could have lasted forever.

  Chapter 26

  My Days (Which Just May Never End) at the Happy Days Farm

  From the time I finally decided to write this book until I finished telling the tale of my days, I added two more years to my life. In 2016 I decided I would pull back from actively pursuing work, especially in live theater, with its high physical demands. I figured if something came along that interested me—a film or television role in a production being done here in Los Angeles—I would consider it. But as for actively knocking on doors, those days were over.

  As much as I always truly loved to work, I am also enjoying my quiet and relaxing days at my home, which I also love. I love to be at home, and my days here are as lovely as one can imagine. Gwen still comes to work every day, and we both have a grand old time dealing with all the workmen who are here at the Happy Days Farm, so much that one would think I’m some sort of a modern-day Sarah Winchester, the eccentric woman who became obsessed with constant work taking place at her mansion up in San Jose.

  Although I have never cut the wood, hammered the nails, poured the cement, or done any other part of the physical remodeling of my home, I love to proudly state that I did build the place. I honestly feel that to be true, because everything that exists here does so because I imagined it and designed it . . . with a little help from a wonderful architect. My home reflects my personality in every way. When people come to visit me, one of the first things they notice is that I have very few curtains or drapes in the house. I love things to be very open and bright. I love when the sunshine boldly bathes each room in light.

  The architect who helped me envision what the Ha
ppy Days Farm would look like was very good at getting into my head and my thought process. He spent a tremendous amount of time with me and wanted to know a lot of details as to how I live, what I like, what I need, what I do, the type of environment I prefer—all sorts of things. It was very exciting to watch this house come together. We knocked out walls and put in beautiful stained-glass windows. And then I filled the house with things I love, like a drawing of Paul in the role he was born to play, Zorba the Greek; a magnificent chandelier from Austria; and a wonderful old grandfather clock that was a part of the set in a play I once did in Maine with Gavin MacLeod. I just fell in love with it, bought it, and had it shipped to California.

  I also have these beautiful oriental rugs I bought somewhere in Asia during one of our Happy Days softball tours. I just fell in love with these beautiful rugs when I saw them, and yet the old prudent side of me kept debating whether or not I should buy them, because they were ridiculously expensive, and on top of the price, I found it was going to cost me another fortune to have them shipped to the United States. As I was standing there debating with myself over whether or not I should get them, the man who was showing us around came up and whispered to me, “I think there may be a chance we can get the U.S. Army to transport them for you.” How the heck he planned on doing that, I didn’t know. I still don’t, and maybe it’s best that I don’t. All I do know is that his offer was enough of an incentive for me to buy them, and the army did come through.

  One of my more recent acquisitions is a cuckoo clock I bought in Bavaria. It was another outrageously priced item that, like those rugs, just reached out and pleaded with me to take it home. It was a totally crazy impulse buy, but what the heck. I wanted it, and it looks beautiful in my sunroom, which, by the way, is my favorite room in the house. It’s open and airy and has lots of light. I love to sit there when I read. It is also where I love to sit and chat with visitors, and I always know the time, thanks to that little cuckoo bird.

  I will sometimes sit there in the late afternoon, when Gwen and all the workmen have gone, and just think back over my life. I would imagine that is something most people do when they are in their late eighties and have so many wonderful memories to recall.

  I also think about the world as it is today. I am truly shocked and awed at the advances, in just about everything, that have taken place during my lifetime. Today’s world is one that would be very foreign to my parents and totally incomprehensible to my grandparents. In many ways, the world today is one that moves too fast for me. I am really rather out of touch with a lot of it, especially the technology, which, at least from what I see, seems to change on a weekly basis, if not quicker. I just don’t know how people keep up with it all.

  I do keep up to date on the news of the day, depressing as it sadly seems to be. But I’m not obsessed with knowing about everything that’s going on. I think the constant bombardment from all these news and information sources just sucks the happiness and creativity and optimism—even the very soul—out of people. I know there are a lot of horrible things happening out there, and while I’m not one to completely stick my head in the sand, I think everyone would be a hell of a lot happier, and a lot less stressed, if instead of spending so much time watching the cable news networks, sitting at the computer, and checking the phone, they took some time in the late afternoon to sit quietly in their favorite room thinking about their past with a little dog by their side.

  I know that some of my friends have overwhelming concerns about the world their grandchildren are inheriting. Well, I have concerns, too. But I don’t fixate on them, and frankly, I don’t worry about it all that much. This planet has a history of bad times—horrible times—and it seems that there are always enough good, decent and smart people who come along to figure out how to fix things and keep it all going in somewhat the right direction, until someone else comes along and messes it all up again. I think that is just the cycle of this world.

  I am an extremely optimistic person—always have been—sometimes to the point of being viewed as a Pollyanna. I am, by all means, aware that we are in a period of time that is terribly chaotic, not just in foreign lands and third world countries, but right here in the United States. But I travel a bit, and when I do, I still see how much beauty exists in our world and how many lovely people there are everywhere. I don’t lose sleep about the world my grandchildren, and even their children, will live in. I believe they will be just fine. They will have some tough times, like all of us have had. But their generation will produce wonderful people who will lead them through to the time when, I would expect, as elderly people, they will also worry about the world their grandchildren will inherit.

  I am now of the age that causes people to think I have lived long enough to have figured it all out and to have some sort of sage advice and wisdom to share. Well, I may have learned a couple of things along the way, but I don’t think any of us really ever figure it all out. We just have to do the very best we can.

  I do think we have to be more willing to let people be who they are, instead of trying to mold them into what we think they should be. When I was the mother of two young children, I was very keen on enforcing rules and a moralistic code so that they would be imprinted on my children and would make them the way I wanted them to be. Of course, just like any parent, I did that out of love and to try to help them be the best they could be. But as I got older, and a little more wisdom started to creep in, I gradually began to let go and let them be who they were, which resulted in the wonderful people they have become. Oh, and as far as my grandchildren go, well, they can do no wrong, so I just give them free rein to do whatever they please. That is, and always will be, the best and only advice you can give to other grandparents. Offering anything else would just be a waste of breath.

  But I must say, I am always intrigued and curious about the connection people make with age and wisdom. I don’t know.... It seems to me that in my life I have met some extremely wise young people and some awfully foolish old people.

  Another thing I have found you are frequently questioned on once the age of eighty is in your rearview mirror is if you have adopted any philosophy on aging.

  Well, my answer to that is a simple one: “No!”

  I am so lucky to be in great health, and there is nothing about me that feels old. I don’t even know what “old” is supposed to feel like. I know some people who say they have made peace with their age. That’s not for me. How can you make peace with something you aren’t at war with?

  I would say that the only philosophy I have to offer has nothing to do with my age. I believe that the most important thing a person can have in their life is a dream that they never lose sight of and that they work as hard as they can to achieve it. That’s my philosophy today, and it was my philosophy when I was a little girl, one who did just that.

  One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare is one he wrote for Julius Caesar: “Men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

  To me, that line says that just believing in destiny and not acting toward the accomplishment of your goals will lead you nowhere. Is there such a thing as destiny? I believe there is. But I also believe, to a large extent, we can and do control it.

  I decided very early on what my dream was, and then I worked like the blazes to follow a path that would make that dream come true. It wasn’t some sort of a sprinkle of fairy dust from some benevolent godmother that made it happen. Even when I was very young, I knew there would be no godmothers or fairies or brownies or wood sprites, or whatever you want to call them, who would come swooping down on Albert Lea in search of me and would make my dream come true. I knew there was only one person who could make it happen: me!

  I think the reason I thought that way from the time I was very young was that that concept was instilled in me by my mother. She was a strong and self-reliant woman who always taught me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. When
you are told that over and over from the time you are a child, it becomes a part of your DNA. I believed that with all my heart because I heard it so often. We are all being inspired or being discouraged constantly by the things we are told or that we hear or read, or by talking to other people. Having that kind of positive inspiration is so important when it comes to fulfilling our dreams and our destiny.

  I cannot recall a time in my life when I didn’t wake up in the morning and say to myself, I’ve got to do this today, and I’ve got to do that tomorrow, and I’ve got to start working on something else next week. This was all geared toward making my dream a reality. I was like that because of the gift I received from my mother: an inner strength, determination and strong will to do whatever needed to be done. I think that this, along with unconditional love, just may be the greatest gift a parent can give to their children. It was because of that gift that a lot of things happened to me throughout my life—good things, bad things, great things, unbelievable things—and I take full responsibility for making every one of them happen.

  Another dreadful question that is always posed to octogenarians (and I’m sure to nonagenarians also, as I will learn soon enough) is how they would like to be remembered. I don’t think, as the years go by, that I’ll be remembered much. Oh, I may get a fleeting mention from time to time when the history of television is reviewed in some retrospective and when classic shows like Happy Days are remembered. But I’m not one of the giant icons of the industry, like Marilyn, who even all these years after her death is still known to people of all ages by just her first name. That is just fine with me. I have always had the healthy ego of an actor, but I have never been an egotistical person (there’s a great difference, you know). So it doesn’t bother me that in fifty years, the image of me in a perfectly pressed dress and with immaculately coiffed hair, serving a platter of cookies to teenagers, won’t immediately come to mind if anyone just says the name Marion.