My Life, Deleted

by Scott Bolzan

  She smiled and pushed me away playfully, saying, “You don’t understand how many times we’ve heard these songs.”

  I put up the decorations and lights on the outside of the house—without Grant’s help this time because I didn’t want a repeat performance of the previous year’s debacle. He was still living with his girlfriend, and because of his behavior on Thanksgiving, we invited him over to open gifts on Christmas morning but told him he needed to find somewhere else to eat his holiday meal.

  I felt conflicted about his not being there. Part of me was relieved—as were Taylor and Joan—that the remainder of our Christmas Day was markedly more pleasant without Grant upsetting any of us. But Joan, who always wanted everything to be peaceful and joyous, was also very sad that the whole family couldn’t be together. It bothered me to see Joan and Taylor so distracted, wondering if Grant was celebrating somewhere with a Christmas tree and if he missed being with us, all of which made me anxious because I couldn’t fix this.

  It was a family tradition to take a photo of Grant and Taylor lying under the tree with all the gifts and discarded wrapping paper and bows. So Joan, trying keep with the annual ritual, had me lie down with Taylor, and as we were laughing she snapped our picture. Still, it wasn’t the same without Grant.

  Chapter 23

  TAYLOR HAD APPLIED TO the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and was ecstatic when she got accepted that summer. Watching her jump up and down, yelling, “I’ve been accepted! I’ve been accepted!” I figured that the emotions she showed after meeting the first of many goals she’d set for herself must have been similar to how I’d felt when I’d won my football scholarship to NIU.

  Then it hit me. Oh, God, now I’ve got to pay for this.

  Despite our financial problems, Joan and I still felt strongly that we wanted to pay for her college education, so Taylor and I sat down one afternoon while she was on Christmas break to come up with a game plan for getting her some financial aid. Her off-campus housing and tuition were going to cost $60,000 for the two-year program, and we certainly didn’t have that kind of money anymore.

  Seeing that neither of us had experience with seeking financial aid, I thought it would be a good lesson that both of us could learn together. Taylor pulled a chair up next to me in front of my oversized computer monitor, and we Googled financial aid for college. We clicked on the sites that listed programs offered by the federal government, which we both felt were a good place to start.

  I sensed that Taylor wanted to take the lead in this project, and because I was feeling inadequate, I was all for it. She kept rattling off terms such as “FAFSA” and “ACG,” which meant nothing to me.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and Academic Competitive Grants,” she said.

  I knew what student loans were, but I didn’t realize that scholarships and other funds were available for students who weren’t athletes, such as Pell grants for low-income students. As Taylor explained this to me, I loved letting this seemingly worldly high school student be my teacher.

  We found the various applications online and plowed ahead despite my fear that I wouldn’t know the necessary information. Once we saw the list of questions, Taylor tried to reassure me.

  “Oh, this is easy,” she said.

  Most of them were in fact easy, but when it came down to financial queries such as “mother’s and father’s income,” both of us were lost on where to get the answers. I knew Joan and I had made very little this year—only the salary that Joan had earned during her seven months at the hospice.

  “I have tax returns; would it be on that?” I asked Taylor.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope so.”

  I pulled open my desk drawer, found the file of returns, and the figures were right there. All we had to do is transfer them onto the application. Under “projected income” for me in 2010, I put 0 because that’s what I’d made in 2009. When it got kicked back, asking for 2010 projected income, I entered the same information.

  Every time I looked over at Taylor, I could see the passion, the determination, and the drive on her face. Joan had told me and I had observed for myself that Taylor was creative and self-disciplined. She knew how to meet a deadline, and she worked well under pressure. I figured I must have had a lot of self-discipline to train and get good enough to play football, so I hoped she’d gotten at least some of those traits from me. I’d also noticed that she made up checklists, just like Joan said I used to do while running the aviation business, a tool she must have picked up while she and Grant were helping out, cleaning and restocking the aircraft.

  I’m sure most fathers would have been able to complete the applications without their daughter’s help, but I wouldn’t have changed our time together that afternoon for anything.

  At seventeen, Taylor seemed so mature. I tried to imagine Joan at this age, knowing that I didn’t meet her until she was eighteen, after she’d already started college.

  Was Joan just like this? Was she this mature and patient with her father?

  Taylor and I discussed her “visual communications” major while we were filling out the applications.

  “Tell me again what that is,” I said. “What exactly do you want to do with visual communications?”

  She explained that she would study how to strategically design displays, placing and dressing mannequins, for example, to create an environment in stores that enticed people to buy things. But she had bigger plans and higher aspirations than that.

  “I want to be a stylist like Rachel Zoe on TV,” she said, referring to the fashionista to celebrities who had her own reality TV show.

  I didn’t know who this was, so Taylor said she would show me an episode that she’d saved on the DVR, which would give me a firsthand look at her dream career.

  I agreed, but I dragged out our time at the computer as long as I could. I’d wanted to look smart for Taylor and show her that I could teach her something. I’m not sure I succeeded, but I tried to convey the message that even if you don’t know something, you can figure it out by yourself or by putting your head together with someone else.

  Afterward she led me into the family room with some kettle corn and put on an episode of The Rachel Zoe Project.

  “Let me show you what I want to do,” she said, revealing a whole new world that seemed a little over the top, considering the flamboyant way the characters talked, dressed, and carried on. I could never picture Taylor like these people, but if this was what she wanted, I wasn’t going to judge. Okay, maybe a little.

  “Taylor, really?” I asked.

  “I love it!” she said.

  “They’re running around like they’re crazy. Can you do this?”

  “I hope so!”

  Taylor gestured in her usual dramatic manner as she described what was going on and how it fit with her goals. “Oh, you’ve got to watch this part!” she kept saying, just like her mother did when we watched TV or a movie together. I found it interesting that Taylor and I were both using the same medium of TV to learn about the world.

  It was a bittersweet afternoon. With only ten months before she was going to move to Los Angeles, I was determined to enjoy every remaining minute with her that I could.

  Once we learned that all her loan and grant applications had been approved, I felt proud. Even though I no longer had an income, I’d done my part by ensuring that her education was paid for.

  Come January 2010 we finally sold the boat for $215,000, which was $35,000 less than the offer we’d turned down a year earlier because we’d thought it was too low. We took a pretty big loss over what we’d paid, but the economy was still terrible and we really needed the money to live on.

  Finally feeling ready to get back to work, I switched over my virtual office so that my business calls went to my cell phone instead of going straight to voicemail. I also started doing some consulting work for a Brazilian compan
y that wanted to buy a Learjet 60 midsize corporate jet, a gig I’d gotten through a new networking acquaintance of Joan’s. I still wasn’t capable of doing my old job, and Joan was concerned there was too much liability for me to even try, but I felt able to handle the more limited task of selling a plane, so I gave it my best effort.

  I found a company in Switzerland that had a jet but was in default on its loan, which looked like the perfect match for my client. Problems arose, however, when the Brazilians wanted me to give them all kinds of information on the plane before we’d signed a contract. After seeking the advice of a couple of former colleagues, I realized that if I complied, the Brazilians wouldn’t need me anymore. As a result we couldn’t reach an agreement and our relationship ended in a stalemate. No sale, no commission.

  I felt like a failure. The old Scott surely would have closed the deal. But after giving it some thought, I decided that overall it had been a good learning experience about what to do and not do. Bottom line was that I needed to study the business much more before trying that again. The problem was that I’d lost all my previous passion for the aviation business.

  After spending a third of my life playing football, I’d lost my passion for the game too. I wasn’t even a real fan these days. I was more interested in what the game used to mean to me and my teammates and what it still meant to society in general. I didn’t see professional players acting like role models as they did in the old days. Too often they got into the news for disrespecting coaches and referees, doing drugs, and getting arrested. I still believed that playing in the NFL should be viewed as a privilege and a badge of honor and that players should show more reverence for the game.

  But as careers, football and aviation were of no more interest to me. Today my professional passion lay squarely in sharing my story, trying to make a difference and achieving a new form of success.

  We’d been through two Christmases now, and I still hadn’t seen snow anywhere but on television. With both of us having little success finding work, Joan and I were going a bit stir-crazy, so we watched the weather forecast closely for the mountain town of Flagstaff, Arizona, which was a few hours’ drive away.

  I’d watched the winter Olympics on TV, which looked like fun, and blizzards and twenty-car pileups on the news, which didn’t, but I was still very curious to know what snow felt, smelled, and tasted like.

  “Is it safe to drive when it snows?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah, it depends on how much it snows,” she said. “Sometimes you need to have chains on your tires.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but Joan assured me we wouldn’t go unless the conditions were safe.

  Some of my most memorable moments of discovery in the past year, when I’d experienced appreciation for the beauty in nature, had come when we left town. In Oceanside I’d seen the ocean and made love to Joan, all for the first time. In Hawaii we were surrounded by pineapple fields, coconut and palms trees everywhere you looked, and I learned there were a zillion varieties of tropical flowers. When we went snorkeling in the clear, warm turquoise water, the most gorgeous tropical fish swarmed around me: neon yellow, black with white spots, and long skinny noses. I only wished I’d spotted one of the sea turtles that Joan had described.

  On a headache-free day when the road to Flagstaff was clear, we booked an overnight stay at a bed-and-breakfast there and set off on our adventure. I’d looked on MapQuest and found that the route was a relatively straight shot north on Interstate 17. What MapQuest didn’t mention was that this was a twisty four-lane road of switchbacks as the elevation climbed from 1,000 feet above sea level to 7,000 feet at our destination. Nor did it mention that the scenery would be absolutely breathtaking.

  I’d taken my first airplane ride when we’d flown to Dallas in the spring of 2009, turning to Joan when I felt a painful sensation, as if my ears were closing in on themselves. “What’s going on with my ears?” I asked her. “They’re starting to hurt.”

  Once Joan explained that all I needed to do was swallow to clear them, I settled down.

  As we were driving up an incline toward Flagstaff, I now knew why I had that feeling in my ears again. “My ears are popping because we’re getting higher,” I said, pleased to have a chance to apply what I’d learned.

  Surrounded by canyons on either side, I’d been watching the signs marking the increase in elevation and opened the window. We were doing seventy-five miles an hour as the frigid air rushed in.

  “This is great,” I said. “We don’t need air conditioning.”

  Sure, I’d seen different landscapes from across the country on TV, but I’d thought that Arizona, at least, was all the same—hot, flat, and dry desert. But outside my window, I’d been watching the sand, cactus, and brush slowly disappear and fill in with increasingly green canyons and rocky mountains in all different shades of gray, brown, black, and the rusty reds of Sedona. There were also patches of white stuff on the ground, which I assumed was snow.

  When we were almost to Flagstaff, we pulled off at the scenic turnout to take a look. As I stepped out of the car, I immediately realized that, unlike watching TV or looking at a picture book, I could look way down into the valleys, which started with greenery at the top and ended in beige rocks and gravel below. I discovered in the process that I didn’t like heights; they made me feel queasy and unsettled, which may have been partly caused by the loss of vision in my right eye. The wind was blowing, and I was worried that if it didn’t blow me over, the ground was going to collapse under me and I might tumble all the way to the bottom.

  The mountains in the distance seemed flat and faded while the closer ones looked more vibrant and colorful, and I could see the sharper details in them, the jagged rock formations that drew stark lines against the cloudless sky. “This is amazing,” I said, marveling at the grandeur that surrounded me from every angle. “You can’t see this in a picture. This is something you have to see in person.”

  Joan had already explained depth perception to me in relation to my vision loss, but I’d never been able to appreciate it from such a dramatic and magnificent vantage point. “You know there’s a God when you look at something like this,” she said. “Only a God could make this.”

  I felt small compared to the vastness of the scenery around me, overwhelmed by it all. After watching so many science programs on TV, I knew that rivers had carved out the Grand Canyon many centuries ago and that if I asked a scientist about the landscape before me, he or she would probably offer a very different origin than Joan’s. I couldn’t relate to what she was saying, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment, so I just went along.

  “Okay,” I said.

  As we crossed the Flagstaff town line, the ground was now completely blanketed with white and the forests of pines were so thick you could barely see between them. We pulled off the right shoulder of the road in an area that had been plowed, where it was clear on my side of the car but not on Joan’s.

  I walked around the front of the car and heard an icy crunch under my rubber-soled suede shoes as Joan took off toward the trees. I followed, sinking deeper into the snow up to my knees. In the clearing ahead, three families with small children were sliding down a hill on a cardboard slab, whooping and laughing with simple pleasure.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Just keep walking,” Joan said, pointing at the footsteps in the snow in front of us. “They did it.”

  We walked another hundred yards or so to a place where the air was completely still, silent, and wonderfully peaceful. All I could hear was the breeze whistling through the trees and the occasional soft thud of a pinecone falling to the ground, sounds of serenity I’d never heard before. With all my senses on high alert, I watched a couple of birds soar overheard, bigger birds than I was used to seeing at home. They were also flying lower, so I wondered if they were looking for rabbits or squirrels.

  “Are there bald eagles up here?”

  “I’m not sure, but they migh
t be hawks or falcons.”

  I craned my neck, gazing up at the treetops, which had to be hundreds of feet high, several times taller than the palm trees I was used to seeing. It was probably thirty degrees out, but the sun was shining, and the reflection off the snow was so bright I wished I hadn’t left my sunglasses in the car. Although I knew I’d grown up in the snow, nothing felt familiar, even to the touch. Still, I wondered if perhaps my remaining emotional or muscle memory might explain why I felt more of a connection to the snow than I had to any of the sights in nature that I’d seen in Hawaii or Oceanside.

  The snow felt cold and wet but softer than the ice cubes we had at home. As I picked up a handful, following Joan’s lead to pack it into a ball, she threw hers and hit me in the chest.

  “This is what you do, huh?” I said, feeling a rush as I threw one at her, hitting her in the back as she turned to avoid the blow. We both laughed, pushed each other down, and thrashed around like two little kids. I grinned as I imagined doing this many times growing up.

  Besides reveling in feeling like an excitable child, I discovered some natural wonders that day that were more amazing than any others I’d witnessed since my accident. It was a most welcome change of scenery.

  In early 2010 Grant called one evening, looking for Joan. When I explained that she was at a charity event and Taylor was working at the restaurant, he asked if I was home alone.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Motocross is on. You want me to come over and teach you about it?”

  I had watched motocross several times, but I wanted him to explain it so I could see his passion and intelligence at work in something we had done together. But as inviting as this sounded, Grant didn’t usually ask or offer to come over unless he had an agenda, so I couldn’t help but wonder. Still, I hoped that this time his motive would be pure and we could have a quiet visit. I really wanted to feel the love for him and his love for me that we must have shared in years past.