Mom had also written a long e-mail to our new pastor after his sermon on why we should care about the environment, which I shared with Mauru when we started dating. It was two years after we’d moved to San Diego, so things weren’t as bad as they are now, though many of the indications were already there, even to those who chose to deny it.
Mom showed the e-mail to Dad, who said she shouldn’t send it because people in the church were already calling us “The Ws” because of how “wrong” Mom was. Mom was also stubborn, and she believed strongly that certain things were clearly right.
Mom sent the e-mail to me for feedback before she sent it to Pastor Jim.
“Dad says I shouldn’t send this to Pastor Jim,” Mom said, “but I find Pastor Jim glib, Janet. There he goes, constantly talking about the environment and all that nonsense when there are people struggling to put food on their tables right here in San Diego. Janet, tell me whether this makes any sense. Give me your honest feedback.”
Dear Pastor Jim,
My name is Gazelle Whitaker, and I offer my opinion with “a good conscience” (1 Peter 3:16).
First, I remember your inaugural sermon about “giving to God what belongs to God.” I gave you a pass on that one since we all make mistakes. (Romans 3:23.) Everything already belongs to God, so why should we give Him what already belongs to Him? If you go to someone’s house and everything already belongs to him, how are you going to give something in that house to him when he already owns it? (Hebrews 2:10.)
Today you spoke about the environment, and I thought you were glib. Here’s why I thought that you were glib:
The Bible says that we are to take care of what God has given us. (Genesis 2:15.) The words “greenhouse gas” and “climate change” are nowhere in the Bible. Can you point me to the chapter and verse where God says, “climate change is here” or where the Holy Spirit says that we should recycle our plastic bags or the apocalypse will come?
I also looked for the words “carbon emissions” in my concordance, and they’re not there.
You said that our cars are polluting the air and adding to greenhouse gases. Are you willing to hold a fundraiser to replace our cars and pay for higher insurance costs? And, why are you making us feel guilty about driving cars that the federal government says are safe? Do you know something our government doesn’t?
You said airplanes are also causing climate change. How do you expect me to see my family in New York or Southern Africa? Do you expect me to drive there and increase“carbon emissions”?
It is my Christian duty to speak up when people are starving in our state, and you’re talking about greenhouse gases as if those gases would put food on their table tonight. Women are still treated worse than men, and we’re still paid less, and I’ve never heard you give a sermon on the equality of women or how much we’ve been forgotten in history.
When will you talk about ending the violence in our state and our nation? When will you talk about depression, drugs, and mental illness, which make so many in our state hurt themselves, drop out of school, and hurt those around them?
Remember Matthew 23:23: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin [sic], and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
If I could drop my tithing to 5 percent a month in spiritual protest, I would. 10 percent is mandated in God’s Word as the absolute minimum. (Numbers 18:26.)
In Spiritual Protest,
Gazelle Whitaker.
Mauru loved the letter.
I thought it an embarrassment.
Mom couldn’t possibly believe half the things she’d written. She was thoughtful enough to know that Pastor Jim had done the right thing to talk about what was all around us.
Of course, half the things people say or do have nothing to do with the obvious but with some hidden motivation that is the key to all of their actions.
Mom, quite simply, thought that only those above a certain age, say, forty, had something interesting to say. She was fifty-five when she wrote the letter, the “age when you benefit from the wisdom of life’s trials and tribulations, Janet. It’s just the order of things, Janet.” Someone as young as Pastor Jim Beira, twenty-eight years old, had to be a “pretentious idiot” to think that he had anything to teach her or anyone else about the environment before he’d aged appropriately and had gone through “the trials and tribulations of life.”
“But your mom is right,” Mauru said. “People should speak to their constituents in ways that bring the message home, Jan. Who’s going to care about something that seems so, um, so cerebral, so scientific, as climate change if they don’t have enough money to pay for their next meal?”
“But Mom has more than enough money to pay for all her meals,” I said. “She has all Dad’s money. Anyway, she’s not sending this message. It will be the end of us in that church. We already have a reputation because Mom campaigned against hiring Pastor Jim since he’s the youngest pastor Mom’s ever seen. The congregation has grown under his leadership, but the ‘Old Guard’ (which means Mom and her friend, Helen) have locked horns with him whenever they can.
“They went to Pastor Jim and said the church should open a mentoring program in the community, and Mom and Helen would supervise it. Pastor Jim supported the idea 100 percent, and then after a few weeks of mentoring, Mom and Helen lost interest, stopped attending meetings, stopped responding to calls and e-mails, and when Pastor Jim asked how he might help, they said they’d be in touch. They just blew him off. He had to create another committee so that dozens of disadvantaged kids didn’t end up without mentors. It’s just embarrassing.”
“But your mom’s still right about the issues that matter, Jan,” Mauru said. “No matter how bad something is, people still want you to convince them that it matters to them, individually. It’s about marketing. The environment needs more than the fact of its own collapse as its advertising agency. A pastor whose training is in guiding God’s lambs to the gates of heaven needs to prepare them for an actual sojourn in the desert before they get there. He needs to make people care. It might strain belief that there are still people who don’t believe that climate change is a major problem of our time, but your mom’s letter is proof. I like that e-mail. She should send it.”
“But it’s everywhere in the news,” I said. “And we’ve already got migrants here because of it. It doesn’t make sense to send it.”
“Then Pastor Jim’s going to have to speak to people about the issues they really care about and make a link to those he believes they should care about more,” Mauru responded. “Pastor Jim should tell his congregation where women’s rights and other social justice issues fit into his concerns about the environment. It sounds like he hasn’t, and at least one person in his congregation is offended by that.
“I also think, Jan, that deep down your mom might feel like she’s not being heard, like another issue is coming and putting all the others on the back-burner, which she’s probably seen happen so many times before because the new stuff always seems more urgent and important. Pastor Jim needs to hear your mom, to really hear her, and he needs to respond to her and to so many others who probably share your mom’s concerns.”
It wasn’t the first time Mauru thought Mom had a point. Mom believed that I should live on my own until Mauru and I were married, that I shouldn’t tell Mauru I loved him until a few months after he’d said it, and that the man always sets the pace for the relationship.
“If you try to take these things away from him,” Mom said, “he’ll find a woman who’ll keep him on his feet, and you’ll hear that he married her a few months after he dumped you. It’s just the way men’s brains are wired, inferior, and there’s no use trying to change what God made that way, Janet.”
When Mom heard that Mauru was on her side, she said she’d made a mistake by calling him “glib.” Dad, who did almost anything to p
lease Mom, said we should have Mauru over “for a retake,” which meant that I’d introduce Mauru to my parents again, and they’d finally appraise him as worthy of marrying me—or not.
It was a rocky dinner. And that’s putting it lightly.
“Welcome,” Mom said as we arrived for dinner.
Mauru brought Mom a box of white chocolate truffles (her favorite), a bouquet of proteas (her favorite), and a bottle of Chartreuse for Dad (his favorite).
“A drink?” Dad asked Mauru. “We only drink in this home on special occasions.”
“That sounds great, Mr. Whitaker. I’ll have whatever you’re having.” Mauru shook Dad’s hand.
I’d told Mauru to never address Dad by his first name “Derick,” no matter how much Dad insisted because Mom would call him “glib” again, and Dad would say he’s “smooth like butter.” First names were only permissible to family members of equal rank, and even if we got married, Dad would never let a child, which is what a son-in-law was, address him by his first name. It was “Mr. Whitaker” until marriage and then “Dad” afterward. For similar reasons, Mom would never be called “Gazelle” by Mauru, and she’d be “Mrs. Whitaker” until she became “Mom.”
Dad served the Chartreuse as an aperitif; he almost always had it as a digestif. Mauru, who’d never had Chartreuse before, commented on its emerald color and nearly coughed when he smelled it. Trying to impress Dad, Mauru downed the shot glass of Chartreuse all at once and ended up coughing it back up.
Mom and Dad just stared at him, amused.
“We eat dessert first in this house,” Dad proclaimed. “So, we’ll start with pecan pie. Gazelle made the pie, and we hope you like it, Mario.”
“It’s, it’s Mauru, Mr. Whitaker,” Mauru said apologetically. “My parents sometimes make the same mistake,” Mauru said. “They, they also sometimes call me ‘Mario.’”
Mauru was lying to be polite, and my parents were lying about the order in which we ate our meals.
“Dad, since when do we eat dessert first?” I asked. “You never eat dessert. Mom hasn’t made—”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Dad said as he continued to relish his Chartreuse. “Nothing wrong with switching things up every so often, Janet.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mom said.
“I love pecan pie.” Mauru smiled as he ate some. “We have it at Thanksgiving, and I once tried to make some and burned it. This is just great. Thank you so much Mrs. and Mr. Whitaker.”
Mom smiled. “Eat up,” she said. “There’s a lot more where that came from.”
“Mom,” I nodded, “this is really good.”
Dad stared at Mauru and me.
“So,” Dad said to Mauru, “what do you think of the word that shall not speak its name in this home?”
Dad was referring to the word “Affie,” which was a terrible slur used to refer to African climate change immigrants.
Mauru and I both choked on our food.
“Why,” I suggested as I cleared my throat and took a sip of water, “don’t we just focus on the food, Dad, or the weather? Why spoil the evening?”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Mario,” Dad said as he put his fork down. “Janet is the only child we have. Even if she weren’t the only child we had, we’d still want to know that we’re marrying into a family that will honor us and our background as equals. We’re proud of who we are, where we’re from, and we’ve got nothing to apologize for. The problem with our country, and I mean the US, is people beating about the bush. People don’t say what they mean anymore. Everything’s ‘awesome,’ ‘wonderful,’ and ‘great,’ and then they stab you in the back. Janet says you’re really serious about her and you treat her really well. We told her when she was this tall that she should never bring a man into this home that she didn’t want to be her husband because we weren’t going to have it.
“Did I wish my daughter would bring a Southern African man through that door? Sure, I did. Did I wish Gazelle and I could have chosen that man for our daughter? Sure, I did. Did I wish she wouldn’t have become a legal secretary when we paid for her to go to the University of the Finger Lakes? I did. But one thing you learn quickly as a parent is that your daughter doesn’t belong to you, and if you want her in your life, you do everything to support her. You do your very best to ensure that she’s taking care of herself the same way you’d take care of her. So, I’ll ask you again. Have you ever used that word?”
“So, thank you so much,” Mauru said, “for inviting me to your home, Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker.”
Mauru’s hands were trembling as he spoke, and I could feel his legs shuffle about.
“I, I honestly don’t know how to answer that question,” he said. “Have I ever used that word? So, um, I, I’m going to be, um, totally honest and speak in good faith because I’m not the person I was in high school.”
Mauru fidgeted about and looked at me.
“I, um, I, um used that word in high school.”
“How old were you?” Mom asked. She wiped her lips with her napkin and stared at Mauru.
“I, I’d just turned fifteen. I was an angry kid. It’s not an excuse. I was suspended from one school and expelled from another. I’m so sorry.”
Dad stared at Mauru and at me.
I thought of all the bad things I’d heard Mom and Dad say about people from all sorts of places. None of it was excusable, acceptable, but I wasn’t about to confess.
Mauru was still shaking. He’d just done what I later learned was probably the Catholic thing to do, which is also what the child of a psychologist might do: find someone in a position of authority and divulge his sins.
The relief that came from expressing regret for his sins at high school, no matter how old they were, was worth the humiliation and discomfort of resuscitating his shame in front of my parents.
I wanted to hug him and walk away from him. Instead, I enjoyed the beef bourguignon in front of me.
Mom, I could tell, felt sorry for Mauru now, and she looked at Dad, and they talked briefly about the weather.
Dad told us he was glad that Mauru’d come to dinner because Dad could see that Mauru really cared about me, and he was an honest man.
Mom wanted to know whether Mauru’s parents still lived in Sacramento, how long they’d lived there, and how they felt about me (“They’re nuts about her, Mrs. Whitaker.”).
“You have a sister?” Dad asked. “Is she married?”
“No, she’s still dating, Mr. Whitaker. She’s taking it easy and is finding her way.”
“Just tell her,” Mom said, “to keep away from the felons and deportees. They’re glib, and they’ll get her into a lot of trouble. Janet’s boyfriend in her first year of college, what was his name, Janet? Ezra?”
“Mom! Ezekiel.”
“Well, Ezekiel, that was one really glib specimen of a human being,” Mom said. “Where did you say he was from again?”
“LA, Mom. His grandparents were from the UK on both sides.”
“Yeah, Ezekiel, the colonizers’ grandson,” Mom said. “I remember. Janet’s always had a thing for the exotic types. But Ezekiel was an atheist and a felon. It just goes to show that you can get pretty glib when you’re an atheist. He was hacking people’s e-mails looking for credit card offers. Then he was opening credit cards in their names, or some such nonsense. They’re giving him the royal treatment up at San Quentin now. When I told Dad about him, we put an end to that. We weren’t going to have glib Brexit grandbabies running around here looking for our wallets so that they could go on shopping sprees at the outlet malls.”
“Are you an atheist?” Dad asked Mauru.
“Catholic,” Mr. Whitaker, “but non-practicing.”
Dad took a bite of Mom’s mashed potatoes, which were a little dry.
“When you all planning to get married?” Dad asked Mauru.
It may not seem like it, but something big had just happened: I’d just received my parents’ blessing. I jum
ped up and went to hug Mom and Dad, and I kissed them both on the cheek. Mom hugged Mauru, and Dad shook his hand.
“Well,” Mom said. “Don’t keep Dad waiting. When’s the wedding?”
Mauru wiped his mouth with his napkin and fidgeted in his seat. He placed his hands beneath the table, where he took my hands in his, and we smiled at each other.
He nodded at me. I nodded at him.
“Soon,” I said to Mom and Dad, smiling. “The wedding’s soon.”
Something Mom had once said came to mind.
“Men aren’t looking to marry their moms but someone to save them from their moms and themselves, Janet. Remember that.”
5
The $45 Million Dinner
Mornings were tough.
Jon slept about eleven hours each night and woke up around 6:45 a.m. each morning. It was a struggle to get him out of bed.
“Jon, time to get up, baby.”
“Mom, no. Tired.”
“I know, darling. We’ve got to get you dressed and then your breakfast.”
“Mom, I said no.”
As Jon kicked and said he hated us, Mauru lifted him out of bed.
Once Jon was fully awake, though, he smiled, laughed and said, “thank you,” “please,” and he sat on your lap, and played with your hair. But first, you had to get him awake. Fully awake. That could take a full hour, depending on his mood.
Nate slept around ten hours each night and was up anywhere from 5 a.m. to 6:15 a.m. He sat up or stood on his bed, and you heard him talking. You knew it was time to wash, change, and feed him before you took him to day care and Jon to school.
Mauru and I divided the mornings between us. Mauru got the kids ready one week while I got ready for work and made breakfast for everyone, and the next week we swapped.
“My week? Again?” I complained to Mauru when my turn came.
“Yep. Your kids, Jan. Your week, babe.”
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