by Kathi Koll
By the time college rolled around, life was beginning to be a lot different for me than my peers. I wanted to go East for school, but I chose Loyola Marymount not only to be close to home for my mom, but also because it was the alumni of both my brothers, and my parents had been so involved during their time there. The chancellor, Father Casassa, actually baptized me at three weeks old, and my gift from him was to be in the first co-ed class of Loyola University. He felt that by the time I was ready for university, same-sex schools would be obsolete. He was only off by a year.
I enrolled toward the end of summer, toured the campus with my brothers, saw my dorm room, and met my roommate. Within a week, it was clear to me that boarding would be out of the question. My mom was failing and needed me at home, so I was a day student.
Unbeknownst to me, as I was walking across campus my first day, Patrick, a senior, was sitting on a little wall with his buddies checking out all the incoming freshmen girls. He spotted me and said to his friend, “See that girl over there? I’m going to marry her.” He went on a quest to find out who knew me. I had no idea any of this was going on, but our first introduction was unforgettable.
I was at a school mixer having fun dancing with a few different guys who were freshmen like me. The band took a break, so I went out onto the patio where Patrick was sitting with a mutual friend. We were introduced and chatted for a while. No question about it— he was adorable. A young look-alike for Brad Pitt. The band started up while we were talking, but he didn’t ask me to dance. I loved to dance, and still do, and was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with little more to say to him, so what was my exit?
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’m going to get a drink of water.” I never went back because someone else asked me to dance. I was being spun around the room without a problem in the world, a beautiful and welcomed respite from the sad secret deep in my heart of the problems waiting for me at home. Patrick wasn’t used to being ditched, and I heard later he wasn’t happy that I had done it.
Within a week, my phone rang.
“Hi, Kathi? It’s Patrick. I was just calling to say I have tickets to the Jefferson Airplane concert. I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”
“Wow.” I was elated. “Yes.”
“That’s great. The concert is on October 31, Halloween. I can’t wait.”
There was a party at Patrick’s after the concert. I felt uneasy not knowing anyone. Patrick was a senior, and so were most of his friends. None of the other girls—the other dates—paid much attention to me, and Patrick spent most of the time on the telephone. I finally motioned to him I had to leave. He got off the phone and said, “Sorry, I was talking to my mom.”
How stupid does this guy think I am?, I thought. Of course it was another girl. I couldn’t wait to get home.
I don’t know why I said yes to another date. Probably because he was a cute, athletic senior. It was strange to be out of my comfort zone of familiar high school friends. I guess that’s how every new freshman feels, but that didn’t make it any easier.
We had dated only two months when he called me on his birthday, December 23, from his parents’ home in Riverside to tell me he had just told his dad that if we were still dating by June, we’d get married. I had no idea how to respond. I was shocked. He continued on to say if we weren’t dating by June, we’d never see one another again. I really don’t remember how I answered him. I think I was caught between the disbelief of never experiencing this kind of a threat, and, wow, this sounds pretty cool. We continued to date, but now our conversations included talks of married life, what we’d do when we grew up. I was living a roller coaster of emotions because, when I wasn’t in class or with Patrick, I was taking care of my mom. I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly with the problems I was experiencing. I had no idea if I was in love. I kept wondering what it was supposed to feel like.
The Vietnam War was in full force, and guys we knew were being drafted left and right. The lottery for the draft came up, and Patrick’s number indicated that he was certain to be drafted. To avoid that, he went straight to the local National Guard office and enlisted. Within months, he was sent to Fort Ord near Monterey, California, for six-month boot camp. We wrote to one another almost every day. Was I falling in love through his letters? Or because I couldn’t see him? Or because I was so sad at home and didn’t know what life had in store for me? Whatever the reasons were, I was eighteen and way too young to be thinking about being married, and Patrick was on a quest to move on to a new life of marriage and family. Patrick would visit as often as he could for quick weekends, and my parents took me to Monterey to visit him a couple of times. On one of those visits Patrick formally proposed at the end of a beautiful street in Carmel overlooking the ocean. From that moment forward, the train was on the track and traveling fast.
I barely saw Patrick during his six-month duty, but throughout this separation, the wedding planning was in full motion. My girlfriends were all excited. My guy friends thought it was a ridiculous idea. Two of them would take me out together knowing I was engaged, but if there were two we all agreed it didn’t count as a date. One showed up at my parents’ home one day with a present for my mother and then proceeded to suggest to her that I might be too young to get married.
The timing, the reasons, the everything was all wrong. I knew it deep down, but was too fragile or scared to do anything about it. I was living in a constant swirl of emotions. I so wanted my mom to see me as a bride. What little girl doesn’t? It weighed on my mind constantly. It was the most important part of my getting married. I just had to have my mom at my wedding, and she was getting sicker and sicker. The excitement, the parties, and the preoccupation throughout it all were most likely what gave my mom a few more months of life. She was so weak before various wedding showers, but she wouldn’t miss a single one. My brother made a bed in the back of his station wagon so she could lay down and sleep on the way home from our engagement party. I don’t know how she did it, but as much as I wanted her there for the biggest day of my life, she must have been thinking the same thing. We went to Bullock’s Wilshire to pick my wedding dress. The store is long gone now, but back then, it was the store of choice. Looking at myself in the mirror with my mom smiling at my side, I felt like a princess, like Guinevere of Camelot.
There was barely any time to spend alone with Patrick once he came home from basic training. We were both still in school, and the wedding preparations and parties were taking over our lives. We barely knew one another.
Two weeks before the wedding, Patrick told me he had had second thoughts about getting married a few days earlier. His dad took him fishing, and after their afternoon together, he got home looking forward to our marriage. This revelation put all sorts of thoughts in my head, but most importantly it made me stop and think. I sat in my bedroom for hours thinking how to explain my thoughts to my mom. I finally found the courage. I walked into her room and sat down next to her. She was lying in bed and had lost so much weight. Her coloring wasn’t good, but she still had that wonderful motherly smile for me.
“Mom, I don’t think I should marry Patrick. I really don’t know him; I’ve barely spent time with him. I’ve known him less than a year, and for six months of that time he was away for his National Guard boot camp. Mom, I’m just a kid.”
My mother would hear of none of it. “This is normal,” she said. “You’re just having cold feet. Patrick’s a wonderful young man. We like his family. He’ll take care of you. Plus, we’ve had all the parties. You’re getting married.”
I couldn’t argue with her. How could I? She was dying, and we both had the same dream—that she would be at my wedding. Looking back now as an adult, I think my mom was worried about who would take care of me more than anything. My father had his drinking problem, my brothers had their own lives, and she knew life was going to be difficult for me. She wanted to die knowing I was going to be taken care of.
That was that. What else can I say?
I was stuck, but maybe it’d be a good stuck.
The wedding was beautiful, and I was happy. Really, really happy and excited to be a bride and a wife. My mom made it and looked beautiful. My two brothers walked her down the aisle, which naturally brought many tears, knowing what a struggle it was for her to make the biggest day of her daughter’s life. I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm. He had tears streaming down his face. Then I spotted Patrick waiting to take my hand. He looked so handsome. He had tears too. Everyone seemed to be crying, but they were all truly tears of happiness. I knew I was making the right decision. All the prior anxiety had flown away. I had never been so happy or so excited.
There was Father Casassa on the altar. The same priest who’d baptized me. My girlfriends and nieces were the most beautiful bridesmaids of any I had ever seen, but then again, they were the first I’d ever seen. None of my friends had married yet. Their dresses were light yellow in an organza fabric with clusters of small white embroidered flowers. The reception was at the Hotel Bel Air, still one of the most chic hotels in Los Angeles today. Patrick and I walked over the small bridge to the garden where white swans were floating by as we took our family photos. Everyone’s always loved the picture of my dad standing alone with his pockets inside out as if the wedding had taken all his money.
A month into our marriage, I got pregnant. It came as an utter surprise to me how easily that could happen. My family used to tease me and say, “Our bags are packed. If the baby comes one day before nine months, we’re moving out of town.” Times were certainly different back then. When I told my mom, though, her response was something I wasn’t prepared for. “You know,” she said, “many times it’s false. Or the baby doesn’t last into the third month.”
I hid my disappointment, but secretly I was crushed. I hurried quietly to my old bedroom where I laid down and cried. I was devastated and so hurt that my mom didn’t seem to feel the joy I was feeling, that she couldn’t feel even a little bit of happiness that might take our minds off of the sorrow of her life coming to an end.
I couldn’t understand why my mom would say such a thing to me, why she was acting like there would be no baby. Looking back with more years of wisdom than I had then, I think she knew she’d never meet my baby, and initially, that realization was too painful. She just didn’t want to believe that her baby, her little girl, was going to have a grandbaby she’d never meet.
A week went by, and the topic of my pregnancy never came up. Then one day, she handed me a little present.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Open it,” she said with a gentle smile.
As sick and exhausted as she was, she had gone shopping and bought my first baby’s first present: a little yellow and white layette set, one of the most cherished gifts I have ever received. She looked at me with so much love in her eyes, those dark brown eyes the color of olives.
“I bought this for your baby to wear home from the hospital after he or she is born,” she said. And not only did each of my three children eventually wear it home, but all of my grandchildren have too.
Within the last few fleeting months of my mom’s life, I almost lost my baby. I had been spending most of my days with my mom as her cancer became increasingly virulent. I lay alone on my parents’ bed hoping and praying I wouldn’t lose my baby or my mother. I had been bleeding quite a bit, and the doctor was convinced I was having a miscarriage. My father and brother were home, but my mom was at the doctor’s receiving the news that she was reacting unfavorably to her latest round of unbearable chemotherapy. She had no idea I was there or that I could hear her from where I was. My brother Don was in the entrance hall, my father close by in the living room. She walked into the house, and with a chilling voice drenched in so much pain, she said the doctor had informed her that there was nothing more that could be done; she probably wouldn’t live much longer.
“Mom,” I heard Don say, “Kathi is in your room. We think she’s losing her baby.” She was at my side within minutes, putting all her problems and fears behind her, a character trait that I admired and have carried with me throughout my life. With all the Irish fire she could muster, she launched into an unbelievable course of taking care of me. She had no idea I had overheard her unbearable news, and I never let on that I did. As her fire cooled to a smolder, she crawled into bed with me where we stayed together for most of the next couple weeks. We didn’t talk about her problem or mine; we just moved forward with life. Maybe it’s the Irish way of doing things—not talking or baring one’s soul, but digging into what needs to be done and silently giving support from one’s heart. We reveled in the bittersweet opportunity to be together and feel how much we loved one another and never faltered from our positive attitudes that we would both get better.
My mom wanted to be home as long as possible. She tried her hardest, but the week she died, she told us all, “I think it’s time to go to the hospital.” I followed the ambulance from our home to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. I was driving the car behind and could see her looking at me through the window. I made gestures and pointed out some of the new things that had happened on our little street in Sullivan Canyon with only a handful of homes. I knew as I did this it would be the last time she would ever be there, and I wanted her to remember it smiling. Off we went down the street she drove so many times. The street she always drives way too fast on, I couldn’t help but to think with a tearful half-smile.
I sat outside her room in the waiting area, frequently walking in to sit by her side. I was so scared. I didn’t want her to see me crying, because I felt it would be a giveaway that her end was coming. She had worked so hard and didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to be the one to fracture her spirit. I was so incredibly scared and sad. I finally walked into her room and chose a spot in the corner. A place where I could watch her, but a distance far enough away that she wouldn’t see my fear. As she came and went from consciousness, recognizing friends and family, I stayed back. I was scared to be so close to the love of my life knowing that she was about to be taken from me. I was barely nineteen and pregnant with my first baby; I could not lose my mother. How was I supposed to grow as an adult and a mother without the strongest, most interesting woman I had ever known? I didn’t think I could make it through, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to lose her.
I knew the end was coming, and I quietly took my spot next to her, looking into her eyes as she gently passed on to eternity. It is a hurt that lies deep within me and still brings fresh tears to my eyes so many decades later.
I cried myself to sleep that night in the arms of my husband, thinking it was impossible for me to be happy again. I finally glided into an unconscious realm far away from my sadness, far away from the realities of my life, far away from how I was going to forge ahead without the strength and stability of the strongest appendage of my own soul.
I jolted awake to the unmistakable feeling of my baby kicking for the first time. It was the first signs of life I had felt from my baby and the first time I had felt any kind of happiness for what seemed like eons. My mom was looking out for me, sending me a message with every little kick. Kathi, life goes on. You’re now the mother. You have a life that depends on you. It’s time for you to move forward, take that life and not look back. She never sent me another sign, but I still think back to that message in times of need. From that night on, I was in charge. It was time for me to be the woman she dreamed I would be. I had to embrace life and cherish my future and the futures of my loved ones, no matter how impossible the challenge I was facing. I made a conscious choice to recognize the gift of a new life and its infinite possible paths. It was time to fill my heart with this new, unpredictable journey.
My dad tried so hard, but those first few months were impossible for him. I never realized how hard he had it until I was widowed and learned for myself what the loss of a spouse really is. How deep it is. How profound. The quiet nights, the constant pit in the stomach, the pain that just won�
�t go away. Waking in the middle of the night and seeing an unused pillow. He ended up in the hospital with the symptoms of a mini stroke from his excessive drinking. My brothers and I got him back home, but more of the same challenges ensued. It was a lot to handle on top of being freshly motherless, newly married, and expecting my first baby.
The day the baby finally came, I was staying with my brother Don, because my husband, Patrick, was fulfilling his National Guard duties that weekend. Early in the morning, I was awakened by a sharp pain in my back. I went to my brother’s room and told him I thought I was going into labor, but he didn’t think so and told me to go back to sleep. It took a while to convince him. We called my husband at the barracks in Riverside, and he immediately got permission to leave his weekend duties, jumped in his car, and got to me as quickly as he could. Once again, we headed off to St. John’s Hospital.
“Give me drugs, please,” I begged. “Why would anyone ever do this again? Please, more drugs.”
Jennifer was born, and my life changed forever. It was no longer about me, about the grief I was feeling from the death of my mother or anything life-threatening in the world. It was about my beautiful little baby girl. “My little Jennifer.” Not sure why I started calling her that, or why I still do, but whenever I think of her, “my little Jennifer” comes to mind. I had guessed she would be a girl and there she was, all purple and crying—a gift from the heavens.
Being the first of all my friends to be married and have a baby was quite a novelty, so it was a revolving door of curiosity and excitement. The waiting room was overflowing with family and friends. My brothers, sister-in-law Barbara (the only sister I’ve ever had), my nieces and nephews, girlfriends, Patrick’s family. There were probably close to forty in all.