Church of the Mighty Alrightness

The Biggest Blessing

My phone rang one night back in 1998, and it was my adopted sister, who had big news.

She had found Jean, my Dad's second wife (see last post) -- his 'trophy wife' -- and was in touch with her again. Like me, Gretchen had been out of touch with her for many years, and she told me that Jean was very glad to hear from her, very kind and attentive. Gretchen and Jean shared some long phone calls, and Jean asked about me, wanted to know how I was doing, and what had happened to me.

I remembered how much I had enjoyed Jean when I knew her twenty years before, so I eagerly called her. It was a reunion to warm my heart.

After we exchanged some stories about what had been going on for us in the intervening years, Jean said, "I didn't know when I was with your dad about all the terrible things that were going on for Gretchen and you in your childhood. I am so sorry for all you went through, and I want you to know that I'm here for you now. You can count on me."

Those words, for a guy who had been through two previous mothers who were never really there, went deep into my heart, and eased a lot of pain. In therapy language, Jean gave me a "replacement experience". She gave me what I had always sought from my previous two unavailable mothers, and in so doing, she gave deep healing to my old family wounds.

We were close from then on. She was in her late seventies, and I was in my early fifties, and we were mother/son. I called her frequently, and we talked and laughed about our memories, and about how we were so important to each other.

She was alone late in life, and did not have the good fortune to have residual income to retire on, so she still worked every day. She had two children (a third died a tragic death of alcoholism) who lived nearby, and a bunch of grandchildren whom she didn't see often enough.

I was in another of a long series of bad relationships with an unhappy woman, and was working as a marriage counselor. I know, those two didn't match up for quite some time.

I left the torment of that relationship, and soon after that I met Betsy, who was to become my wife. Betsy and Jean developed a relationship over the phone immediately that had a wonderful chemistry. Jean told me right away, "I think you've got a keeper there, Doug", and she was right.

As Betsy and I planned our wedding, we also invited Jean to come to the wedding and be our 'good mom' for the event.

She did, and it was a much richer event for her being there. Here's a photo of her (the tall, slender, gray-haired woman) as she and Betsy and some of Betsy's friends were about to go out for Betsy's bachelorette party.

She was eighty when I took these pictures of her during her wedding visit.

Betsy and I moved away soon after that from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Richmond, Virginia (I know... everyone always asks, "What? Why did you do that??") and started a whole new life together.

We invited Jean over the following year for New Years eve, and we enjoyed lobster and champagne with her on our deck on an unusually warm January evening.

Betsy and I have a tradition of having a 'date night' on Saturday nights. Usually that means we open a bottle of cheap (Tott's, 8.99 per bottle) champagne, hang out and talk and cook right here at home.
We added Jean to our tradition; we opened the champagne, called Jean, and then cooked.

So Jean got to join us on the deck for a good time, even long-distance, every Saturday we were home... we all looked forward to it, and it was our touch-point for much conversation, laughter and sharing.

Then one Saturday night in late April of this year, there was no answer when we called Jean's number. It was unusual for her not to be home at that time, but we figured she was visiting somebody.

I got a call a while later from Jean's son Mike, who said she had undergone emergency heart bypass surgery that night, the night we couldn't reach her, and that she was expected to recover.

Then she had a heart attack, followed a while later by pneumonia. I realized that she was on a stairway down, and getting ready to leave this life.

A very good doctor who treated my Dad many years before when he was failing in a nursing home used that description: He's on the stairs going down... each of these events is another step, and we don't expect him to go 'up' to full recovery again."

So we called Jean in the nursing home, where hospice had been called in to make her comfortable. We called as often as we could, and I went over to Birmingham to see her for what I knew was the last time. You can see in our faces how good it was to see each other again.

A month later on a Sunday morning, I got the call I had dreaded and expected: Jean had passed away.

We had called her the Saturday afternoon before -- our last 'date night' call -- and had a wonderful, rambling talk, full of laughter and memories.

The she went to sleep and didn't wake up.

Her passing was very hard on me. She was my last connection to my youth, to my father, and to the biggest blessing of my life other than my wife Betsy... a mom who was there for me.

Now, when it's date night, we raise a glass to Jean, wherever she is, to her peace and happiness, and in deep thanks.

We love you, Jean.

-- The Acolyte

Crazy Blessings

In the last post, I talked about my first two mothers; my birth mother, who gave me up for adoption, and my adopted mother, married to an oil well driller and former marine corps captain.

I also mentioned my 'redeemer-mother' Jean, who died recently at the age of 86. I haven't written anything since the last post because I needed time to crash and grieve Jean's death before I could articulate the rest of the story.

The sixteen years I spent in my adopted family were a time of crazy blessings.

I loved growing up in the beautiful countryside of western New York state. With a river, a creek and wooded hills right there by the house, I started a love affair with nature that thrives to this day.

On the other hand, there was a deep, dark disease in my new family -- alcoholism.

My parents adopted another baby a year after my adoption, and my 'sister' and I grew up in what became an ever-worsening house of horrors.

There was alcoholic raging and fighting between my mother and father every night. I learned many years later that my sister was also sexually abused by my father during that time. There was emotional and verbal abuse all the time for both of us.

When I was sixteen, my mother shot herself in the head with my hunting rifle. She survived, and my parents finally divorced.

My sister fled with a boyfriend to Boston, and my father went off on a business trip one day and never returned.

I was left on the farm in the country, with animals and bills to pay, and toxic screaming ghosts in the house.

I walked away -- literally walked six miles to the nearest town -- and got a job in a factory. I rented a monthly room, and began to adjust to life on my own.

Three months later, when I finally heard from my father, he told me he had met someone in his travels in Alabama, a woman named Jean. He was in love, and they were going to be married. He asked if I would do him a favor and drive a car he'd left behind down to Alabama for him.

I agreed. I wasn't ready to give up on my dad just yet.

The drive down was a magical trip -- the first time I had ever done a long distance journey by myself, and into the great unknown of the deep south, no less. I had never been south of Pennsylvania before. The only people of color I'd ever seen were my grandmother's servants.

When I got there and knocked on the door of the cottage where they were living, a vibrant, lovely blonde woman opened the door and greeted me warmly. Jean.

She was a former New York model. That's her in the photo... A tall, gorgeous southern belle from Birmingham.

Her fellow-New York model best friend Margo ended up marrying my dad's brother Bill, but that's another story.

Jean and I enjoyed talking and were intrigued by each other, but we didn't get to know each other well then. My dad, having had his car delivered, shooed me on my way, and I didn't see them for several years until after I had moved to Atlanta.

They moved to Atlanta and lived there for a while, too. Jean opened an antique shop, and my girlfriend of the time and I used to have her over to our apartment to dinner. We found her to be delightful. My father and I were estranged. (That means he was still acting mean to me, so I didn't spend time with him)

After some time, life took us in different directions. Jean and my father moved back to Alabama, and I went on to experience many adventures that took me all over the country.

I heard from my sister one day that dad and Jean had divorced, and I didn't have any connection with her again for over twenty years.

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