A Chronological Autobiography
by
Ron Crepeau.
1940, May 10:
My parent are married.
Father: 19 years old, 8th grade education, effectively an
orphan.
Mother: 20 years old, 10th grade education.
1940, December 1:
I am born in Flint, Michigan - a General Motors factory town
full of shop workers, mostly red-necks from the South.
Count the months and see that I was the reason for my
parents' marriage.
1940 - 1947.
The early years of an unhappy childhood.
- Two brothers arrive.
- A father of low patience and short temper.
- A father who shows no love for me - after all I was an
accident.
- A father who sometimes beats my mother. I can't protect
her.
I am left crippled with the desire to
protect women that I see as
weak and defenseless - which they
usually aren't.
- A father I fear and dislike.
1947, October/November.
The major trauma of my life. My father - for reasons I
don't
fully know - has me and my brothers sent to a welfare home.
One story I've heard is that my father felt my mother was
unfit to raise children. More likely it was a financially
driven decision
as my parents were poor and struggling.
1947 - early 1948
I live in a welfare home with other abandoned children.
It's not
all bad, but strict like a prison. I learn to fear prisons
and confinement.
A memory. My youngest brother wets the bed for the first
several
days (weeks?) and in the morning is doused in a cold shower.
He screams of discomfort and terror echo the halls. Those
painful screams
of terror resonant in my mind even to this day.
Another vague memory. An older girl - likely a tweenie or
early
teenager - coming to me in my bed and tucking me in.
Comforting
me. Maybe wiping away tears of loneliness? I think she
had brown
eyes and long dark wavy hair. Its a look I find appealing to
this day.
1948 April? Springtime, anyway.
My parents come to take us boys home. But I have the measles
and can't leave. I'm quarantined. I watch from the second
story
window as the car drives away leaving me even more alone.
I see my two brothers looking back out the rear window of the
car. It hurts like Hell.
Somewhere in that six months - maybe on the above date -
the seed is sown within me. I shall never let anyone else
control
my life. Ever! In any way! People are not to be trusted with
my feelings. To this day, that manta rules my life with an
iron fist.
1940's sometime.
Another memory. A summer day. My brothers and I are in
the car.
The car is parked at a grocery store. My parents are inside
shopping.
The windows are open. There is a car parked next to ours. A
couple
of girls - our age - are in the car waiting for their parent.
We boys
begin doing boy things - taunting the girls or whatever.
Playing, we
stick our flailing feet and legs out the window at them. My
parents return
to the car at this time and see us. My father flares into
anger at
our antics. He punishes us. Makes us get out of the car and
walk
home. He rolls the car slowly behind us as we walk. What did
we do wrong? We were being children - acting our age. A
grievous
offense in the mind of my father.
1940's another time.
My father is going to teach us boys the manly art of
self-defense.
He has bought boxing gloves for us. Me and my younger but
bigger
brother are to spar. I don't want to try to hit my brother.
Hell, I'm just a
spindly weak kid. My father gets angry again. I never learned
to
box or defend myself. I just learn again that I don't like my
father.
1940's to 1958.
Attend a Catholic school. Go to mass first thing every
morning.
Get taught by nuns. Get brain-washed on religion. I believe
because
I am told to.
I am a shy boy. Too shy to have a girl-friend even
throughout
high school. Oh, I am interested in girls all right. But they
are like
the angels in Heaven - totally superior and unreachable.
Especially
for a short, scrawny, too-young-looking and
awkwardly/embarrassingly
shy kid.
My teen years are spent avoiding my father as much as possible.
I
immerse myself in reading - science fiction. I read all the
science
fiction books in the pubic library. It was before science
fiction became
popular.
1958
Graduate from high school. Start at a local junior college. I
want to
be a scientist.
1959, January.
Cold winter Saturday. It has snowed. The roads are
slippery.
My best friend (Denny - a pretty boy to the girls) has a
cousin in a band.
They are playing at a teen dance in a hall just outside of
town. We'll go
and maybe meet some girls.
There is a girl - a lovely, short and slim nymphet of only
fifteen. Her name:
Jeannean. Blue eyes. Mousy brown hair - shoulder length. Well
shaped lips.
A somewhat bulbous and slightly distorted nose - a deviated
septum; a birth defect.
Mostly, she has that serious look that says she carries
mental pain with her.
That look stirs unconsciously within me memories of my mother
being beaten by my father and me aching to help her, but
defenseless to do so.
And indeed she did carry pain. Her father had died
suddenly and
shockingly a few months before. Internal bleeding from
over-use of alcohol -
or so the doctors said. The truth would only be known much
later of the
genetic defect that he had and passed on to some of his
children.
Then there was the squabble and schism between her mother
and the
family of her father. That schism cost her the companionship
of her dearest
friend - a cousin across the street. It also cost her the
comfort of a
loving father-figure uncle.
The pain went deeper still - the pain of a timid girl
immersed
in a rough, red-neck family of eight children. Never
understood, she was
often accused of "just being dramatic." Her feelings were
trashed as foolish.
We were birds of a feather. She needed a
father-figure. I needed someone
to protect. We both needed love. And we found it - with each
other on that
evening.
Oh, Denny tried to get friendly with her - asking her to
dance. But, he was too
much of a pretty-boy for her taste, with his dark wavy hair -
slicked back as was the custom
then, thin straight nose, sly smile, gleaming eyes, melodious
voice and self assurance
of his six foot height. He was a sort of Adonis if a girl
liked his sort of looks. A lot of
girls did.
It was me Jeannean wanted to dance with... to be held
close to... to get to know...
soon to fall in full love with.
It was a love to last "until death." A love that rumbled
up and down hills,
over roads smooth and rough. A love toughed by trials to the
point
that only death could shatter its bonds.
1959 - 1960.
Our love bloomed. We clung together in that sea of
insensitivity around us.
Our love bloomed despite our age difference.
Our love bloomed despite her red-neck Catholic-hating
brothers.
I was Catholic. Her brothers talked of beating me up to keep
me
away from her. It never happened. It wouldn't have helped.
Our love bloomed despite my parents not carrying for her.
"She wasn't
good enough" for me, so my mother thought. Oh, my mother
never told
me that. But it came out later from others.
Our love bloomed, but without sex. I was Catholic. She was
a good girl
and we would wait until we were married. Oh, how times have
changed.
---------
Life with my father was never fun. Never. Not even when we
went on
vacation or our fishing trips to Canada. I hated fishing. He
loved it.
I hated being separated from Jeannean. He was glad to get
away.
I hated being with the man with a bad temper who beat my
mother.
He may have been finally trying to be a good father. It was
far too late.
I would never respect him beyond that obligatory fourth
commandment:
"Honor thy father and mother." Honor them, it said. It said
nothing
about loving or even respecting them. I would do my minimally
acceptable duty.
I will admit it. I was spoiled in my own selfish way.
There were fallouts with my family and I would take off.
The big fallout
came after a year in junior college. I just wanted to go to
school full time.
My father insisted I should get a job while going to school,
especially during the
summer. I rebelled at the idea and left
home.
By October 1959, with no steady job and little money I
grew desperate for
some security. I enlisted in the Navy. It was off to boot
camp at Great Lakes
just North of Chicago.
After boot camp there was a year of electronics training at Great Lakes.
I missed Jeannean. We corresponded by mail. I went home to
Flint to see her
as often as I could. Our love grew even deeper.
I suppose that the real reason my mother actually disliked
Jeannean so much
in the end was on account of me. It was a weekend - maybe a
long holiday
weekend. I came home to Flint. But unlike most trips home,
this time I did
tell my parents or stay with them. I don't remember where I
stayed, but I
spent the weekend with Jeannean. My mother found out from
someone
that saw us together. She must have been hurt by my failure
to let them
know I was in town. She blamed it on Jeannean - the unworthy
seductress
of her son. It cemented her dislike of Jeannean.
1960, Christmas
I am home on leave from the Navy. I have a job, albeit as a
sailor. It's a
steady job and income.
Jeannean will graduate from High School next June.
One evening, late, we are at my parents' place - in the
living room. My brother
Ken is asleep on the other sofa. I have the ring. I have the
question. On my knees
I show Jeannean the ring - platinum gold with a 1/4 carat
emerald cut diamond.
The best I could afford on my meager earnings.
I ask her to marry me.
My life to that moment culminates in hearing her say one
word: "Yes," - eyes as ever,
serious and now becoming coated with tears. I slip the ring
on her finger.
We set the date for August 1961.
My brother Ken is still there - asleep.
1961 January - June.
Boot camp is over. My electronics training is over. Now it is
off to sea duty.
A ship out of Norfolk, Virginia - the USS Boxer, LPH-4.
It am in Norfolk that I get the word: I'd been
competitively selected for a
four year, all expense paid Navy scholarship program.
Moreover, I will still
be in the Navy and get a salary.
Marriage to Jeannean is even brighter now. We will have
four years together
while I am in college in nearby West Lafayette, Indiana
- Purdue University.
And when that is done, I will become a Naval officer. My
future is bright.
The marriage date is adjusted to August 26th to account
for my preparatory school training
in San Diego.
Marriage preparations go on. Jeannean's mother has little
money having three other
daughters still at home and no husband. My parents offer
little help. In fact,
in time I am informed that they won't be able to be at my
wedding. They have
vacation plans in Canada for that date. My attitude: "Fuck 'em.
if they don't want
want to come to my wedding. It's not like I give a shit for
either of them anyway."
I time I came to learn that it was my mother that didn't
want to endorse our
marriage by being there. To placate her displeasure, my
father (reluctantly, I expect)
agreed to go on vacation then. I think that this is an
insight into the relationship of
my father and mother. She was not all the innocent martyr I
saw in his beatings of her.
I suspect she often provoked him. Does this justify his
beatings or make them any less
onerous? Hell no! He should have been more of the "man" that
he claimed to be and
took his anger out in other ways. Still, it's an insight into
my mother's ability to
manipulate (even me) that I have seen with greater
clarity in the past several years.
1961, August 26th.
August 26th we are married in a Catholic ceremony at St.
Mary's church. My bride
walks down the aisle on the arm of a brother - Jeff, I think.
She's beautiful!!!
My parents don't show up. My brother Ken does. He goes
AWOL from his ship
to be at our wedding - I later learn. Touching. Not too
smart, but touching.
Some of Jeannean's favorite relatives are missing too.
They are on her father's side
and her mother refuses to allow them to be invited. Yes, two
love-birds with
fucked up families say, "until death do we part." Many of our
friends are doubtful.
They say we are too different. They predict with certainty
that our marriage
will never last. But we know in our hearts how totally wrong
they are. We know
we will fight tooth 'n nail to keep our marriage together. We
know it's forever.
Wedding over and that evening a reception at the
carpenter's union hall. My dad is
a union organizer for the carpenters and gets the hall for us
free. Friends and relatives
attend. A multi-layer cake my Aunt Viola made for us. All the
normal rituals of a
reception are performed. My bride is tired, but happy.
It gets late. The bride and groom must leave. No honeymoon
for us, I fear. I have to
be at Purdue University Monday morning. We must start out
that very night. We do
in a late model Chevy sedan I bought from my Uncle Harry -
Viola's husband and a
used car salesman all his life. I got it very reasonably
because of Harry, but also because
the former owner had tried to paint it black with regular
paint. The car looked like
shit but ran well.
Several dozen miles out of town the car starts to smell. A
later check under the hood
reveals that my "friend" Denny had put limburger cheese on
the block. Not at all
funny!
Our first night together is in a roadside motel somewhere
in Michigan. It is very, very
late after a long, long day. We are both tired. She is tense.
She later tells me of her
uncertainty - almost fear that night - as to whether she had
done the right thing. She
wondered as we drove in the dark - who is this person beside
me? Do I really know
him?
Our first sex is not what I want for her. I'm too
exhausted, eager and inexperienced.
She's too tense and fearful. So our marriage is consummated
crudely and one-sided.
After that I make it up to her a thousand times over to her
full satisfaction.
1961 - 1965.
The Purdue years.
In a way, the Purdue years were our honeymoon. For 2+
years we lived in a 38 foot by
8 foot mobile home. Damned small, unless you are two young
people completely
in love.
In the winter, the wall next to the bed would get very
cold - frosted sometimes. It
kept Jeannean sleeping very close to me.
We regularly made weekend trips to Flint to visit family
and friends. We made new
friends at Purdue.
We learned to make exquisite love together. She was not a
screamer and I gave her
regular reason to do so. She was too reserved for that. But
not for variety in our
love-making.
We wanted children. We tried. And tried...
It was not until March 21st, 1963 that she gave
birth to the second most loved person
in my life - my daughter Neicole.
March 20-21, 1963.
March 21st, 1963 marked a major turning point in my life.
It deserves special attention.
I was raised Catholic. I believed faithfully what I was
taught. I practiced my religion with
all due diligence - at least until I started college.
I am still not certain of the evolution of my growth away
from believing in God. It started
I suspect with my technical proclivities and my acceptance of
the Cartesian philosophy
of Man as machine. College courses in history, engineering,
philosophy and the influences
of an agnostic and older friend - Dan Daly - didn't help my
faith.
The first few years in college I drifted farther and
farther from believing in God. I had
not yet broken from that belief on April 20th 1963 - the
afternoon when Jeannean went
into labor.
Her labor was long and difficult - all night. It was early
the morning of March 21st when
her labor began to bear fruit and she had dilated enough for
the baby to start down the
birth canal. She was, of course, in pain. And I was with her
- trying to comfort her and
seeing the person that I loved as much as life itself
suffering.
It was towards the end. The nurse said she could see the
top of the babies head. Did
I want to see? I suppose I did out of mere curiosity. I
looked. I didn't think it a pretty
sight. The sight was made all the more ugly when Jeannean
began to scream that it was
tearing her down there. She was in even greater agony because
indeed, we later learned,
her vagina was tearing near the opening. It was a sign -
unrecognized - of the genetic
defect that would ultimately lead to her early death.
Jeannean was taken to the delivery room. In those days,
and that place, the father was
excluded. It was probably just as well. I was distraught
enough by seeing her suffer that
seeing more would only make me more miserable.
That morning a baby was born and a belief in God died - an
unequivocal and permanent
death.
I left the hospital is a state of fatigued shock. I went
to Arth's Drugstore at the edge of
campus and had breakfast in the small cafe there. Ham and
scrambled eggs with toast,
I seem to recall.
Food for my stomach was brought to me as my mind relived
the terrible hours just passed.
I knew that people saw birth as some kind of miracle. I
didn't believe in miracles. What I
saw seemed no more miraculous than a cow giving birth. It was
an animal reproducing.
No magic. Nothing special about being human - maybe in some
ways more punishing
because as an intelligent being one knew more about what was
happening.
Maybe I wanted to hate God for the pain he had caused
Jeannean. Maybe that was
why I killed God in my intellect. Whatever the reason, I told
myself "There is no God."
God was dead for me. God and religion. Man is Man in a
soulless Universe struggling
alone against the elements just as every other living
creature is forced to do. Man is
nothing but an animal, albeit one with a far superior
intellect than any other animal.
Every man will die into a timeless emptiness. It ends there.
I am not sure I ever told Jeannean these thoughts. I probably did.
Over time, I informed Jeannean of my atheism. She too
abandoned religion, although
she never seemed to be as adamant about atheism as I was. We
soon lead our lives
without religion. We raised our children to figure out what
they want to believe for
themselves. I had no desire to be a hypocrite by teaching my
children a religion I
did not believe.
July 1964.
Despite the warnings of her doctor not to get pregnant again,
Jeannean still
wanted children and still acknowledged the Catholic religion
enough not to
take birth control pills.
In the miserable heat of an Indiana July Jeannean gave
birth to our son, Marc.
He was borne by Caesarian section.
Finally, Jeannean had been weaned enough from the Catholic
religion and alarmed
enough by her doctor's warnings, that she started taking
birth control pills.
June 1965.
It was my time to graduate from college with my Master's
Degree in Electrical
Engineering. The honeymoon was over. College had been
surprisingly easy for
me. I got good grades without really having to work all that
hard. I had learned
the system and easily sucked up knowledge and successfully
regurgitated it as
the classes required.
My parents came to Purdue for the ceremony. It was a hectic
period. We had to
do the graduation, clean the student apartment we were renting, and
get things packed
for me to take her and the kids to Michigan while I went off
to Officer Candidate School
in Rhode Island for three months.
If there was a chink in the armor of our marriage, it was
my family. I didn't realize then
as fully as I do now how manipulative my mother is. My mother
who didn't care much
at all for her daughter-in-law. My mother I now suspect did
what she could to subtly
antagonize Jeannean.
Oh my lovely, long now lost Jeannean. You were so very
insecure. Sensitive. Lacking
in self-esteem. Such an easy target for a manipulative woman
like my mother. And I
was so blind to and ignorant of the truth.
And maybe as bad, My Dearest Departed, you insisted that
we keep in touch with
my parents. That we see them regularly. Call them. Be good
loving children. You
worked so very hard to try to be a good daughter-in-law. This
while all I wanted
was to have them out of my life. If I never saw them again,
it would have been fine
with me. You would not have it that way. And it cost us - you
especially - all chance
for lasting happiness.
Yes, there had been fights between us over my failure to
support Jeannean and
stand up to my mother. But I never saw the slights Jeannean
saw. The great
manipulator was cunning in that way.
It all came unraveled at my graduation. My father wanted
to take us out for dinner
and Jeannean insisted we needed to clean the apartment. A big
painful fight ensued.
Because of the rush to get her and the kids to Flint, and the
pressure and angst of our pending
three month separation, the fight didn't ever get fully
resolved. And things happened
that might not have.
Maybe most important about this period is that it began
what turned out to be
a gradual decent for Jeannean into the black vortex of
depression. A vortex that
would suck our entire family into her pain.
November 1965.
Officer Candidate School - that miserable period of my
first separation from Jeannean -
is over I am commissioned an Ensign - an officer and a
gentleman.
I go to Michigan. The four of us - me, Jeannean and
the two very young kids -
embark in our clunker automobile for my first duty station. A
ship - the USS Coontz -
home ported in San Diego, California.
An exciting drive across a nation where the interstate
highway system is still under
construction. New sites. Motels. Drive-in restaurants.
Excitement about going to
California - the land where I have long dreamed of living. A
new life 2500 miles
from family. Far away from them, but still not far enough to
suit me.
We drive an old two lane concrete road that laid not too far
from where I now live.
I usually see parts of the old highway when I drive up the
mountains en-route
to San Diego.
"Radiator water" read the signs just before the
barrels, as the road begins to rise
steeply among the mountains of rocks.
Finally, San Diego - forty years smaller than today. Maybe
even still quaint back then.
It's hot when we arrive - a "Santa Ana" we will soon learn.
Everything is enchantingly
different from the dismal backwater world of Flint and West
Lafayette. Far from those
backwaters, but still something of a backwater itself.
Yet this is California. The land of dreams.
We begin a new life more on our own than ever before.
1965 or 1966.
The date of this event is uncertain. It is an event I've
kept to myself but will now relate it
for the first time.
The fight between us at my college graduation had been hard on
both of us. Jeannean,
once back in Flint stayed with her mother, got a job as a
hostess in a bar. Her sisters
helped take care of the kids. I suspect our letters were
frosty.
On a date uncertain in San Diego it is afternoon and we
are out driving some where.
Maybe to the store or a Dairy Queen ice cream place. Or maybe
just driving - a way
to pass time in the days when gas was so cheap.
It was as I drove leisurely around that Jeannean told me.
I suppose it was the guilt she
was feeling. She never was one to hide her thoughts or
feelings.
After our very ugly fight at my graduation, she went to
Flint convinced that it was over
between us. The graduation fight had been too bitter to
recover from. And I was away
for the first time. A college graduate and soon-to-be Naval
officer. Her a mere high
school graduate and barmaid and young worn out mother of two
children. Depression
is a lens that darkens reality and distorts it into carnival
booth like mirror images. And
I think she might have been in her first bout with
depression.
She was convince our marriage was over. There had been a
man. They'd had sex
together while she was in Flint. Once, I seem to recall her
telling me. But maybe it
was twice.She wanted to tell me all the details. I didn't
want to know. Still she
sketched the barest of them until I told her to stop. I
knew what I needed to know.
"Do you want to know who it was?" she asked.
"No. And don't tell me." I didn't want to know. If it was
someone I knew, I'd never
be able to face them again. If it was someone I didn't know,
then it didn't matter. To
this day I neither know nor care to know who it was.
I suppose her revelation was all a bit of a shock to me.
Not a stunning blow, but
a shock. Maybe not stunning because I always new I could
never trust anyone
100%. I could come very close with Jeannean, but just very
close.
The whole matter was quickly put behind us without any
animosity on my part.
She I suppose felt better having lifted the burden of guilt
by admitting what happened.
Our life went on and we eked out what happiness we could
wrestle from life's
lecherous grip.
1965 - 1967.
In November 1965 I went on a six month deployment with
the ship. Six ugly
months of separation from my only love in life.
Return from my first deployment. Six months in Long
Beach as the ship
underwent overhaul.
More time at sea in shake-down cruises and another six month deployment.
1968 -1969.
In 1968 I was transferred to the Destroyer Squadron 25 staff
in Hawaii. We
moved to Hawaii. Another adventure in seeing new and exotic
places.
I say I was stationed in Hawaii, but actually we deployed
to the Western
Pacific twice for six months. I had little time actually in
Hawaii with my love
and children.
It was the Vietnam era. Our squadron ships were in the
Tonkin Gulf. Soldiers
in body bags arrived into Hawaii daily. Students rioted on
campus'. Lyndon
Johnson declined to run again for president. Nixon was
elected. A man
walked on the moon. My children grew older in my pained
absence.
1969 October - December.
October 1969 and my four year obligation to the Navy for
my college education
was over. I was free to resign - at least I was after some
adroit manipulation
and a letter to Congressman Sam Ervin to protest the Navy
trying to keep me on
against my will.
To Hawaii to gather up Jeannean, the kids and our
household goods. Then to
Los Angeles where Jeannean's mother was now living. I was
determined to
make California our home. Jeannean was quite happy with that
now that her
immediate family lived in California.
In short order I had my dream job - working in a research
laboratory at the
University of California, San Diego. Research on medical
radiological imaging
was my new occupation.
Another new life for my love and I. This time free of future separations.
1969 - 1983
Those first few years in California were good. We bought
our first home.
The kids got into a school two blocks away. My family left us
alone. Life
was as good as we had since before the fiery fight at my
college graduation.
Yet, storm clouds were gathering - unnoticed - around us.
After three years at UCSD, our financial needs were
demanding better advancement
opportunities. I moved on to a job with a small, recently
formed defense contractor
serving the Navy laboratory at San Diego. I worked hard and
progressed rapidly.
Within three years I was a vice-president in charge of a
dozen people.
In the mid-1970's a confluence of circumstances
accelerated Jeannean's decline
into depression. My parents began showing up to visit. They
had managed to
retire young and set out traveling a lot. Jeannean - being
the diligent-dutied
daughter-in-law almost insisted that they come and visit us.
I merely rolled
my eyes in resignation.
My parents appearance might have been a manageable issue.
But at that time
Jeannean began to lose her hearing - rather rapidly. You have
to experience
hearing lose before you can understand how detrimentally it
effects a person's
life. For a very outgoing and yet low self-esteem person like
Jeannean, hearing
loss proved an almost insurmountable barrier to life's
pleasures.
Depression is insidious if one doesn't understand it and
its symptoms. It begins
to consume the person's identity and undercuts the identity
of loved ones close
by.
The third blow to Jeannean was the graduation from high
school and moving
away from home of the kids. In part this departure was
prompted from
the specter's already tormenting Jeannean and detrimentally
influencing her behavior.
Jeannean - over the later 1970's - became increasingly
possessive of my attentions
to the point of begrudging my attention to the kids. She
seemed somewhat jealous
of them. It clouded her relationships with them. I doubt that
she even understood
this for I know unequivocally that she loved her children and
was loathed
to ever hurt them. Yet, there was within Jeannean a child -
one of low self-esteem.
It was that child within her that behaved more like a jealous
sibling than a mother.
It was that child that our own children fled from when they
left home.
Possibly Jeannean subconsciously sensed that she was her
own worst enemy and
that she had in some ways driven the children she loved away.
Regardless, she
was now a mother of an empty nest. A mother in the empty nest
she had created,
and now faced alone with her child of low self-esteem and
with a husband mostly
out in the world succeeding.
It got worse. Marc, being 18 didn't want to go to college.
He wanted to go bum
around the world. He did. Off he went to Europe, leaving us
wonder for days and
weeks at a time what his situation was.
That was when Jeannean's depression burst the dam of
restraint. I would find her
sitting in bed during the middle of the day crying for no
reason at all - at least none
she could articulate. Day after day sitting in bed crying. At
last a doctor visit and
his formal diagnosis of depression.
Thus began the years of psycho-analysis with a excellent
psychiatrist. Years in
which we both saw him weekly as he attempted to deal with
core problems. She needed
self-esteem and the ability to wean herself from
psychological dependence on me. I needed
to realize that Jeannean was not my daughter and treat her as
an adult woman -
respect her as an adult. I might succeed in time. I think
towards the end I did. But
she couldn't quite get there.
1983 - 1985.
My job with the defense contractor was not as
successful as I hoped. I wasn't
a marketer and the job required a lot of that. I was
beginning to aspire to starting
my own business. At about that time my boss unexpectedly
brought in someone
else to fill my position. I still had my job and pay, but was
to become a senior technical
something or other. My job was secure - but not my ego.
An opportunity had already arisen to start a technical
business building large computerized
power supply testers with a guy that worked for me. He had
been building them on the side
for his brother's company. He had a big order coming and
needed help with it. We could
start a business together.
In the Fall of 1983, I took the opportunity and cashed out
my stock and options
with my company. I was in business for myself.
At the same time Jeannean and I bought a new home - her
dream home, but not
mine. An expensive home at a time when I needed everything to
try to make a
risky business go.
The new business required - or at least got - long hours
every day of the week.
We had orders to fill and an organization to build.
I brought Jeannean in as our book keeper. Skeptical, she
agreed as she had some
experience in that area. I set everything up and helped her
get going. With her working
beside me I wouldn't have as much hassle over working long
ours. She'd be with me
much of the day.
The first order was due in April 1984. It was going to be a hard push to fill it.
Then Jeannean's sister invited us to go to Hawaii with her
for a week in March. Jeannean
wanted to go. I considered it. I declined and told her to go.
There was a lot to do and our
key customer balked at my leaving before the order was
filled.
The pressure was building on me. The stress of long hours.
The stress of not yet making
money. The stress of a new and very expensive home. The
stress of Jeannean's regular
psychological problems that the psychiatrist wasn't making
headway with. All very trying
on me. I entered a burn out stage as she left for Hawaii.
It was then that I did something I will regret to my dying
day. I decided I had to leave
Jeannean. She was screwing up my future. I wasn't home when
she returned. All there was
in the house was a note saying I was leaving her and I
wouldn't be needing her at the business
anymore.
She called me at the business the next morning. She was
calm. Asked to meet me at a
restaurant. I agreed. In that restaurant I met a stronger
more composed woman than
I had ever seen in all the time I had known her. I sat across
from a reasonable woman
who soon convinced me of the error of my ways. No, I couldn't
leave her, except in
moments of complete insanity.
We didn't separate. But, the damage was done. Her faith in
me was shattered. I was never
again to be that person she could rely on 101%
The signs of my faith broken were subtle, but always there
in the depression she continued
to fight.
Oh but to have one wish I could have fulfilled. I
would wish that I had never done that to
her. Yes, I would even trade my soul to the Devil for that
wish to be granted - for the Devil
would only get a worthless soul. I would get back that
potential for happiness that existed
before my breech of faith.
But wishes aren't granted and I have to live with this now.
1985 - 1995.
In time the business failed. We were undercapitalized in a
niche market. Having lost over
$70,000 I sold the business to my partner for
$20,000. He later lost his home over the
business. He had no business sense at all.
Nearly bankrupt, in 1985 I took a civil service job with
the Navy laboratory in San Diego. The
income was decent, the work easy and without much pressure. I
needed relief from pressures.
I needed to recover from the mental ravages of the failed
business, our near bankruptcy and
Jeannean's continuing mental problems. The Navy laboratory
offered me an isolation in a
classified facility. A place where Jeannean could not reach
me to confront me with whatever
imaginary faults she was seeing in me at the moment.
It is hard for me to understand what she was thinking or
even wanted from me. I know that
deep inside she wanted to return to those very early years
when I behaved as her father figure.
But I didn't want that burden anymore. Nor did the
psychiatrist want me to do that - it was
not in Jeannean's best interest in terms of her own healthy
mental state. But she kept reaching
out for that. She kept rambling on, haranguing me hour
after hour about my shortcomings -
all peripherally related to her desire to return to then. I
had to listen to her. But there was no
answer to give because there was no specific allegation - just
ancillary things. And even had
there been specific allegations there would be no answer that
would satisfy her. Because
no answer could change the reality as she knew it now
existed. Her ramblings made so little
sense that at times I began to lose my own bearings on
reality. And then there was the
inexplicable anger she would enter sometimes. Anger at me,
but with no discernible reason.
That is why I needed the security of the Navy laboratory.
My attempt to leave her so soured Jeannean that she called
our psychiatrist a failure.
She blamed him for my actions. She stopped going to see him
because, as she put it,
"He's turning you against me."
So we stumbled on year after year. She was able to
function on a day-to-day basis and
got a job doing book keeping for an aviation repair company.
Life wasn't all bad. We
had some happy times. But always lurking within her was that
time passed when I
was her father-figure and the comforting feelings she got
from that situation.
I so wanted her to be happy, but happiness was mine
neither to give nor deny. Only she
could find happiness. It had to come within herself first. I
had learned this from the
psychiatrist, so all I could do was to be as supportive to
her as circumstances allowed.
Am I rationalizing away my own failings here? Was there
more blame in all this that is
properly laid at my feet? I don't think so. But I am not so
arrogant as to state it
unequivocally.
1996, February 2nd, Friday.
A new wrinkle in our life over the past couple of years.
Jeannean's mother gets diagnosed
with Alzheimer's disease. The family - the daughters in
California, anyway - struggles to deal
with this. The oldest daughter, Judy, is in denial. Arguing,
attorneys, legal proceedings, a
court order and Jeannean gets custody of her mother's estate
and her sister Javeida custody
of the mother's person. Jeannean's mother is put in a home
near us. The family still quibbles
about her care.
Today is Friday. It's a week since Jeannean quit her job.
She won't go back to work again.
She has a grandson in Seattle and wants time for him and her
own life.
It's my off Friday. The day starts as many Friday's do. We
go to some estate sales. We look
a lot and buy a little.
There is a 4 PM meeting with her sisters and a brother at
the home where their mother is.
Some issue I've forgotten. I am sure it was not as important
as the bickering between them
that it caused.
I drive her there and wait outside while the meeting goes
on. Jeannean comes out of the
conference room. Her mood says much about how poorly the
meeting went. She's angry
at her sisters and especially her red-neck brother Jack.
Into the car and down the road. I come to a stop light
waiting to turn right onto Carmel Mountain
Road. I say something to Jeannean - some advise. She snaps
angrily back at me. I shut up.
Clearly nothing I am going to be able to say will please her
right now. Right now - like so often
lately.
It's my Uncle Ted's birthday coming up the next day.
Jeannean wants to go buy him a gift
Then we will go to a movie. I turn right, go 1/4 mile, over
the I-15 freeway overpass, to the
light and turn right onto the clover leaf and then I-15
South.
I drive in silence. Jeannean is unusually quiet. Contemplating something in anger.
Five minutes on the freeway and we pass under Miramar Road overpass.
5:05 PM. In a serious voice Jeannean says, "I don't feel well. Something's wrong."
Thirty five years of living with her and I had learned
that she knows her body. She reads
it well - better than the doctors.
"My back," she said.
Something inside me makes me take her words very
seriously. "I'll head for the doctor's
office," I tell her. "It's just after five. He'll surely be
there." I take her hand and hold it
as I drive.
Rush hour traffic, but not too bad in the directions I
have to go until I get to I-805 North.
It's about five miles on I-805 to the exit of the doctor's
office, which is right next to
Scripps Hospital.
I approach that exit. Traffic is heavy now and I am
hurrying. "I need my hand now to drive,"
I tell her. I take my hand from hers.
In retrospect, it is almost as if letting go of her hand
was letting go of her life. Within seconds
she said, "I can't sit up any more."
Then I hear it. That sound they call the clattering
of the bones. She slumps over against me.
I know in an instant that its over for her. "Hang on,
Jeannean. Hang on!" I scream at her.
But the words are useless.
Now I am driving like a mad-man for the hospital emergency
room. Driving on the shoulder.
Running red lights. And within very few minutes I am leaping
from the door of the car into
the emergency room calling out for help. They seem
unconcerned until I scream, "My fucking
wife is dying in the car. Get someone out here to help me! "
An orderly appears. He grabs a gurney and rolls it
out. I open the door. Jeannean's limp body
nearly falls to the ground. We get her on the gurney. She
disappears into the corridors of the
hospital.
I didn't need the doctor to tell me she didn't make it. I
knew that before I had left the freeway.
But after nearly an hour, he did come and tell me.
"Can I see her?" I ask.
"She looks pretty bad," the young doctor says.
"That's okay, I just want a minute with her."
He agrees and shows me to the room. He uncovers her. There
is a lot of blood on her. The doctor
steps out of the room.
I touch her cooling face. "I sorry, Darling. I am so
sorry." I bend down and kiss her cheek. Then -
with puzzled sadness - I leave the only woman I have ever
loved for one last time.
I was later to learn that Jeannean had Ehlers-Danlos
Syndrome. It was then a newly identified and
inherited genetic defect that causes the tissues to lose
their ability to hold together. In her case, her
aorta had simply come apart and she had bled to death
internally. It was what killed her father, I
have decided in hind sight. It was what caused Jeannean's
tissue to tear while giving birth to our
daughter. In time it would kill two of Jeannean's siblings.
So ended thirty five years with one best and mostly only friend in the world.
As the words of my recent poem best put it:
"My long love
Left life
Far too soon.
Her last breath
Expired
And emptied
Her soul
Into eternity
And mine
Into the depths
Of Death's indemnity -
Emptiness."
1996 - 2001.
Work. Bury myself in work. 12 - 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
Pay off $70,000 in bills we had when Jeannean died.
In time begin to make art - paintings and drawings.
December 2000.
I turn 60 years old. I have 25 years of government service. I
am eligible to retire. Sure I could
work longer and improve my retirement situation, but it's not
necessary. I will have my IRA, a
pension and social security soon, so I can live okay. Besides,
I hate my job now. It's so
pointless with out Jeannean.
I retire on December 31, 2000.
2000 - 2002
Paint and make art. Enjoy retirement.
June 2000: meet a 25 year old woman on the internet. We
chat a lot. She's separated
from her husband. We hit it off. We meet - twice. The sex is good and
plentiful. Then
it ends. She won't see me again. She does chat with me on IM and e-mail. In time she
reconciles with her husband and disappears from my life, but not my memory.
I am fed up with Jeannean's large dream home in the suburbs. I want out of it and the suburbs.
I sell the home and move into an apartment in town. I soon
find apartment living doesn't appeal
to me. Too noisy. People on the other side of the walls, floor and
ceiling. Hearing TVs. Hearing
toilets flushing. Hearing foot steps above. Too close to other people.
2003.
Returning home from a trip to Dallas, TX and Colorado Springs
in April 2003. I am driving
through the desert.I suddenly remember how much I like the desert. I make my
decision.
I will find a large piece of land in the desert with a small house on it and I will build the
house
I want.
So it came to pass that in July 2003 I purchased 10 acres
of land in the Yuha Desert of
Southern California. A small dumpy house, a well for water and electricity. The basics I
need to
build an edifice to my ego - The Ark. A home. A studio. Galleries. All surround by large sculptures
on the 10 acres I own free and clear.
My life's work is now clear to me. And it will take what
years I have remaining to come even
close to finishing my edifice. But what else do I have to do?
Jeannean - my reason for existence -
is gone from my life.