Redemption

There is something about the start of a new year that sets the mind thinking about the past. I’ve had a bunch of flash backs lately. I saw myself as a small child living with my mom over the bakery of Purcell’s Restaurant. I can still smell the cinnamon buns baking below. It was one of my earliest memories. I remember how excited everyone was over television. On Sundays my mom and I were invited over to our friends where I got to watch the Mickey Mouse Club, Spin and Marty and the latest adventures of Davy Crockett. My mom and her friends could not wait for the Perry Como show. Television was a wondrous invention. I only have a hazy memory of my father’s visit to my mother during that time. They were divorced when I was a toddler.

When I started first grade, my mom met and married a man who legally adopted me and changed my name to his. We moved to a farm where he had this grand idea of raising chickens. From the age of 7 to 15 years old I grew up in the country. I was surrounded by a new brother and sister, cousins and relatives. I learned the value of hard work and saving my money. I learned the importance of family. Life was slow and changed little from year to year. So much of who I am took shape in those years.

My dad moved our family to the suburbs of Chicago as I stated high school. What a change in my life! Learning to drive and discovering girls… feeling my oats. I met the Chandlers at my church youth group and began for the first time to think about spiritual matters and philosophy. I experimented. It was the time of Woodstock, Vietnam and the civil rights movement. I remember my friends Ross and JR and our wild adventures. On senior ditch day at the end of high school, we all took off to Wisconsin to fish. I bought the beer. I was 18. We went our separate ways after our big canoe trip in Canada the summer we graduated. We were the Canada 4! We were explorers of uncharted lakes, black bear attacks and storms that threatened to swamp our canoes.

College brought girls, motorcycles, a ‘67 VW Beatle and…life and death decisions. The war in Vietnam raged on and I witnessed students getting their heads beat in by the police as they protested the war. I watched. I stayed out of trouble, but I watched as my country was falling apart. A time was coming to decide my future. The easy days of careless summers were coming to an end and I still had no clue who I was. I listened to my dad and others for direction in my life. I was too big a coward to strike out on my own and find my own way. I could have been an archeologist, or a painter or a writer. I could have become a number of things, but I became what all my friends became. I became what was expected of me because it was safe.

I married my college girlfriend and took an office job at a scientific company north of Chicago. Soon we bought a house in the suburbs and were parents of two daughters. Life was good but something was eating at me. I compromised and I put some things on the shelf. I left one job for another. I finally took a year off to syndicate a cartoon strip and to try my hand at writing. I bought tools and began woodworking. There was a creative urge that kept gnawing at me. I tried my hand at gardening and being a father to my kids, but it was not enough. The gap between what I was and what I could be was growing. Decisions were being made and I still did not have a clue.

My divorce was a wake-up call. So much of what I once took for granted was taken from me and I remember sitting in my small apartment surrounded by boxes and wondering what the hell was happening to me. As I began to rise from the ashes, I met others in my position and I joined an organization of divorced men and women. We supported each other and for the first time in a long time I began to learn and grow. I became an elder in the Lutheran Church. I took on a 2 year Bible study and met a woman who made me realize that there was a difference between being religious and spiritual. In the end, we chose a friendship over other paths and she moved on. I stayed.

I felt that 3 years was enough time to heal what was broken and I remarried. I was wrong. I met my second wife in a divorce support group chapter that I had started at a local church. Old expectations came back to haunt me. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. My daughters suffered as my new wife and I tried to sort things out. I could not let another marriage fail…not again. I lost my job, her mother came to live with us while she underwent treatment for terminal cancer and my wife wanted to have children. She was older and the possibility of problems with child bearing loomed. Even after our divorce, we tried to repair the irreparable. Our parting left me disillusioned. I swore that I would never marry again.

For the next 10 years, I threw myself into my corporate job, lived in a small apartment and saved my money. My youngest daughter, Erin, insisted that I have a pet cat. She could not bear the thought of dad being all alone. One day we went pet shopping at the local animal shelters and that’s how my cat, Spike, came to live with me. I bonded with the one pink-eared, big pawed, anti-social tabby. Another relationship with a woman came and went over the next 4 years, but I remained steadfast in my resolve on marriage. I became a long time volunteer at a nature sanctuary and historic farm near where I lived. I began giving tours and working with school groups. I learned old fashioned carpentry techniques as I helped build several structures for the farm site. It was during this time that I met Lisa. She was a fellow volunteer. We often just missed getting together. She would be coming and I would be going, but one fateful day brought us together. I was finally ready for the next chapter and so was she.

All that I was or ever hoped to be has come to pass since our marriage. I’m 57 years old and for the first time I feel…redemption. I feel redeemed. What was once lost is now found in who we are together, not just lovers…but life partners. I have been so many different people in my life. Each one looking for who I am today. Lisa has realized her potential as an artist and as for me, I wrote a book about the place where I now work, The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. We have a wonderful home and three cats. I’m a grandpa and life is good. I am growing in my spiritual understanding. Sometimes it takes a while to find ourselves as our paths are full of twists and turns.

FOOD for THOUGHT...