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| My family |
Today
I’ve been thinking about how life plays strange tricks on you and doesn’t turn
out the way you expect. When I was in school, I never chose a career path
because I thought some man would marry me and take care of me, and I would
spend my days reading Silver Screen and eating bonbons. The closest I came to a
future vision was maybe owning a small bookstore. Fate had other things in
store.
Fifty-six
years ago today I married the man I intended to spend the rest of my life with.
He was not then nor ever the love of my life, but I thought I loved him, and he
loved me. We married in my brother’s back yard in a small Missouri town, with a
row of bushes separating us from the goat pens next door. Little did I know
what lay ahead of me—graduate school, four beloved children, a career in
publishing, a life as a writer—and divorce.
For
many years, we were the charmed couple, younger than his medical colleagues, less
conventional in our lifestyle, the perfect family in the dream “doctor’s wife” house
with the children and the station wagon. Gradually, after fifteen years, it
fell apart. It would be easy for me to blame him, as I know it was easy for hm
to tell others how bad the marriage was, but the truth is divorce always has
two participants.
At the
age of forty-two I found myself the single parent of four, mistress of a large
(and expensive) house, and unemployed. I was terrified, and I think the kids
might have been too, though they were visibly relieved that the bickering and
tension were gone from the house. Gradually, we put one foot ahead of the other
and moved on.
I went
into a career in academic publishing, work that I loved and, I think, was good
at. My children each found their own ways, sometimes a crooked, jagged path,
but today the oldest is a CPA, my oldest daughter a lawyer, the second son was
owner of his own toy manufactures representative company and is now in charge
of US sales for a larger firm, and the youngest a luxury travel advisor. All
four are happily married, and they have given me seven terrific grandchildren.
I laughed that after their childhood, crowded with noise and love and laughter
after the divorce, none of them wanted more than two children. I could never
make them understand that raising four is a whole lot easier than raising two.
More expensive, but easier.
Today,
we are a happy, strong family, always ready for the next family get-together. The
children’s father no longer walks this earth, but when he did—at family wedding
receptions—I think he recognized that we were a family unit without him. With joy, we have reached out and absorbed into the family his daughter from
his second marriage.
When
Joel left us, I remembered Robert Browning’s words in “Rabbi Ben Ezra”:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
I thought marriage was
like a roller coaster, with ups and downs, and you rode it to the end. He didn’t
seem to agree. But a few years after he left, I realized what an enormous favor
he had done the children and me. We were healthy and happy. I never heard from
them any bitter longing for the father they’d lost nor any wish to search for
their biological parents—all four are adopted, but as I will tell you fiercely,
they are mine.
God has truly blessed me, and I can tell you, fifty-six years later
I am one happy camper. No, there’s no man in my life, but I have lovely
memories. And I am content with the world I have now, even in quarantine. A tip
of the hat to Jordan, who keeps me safe these days, and to the other three who
are wildly supportive.
Who knew all those years ago what would happen?
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