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Until death do us part.  A few weeks ago there were obituaries of a couple who both had passed away within a short time of each other.  This is what we think of when we utter those words, “til death do us part”, right?  In a society where fifty percent of all marriages fail it seems like this vow should be changed, or should it?  If fifty percent fail then fifty percent succeed until one dies.  In the case of the two obituaries; sometimes the separation is short until the one mate follows the other.  The joke behind the fifty-fifty rule is if the marriage doesn’t fail then it lasts forever.  To fundamentalists marriage is a commitment under their Creator that should honor the vows spoken.  I’m going to provide an alternative meaning to that time tested vow.

I’m in the first fifty percent, the failing part.  I was married for the better part of ten years.  I have three daughters from that union and had great in-laws and learned a lot from that experience.  Here’s where those who have never been divorced can start.  It’s the same as those who have never had children giving advice to those who have, it’s pointless.  I had countless people tell me to not get divorced, stay married, “do it for the children”.  I can honestly say I got divorced for the children.  Children have one shot at growing up, one, no do-over, one shot.  That shot could have been one of unhappiness, one of being forced into the vows that two young people spoke long ago.  Here’s where I say that the vow isn’t wrong, it’s all in the interpretation.

Divorce is death.  The stages are the same.  There’s your anger.  You’re angry that somehow you’ve angered your Creator by not obeying the vow.  You’re angry at your spouse and yourself for not fixing the break, correcting the mistakes and making it alright.  You’re in denial, denial that this thing, this fifty percent chance went the wrong way.  You bargain with yourself that maybe just maybe you can let the past slide and start over without the anger, wrong again.  I honestly can’t say I know all the stages of grieving nor do I want to look them up, but I know after awhile you accept the fact that your marriage is a failure and you move on.  The problem sometime is that not everyone moves on.  Remember the three children?

My youngest was two when the separation started.  The constant “why don’t you live with us” question was difficult.  When I started dating again and the hatred real or perceived towards my now wife was difficult.  The most difficult time was one evening when we heard my oldest crying.  I stood at the door listening as she cried and talked about not being part of a family anymore.  That one hurt.  We both went in and talked to all three of them and told them that not only are they part of a family; they now had two families.  More people to love them more people to help them when they’re hurt and more people to give them gifts, just kidding on that last part but I’m sure that managed to make it into their brains as well.

The next time you have a friend going through a divorce don’t just remind them of their vows; remember that there’s two sides to every story and a new interpretation of a vow isn’t always a bad thing.  Lastly, be there for them and let them grieve no matter what side of the fifty percent they sit on.

 

The grass was never greener, the sun never brighter and a grave never deeper.  The hydraulic hum as they lowered Maggie into the grave drowned out all the “I’m so sorry for your loss” and “she’s at peace” comments that were being forced into my skull. I tossed a spade full of dirt into the hole wondering why I had bothered to toss in a rose if I was only going to bury that too.  The crowd thinned, the pastor gave me his last bit of encouragement and left me there, alone, standing next to fresh earth and a granite stone that read Margaret James, with born and died dates freshly etched.  If only the dash between the dates could tell the story of her life.  It couldn’t, and neither could I.

I decided that the scenic route back to our empty house was a better option then the route we both had traveled a hundred times.  The curves of every corner had trees of temptation and the guardrails positioned by the bluffs never looked so weak.  I waited for a deer or in this neck of the woods a cow that could easily, if I hit hard enough, easily erase my grief and put it on the shoulders of others.  I didn’t see any deer and cattle were all fenced in but what I did find seemed like an answer to an unspoken prayer.

The for-sale sign was faded; the phone number was readable but unnecessary.  The overalls and faded ball cap and interest in my presence led me to believe that farmer Bob was the proud owner of what was a 1988 Mini Winni resting in the high grass.

“What’s the asking price?” I said with a nod in not Bob’s direction but Chuck which in farm land was close enough.

“This here is a 1988 Winnebago with only 78,000 miles on her 454 eight cylinder engine”. Chuck said after introducing himself.

“So what is the price on the 88’ Winni, Chuck?”

“And you are…”

“Dave, David James.”

“Well Dave, I’m asking $4500 but would be willing to take four”.

“Any interest in a trade, like my 2001 Ford F-150, straight up” I asked.  I’m not sure if the silence that followed was shock or a growing distrust for this pale skinny “city boy” who just offered a nearly new truck for something that’s been shade for cows for at least a year.

“Straight up, what’s the catch Dave” Chuck asked as his eyes darted back and forth between the Winnebago and my truck.

“The catch Chuck, that Winni has to start and you need a clear title to exchange for my clear title which I have in the glove box ready to be signed over to you.”  Chuck looked at me again like he was trying to see if I had prison orange under my suit or psych ward escapee tattooed on my forehead.  Without saying another word Chuck climbed in his 88’ Winnebago and fired it up in one try which I guessed was a daily ritual.  I could see him fumbling with the visor as the engine purred.

“Clear and clean Dave, if yours is the same you got yourself a deal.”  I went back into the truck, grabbed my briefcase and laptop from behind the seat.  I pulled the title from the glove box leaving behind my insurance papers, a map or two, some Juicy Fruit and a half pack of Marlboros.

I had never driven an RV before but I didn’t think that it would take me too much time to learn how.  I only curbed it once on the way to the DMV to get new plates making the call to my insurance agent on the way to speed things up.  The yellows and browns of the plaid upholstery weren’t pretty but the old farmer had kept it clean.  The carpet was worn in the appropriate places and the refrigerator only had a couple scratches on it which I suspect were from magnets.  I called my daughter, who hadn’t made it back for the funeral due to having said her goodbyes already.  The pause before a cell phone rings is always a reminder that in that split second before a phone is answered that everything could change.

Maggie had been a health nut, in the nuttiest sense.  She ate bark and drank slurry of prunes and milk for breakfast.  The bark was a multigrain bird feed looking mixture that to me was just bark.  She ran five miles a day, did yoga and slept a full seven hours a night.  She was an investment banker; my nickname for her in the warmest sense was “my retirement”.  I wrote short stories and an advice column for our local newspaper, neither of which would have provided us with any kind of life that didn’t involve living in a tent.  She skipped her annual pap one year due to traveling with me around the state promoting my first book; a collection of short stories about our life.  Irony doesn’t wait long to bite you in the ass.  Cervical cancer, fast acting, too fast; from diagnosis to death less then six months of wasting away and when you’re fit there’s very little to waste.

If Maggie’s death were an accident or murder I would’ve been the prime suspect.  My personal net worth before her death, a 68’ VW Bug, a collection of first edition books and about eighty five bucks in a coffee can.  Net worth after her death, after funeral expenses, about a quarter of a million bucks; good thing it was cancer.

“Good afternoon you’ve reached the Kendra James Learning Center Kendra speaking”.  My daughter’s voice so like her mothers, the heavy sigh gave me away.

“Dad, is that you?”  She’s a woman now David, not the little girl who would slide on her mothers high heels and stagger around her bedroom bossing her dolls around.

“Yeah Kiddo, it’s me.  It’s over; I know you don’t want to talk about it so I won’t go into detail.  Everyone came, the weather was ok and, well, it’s over.  I’m just calling to let you know that if you want to reach me for say the next year or two to please call my cell.”  Just what every kid wants I’m sure; the ramblings of her old man.

“Why dad are you disconnecting the home phone?”

“Not a bad idea, I guess I should.  That’s not the reason; I’m going on a trip.  You know your mother had great business sense, like you.  Anyway, she left us both a lot of money; you should be getting a letter on how to claim yours. So I bought an old RV and I’m hitting the road.”  The cracking of my voice and my forced enthusiasm surely was showing through.

“You do that dad; you need a break I’m sure.  What about Dasher?”  Dasher, the family hound, nearly blind, totally deaf and half toxic waste if he eats the wrong food, what would I do with him?

“I’ll take him with me and pack a shovel to bury his crap at the roadside parks and to eventually bury him I suppose.  Kendra is there anything you need from me right now?  Because if there isn’t this is probably the last time I’ll call for awhile.  I need time to reflect, to just get away from all the BS.”

“I’ll be okay daddy, just do what you have to do and give Dasher a kiss from me.  I’ll call you if I need you and I have a key to the house if I need anything from there.  Are you sure you’re alright, is there anything I can do for you?”  My daughter, always the grownup taking care of her flighty father, at least I did something right.

“I’ll be alright, I love you Kiddo, Dasher says hi too.”  She laughed and told me she loved me and hung up the phone.  We once again talked without talking about Maggie; I guess that’s just the way it’s going to be.

Where do you start when you don’t know where the finish line is?  As luck would have it Dasher died before I even finished packing.  I buried him next to Nibbles the rabbit and Hammy the hamster.  With the last pat of the shovel I knew that Dasher would be the last entry into the James’s family pet cemetery.  I packed twenty grand in cash and grabbed my ATM card; I also linked my Paypal card to my bank account as well.  Thank God for the electronic age I was able to set up all the utilities on automatic payments which baring a broken pipe disaster; the house should still be standing when and if I return.  I drove from Michigan to Georgia in three days, stopping only to sleep and to grab some grub.  I’m not sure why I needed to start this quest of nothingness there but it’s where I ended up, St. Mary’s Georgia.

I had lived there for a time when I was young and foolish as opposed to being old and foolish.  I helped open a gigantic marvel of a department store complete with well dressed mannequins and employees to match.  First off I was shocked the old Winnie made it on this first leg of the journey but unfortunately it wouldn’t be the only shock.  The department store was still open now some thirty years later.  The carpet well worn, the mannequins faded and the employees carried baggage under their eyes.

“Why Mr. David is that you”, the southern accent I found still a treat to hear.  From whom it came was my shock.  Della, who thirty years ago was forbidden fruit of a teen worker now in her late forties and had she been mute I would have never recognized her.

“Yes Miss Della it’s me.  How are you?” The one question we all ask and don’t truly care to hear an answer.

“Just fine, just fine, still here as you can plainly see, still here” Della continued to talk as my mind wandered.  I left town that day not knowing why I even stopped.  At fifty-five years old what in the hell did I think I was doing?  My anger helped fuel my drive north, to where I did not know.

I started my memoirs in each rest area and each “choke and puke” my favorite term for truck stops.  It’s hard to look back when you know you’ll need carbon dating and archeologists pick to dig up anything interesting from your past.  While writing I wished that I had been arrested for protesting or saved someone from a fire or swam across Lake Superior.  Nope, my life consisted of articles in Grit and an advice column that truly demonstrated those who can’t do, teach.  Without acknowledgement a year past, then two as the pages slowly faded on my yellow legal pad.  It was after that second year that I noticed I couldn’t wait to urinate and when I did not much came out.  After the third year of writing on the road and visiting places from my past and at the age of fifty-eight I went in for a prostrate exam.  No surprise, cancer, advanced.

I called Kendra and told her that mother is taking me home.  She was like her mother in business and like me in emotions, she knew what I meant.  She asked if I was going home, I said no.  I agreed to meet her while I was still healthy enough, at least looking healthy enough.  I drove the Winnie to the animal shelter and picked up a nice little hound I named Little Dasher and then turned onto I-75 North.

 

I’ve written about illness in my family and my friends, the death of my father and yet this column touches on the most sensitive subject for me because in reality it combines it all. I’m the youngest of the Foreman boys and by the time I came around my parents were well established with a house, a vehicle or two, snow machines, a motorcycle but most important to me was our camp. The building itself wasn’t huge, two bedrooms with a sometimes working bath and then a combined kitchen and living room. The lot was 100X50 with the 50 being the lake front. As a child I loved it and hated it at the same time. I hated it because it kept me out of town for the majority of the summer which meant no summer sports which I might have been good at. I loved our camp for many more reasons. I have a picture of my dad and me sitting on a swing that hung between two trees. I vaguely remember my uncle Jr’s 25 wedding anniversary party; which meant they felt the peace I felt. My birthday is in July so a lot of my parties were there, even the one after my father died where the gift I remember was a colorful towel given to me by another summer resident kid.  My grandmother loved our camp. She would swim and float so gracefully that to me she was an angel looking up at the sky. Our little rowboat with the leak was great for keeping the fish alive. Our motor boat towed us along the water while our floating raft gave us something to dive off of. The smell of the pine needles and the chattering of the squirrels are all memories that to this day bring a smile and a lump in my throat at the same time. As a teen the guys would play poker and tell stories around the fire at night. I even lived there once for a few months until it got too cold to swim in the morning.

 

Financially all good things come to an end I guess. The dock was consistently getting destroyed by the winter ice, the boat sank at the dock and the rowboat rotted out. The camp had no foundation, no well and needed this and that. The decision to sell was the hardest financial choice ever made. I prayed about it and cried about it but at the time wasn’t prepared to work a second or third job to keep it. To this day I count it as the biggest mistake I’ve even made, I didn’t man up and save the fruit of my father’s labor, the peace for my grandmother and just the quiet that we all loved. So now it’s memories for me, stories I won’t tell to my own kids because I don’t want to be asked why it’s gone. I try to provide summer activities like swimming, kayaking and fishing; all in an attempt to build memories because good ones don’t just happen. I’m a helper, (for lack of a better word), with the hopes of being a true humanitarian so financially I doubt I’ll ever be able to buy recreational property. I do hope to buy a camper a little newer then my 72’ pop-up but for now that will do. Endless emotional rambling won’t bring back the camp, my memories are forever and it’s up to me to make more for myself and my family. I do know one thing for sure, if given the chance again to sell that fifty feet of paradise, I wouldn’t. Every year I stop there, walk to the shore, shed a tear and vow that someday……

Everyone has a hero, or at least someone who influenced them in a positive way.  Sometimes our hero’s are people we don’t know like athletes, actors, and sometimes even politicians.  If we’re lucky our hero is someone we know; I’m one of the lucky.

We live life thinking about missed opportunities, the “what ifs” and the “if only” or selfishly “what’s in it for me?”  Recently I ran into an old friend who just by his presence reminded me that life can ignore the “ifs and buts” and can be cruel.  James suffers from Picks disease, or Frontotemporal Dementia, which is quickly robbing him of his future and sadly erasing his past.  In this life when something is unknown to us we are frightened of it.  Often we are so frightened of the unknown that we avoid it, not helping and just practicing self preservation.  Before my friend James dies and he will die from this monster, I wanted to write about what I’ve learned from him in my thirty-seven years on this planet.

In my photo’s I have one of our kindergarten class, I being the smallest with my mop of blonde hair and I swear it’s true, James being the cutest.  James being a farm kid meant that he liked school more then most because it was easier then the farm.  In my pre-teen years I helped with hay, so I can say that even in that short time I knew farming wasn’t for me.  James although quiet and somewhat shy, was always ahead in maturity.  I don’t know if it was the responsibilities of the farm or just a gift.  Specifically there are a few moments that left a permanent mark on my life.

 

 

In sixth grade James and his family traveled to Texas to view President Johnson’s library.  While they were taking in the sites in comes President Carter.  To most sixth graders this is not a big deal, to James it was the biggest.  While telling the story to our class he shed tears of pride of having seen the leader of the free world.  Some kids laughed, some sat without interest, I shed a tear knowing that anything that made James cry must have been a big deal.

One of the most foolish things I ever did came the next year, seventh grade.  As James was getting off the bus one slushy morning; I nailed him upside the head with a well packed slush ball, hard as a rock and twice as dangerous.  I ran off laughing not thinking I did anything wrong, after all it was winter.  James met me in the hall and picked me up and slammed me into the lockers.  First this was recognition from me that man is this kid strong and second, oh boy what’s he going to do?  He said through gritted teeth, “Don’t you ever embarrass me again.”  It wasn’t, “that hurt”, or “could’ve taken and eye out”, it was don’t embarrass me.  Respect is all I would ever have for James from that point on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In high school the focus for most was fashion from parachute pants for guys and big hair for the ladies.  For James it was a button down shirt and just an overall clean appearance.  Weekends meant parties for me, and so did at long last our graduation. At our graduation blast James showed up with a Pepsi in one hand and a handshake and pat on the back for all and most importantly to share in our celebration. I don’t recall him ever being at any other parties. There are pictures of that day, us fools with our beer and James with his Pepsi; if anyone has one with James down on one knee in the center of the group, please send one my way.

James went on to be very successful in his education, career and as a leader in his community.  Even when faced with adversity whether it being judged for being too young in his elected position or for his portrayal in the news media; James always handled it with class.  That is before the Picks kicked in.  Look back, you’ll know it’s true.

I’m as guilty as anyone who when we heard he had a terminal illness I shied away from any contact, shameful.  The stories spoke of him not remembering things, needing help with self-control and just not being the man we all knew.  When I saw him the other day I was lost on what to say or do.  As always it was James with the class, he said, “Hi Brian”, I said “Hi Jimmy”, and then I went home and cried.

Too often we write off people because they are not what they once were.  I’m ashamed of myself for not being a friend.  In what ever time James has left I will be a

 

 

friend to the man who gained my respect by showing me my lack of respect for him.  With Pepsi in hand I guarantee you will see me soon my hero, my friend.

 

 

 

“To know an author well is to have a friend for life”.  I closed the cover, turned back to my author friend and nodded sharing a brief smile.  I thought about the inscription as I walked down the ramp outside of the door.  I had never been to a book signing before only coming to his because of the support and encouragement he had given me throughout the years.  I hoped that in twenty years I’d be the one sitting behind the old table with stacks of numerous books of my own doing surrounding me.  “To know an author well is to have a friend for life”.  It seemed so familiar to me yet I couldn’t place it.  The sentiment of it I agreed with.  In my teens I’d read a popular mystery author who at the time I thought was a genius of suspense.  I recently tried to read a new book by the same author only to realize that this new book was new by title only.  The back story and mystery theme were the same as his other 20 plus books, only the names had changed.  This realization left me dumbstruck, how could this millionaire author ah, never mind.

Driving up to my house I saw that my wife wasn’t home. After tossing my keys on the table I sorted through the mail separating what were mine and hers into two piles to be looked at later.  The phrase was still bouncing in my head as I sat down at my computer.  Surrounding my computer were years of reference books.  A thesaurus, a dictionary, quotation books and other style and guides to writing.  These were all intended to help me become the writer I’ve always dreamed of being. The trouble was I always had an excuse.  In my teens it was if only I had an electric typewriter.  In my twenties it was if only I had a word processor, a computer a laptop computer all the way back to maybe if I had a sharp pencil and a fresh pad of paper.  Now in my thirties I find myself still looking for the magic wand to success.  I have a subscription to the Writer a year or two old copy of the Writer’s Market and as I’ve said every accessory a “writer” needs.  What I didn’t have was any writing credits.  I still have in a file a writing award from grade school from the American Legion or V.F.W. I don’t remember which.  I also have a certificate from a local poetry contest but no real credits to speak about. I once thought that success meant payment.  In college I took a creative writing class where I marveled at how the instructor could mine at least one golden sentence from an otherwise poorly written story.  I asked him one day that if he had to write for money what venue would it be in; fiction, poetry or non-fiction? He said he would rather die or something to that effect.  When my piece was used as an example for the class I thought ah ha, maybe I do have what it takes.  Five years of entering short story contests followed without success.  The hell with it, I’ll write for myself.

I went to my author friend with a couple of stories and had them edited.  He liked some, pitched one and wondered why the hell I had written a children’s story.  Sitting at the computer these thoughts lead me back to present time.  Why was this inscription haunting?  To my right a different book by my friend lay mixed in with the reference books.  I picked it up, opened the cover and there was the same inscription.  “To know a writer is to have a friend for life”.  How many times and to how many people had he written this to I wondered?  In twenty years would I write something similar?  I smiled at the thought.  I’d be sitting there, my Converse All-Stars peaking out from under the frayed ends of my favorite blue jeans my hair gray, my eyes bloodshot from late night inspiration.  Up will walk an aspiring writer, buying my twelfth or thirteenth book, he’ll hand it to me with eagerness for my wisdom.  I’ll open it up and I’ll write with confidence what I know is truly the secret to the mysterious universe of writing, “To _____, Just Write”.  Next to me my author friend will cackle as he writes to a young man buying his latest book, “To know an author well…..”