03.20.08
A long walk down the road of life.
Always in the back of my mind has been the fact that my DH was previously married with a son. The last time we saw him was when we moved up here to The REAL Northern California; 20 years ago. I won’t go into the particulars of this child, previous marriage and their life together. Leave it to say it was full of drugs (on her part) alcohol (on both sides) and severe PTSD from 2 tours in Vietnam (his part.) Over these past 20 years I’ve marked time wondering what he was doing. Was he married, children? Were we Grandparents?
About 9 years ago I awoke to have the unquenchable urge to call his grandparents home. I never met them, I never even met the Dh’s ex wife. But the urge would not go away. So I called, just to give our phone # and address. How could I have known that the whole family was there because his Grandfather had passed away that week. Even more amazing was he was there. I talked briefly with him, gave our address and phone # to his Grandmother and said the ‘ball is in your court’. If you want contact, you know how to get in touch with of us.
The DH and I had the feeling one day he would ‘walk down the road’ and knock on the door. The question was would he sock the husband in the nose because he was pissed off or embrace him as a long lost dad.
Two weeks ago we received a letter with pictures. He married last year, is 33 and has ‘walked down the road’ so to speak. He has struggled his adult life with learning disabilities (I’m sure the result of the drugs and alcohol during his mom’s pregnancy). He was homeless for a while and worked with a volunteer group in Humboldt County. He tried to enlist in the Army, become a police officer and a correctional officer but due to the learning disabilities was unable to pass the tests. He is on SSI.
I read the letter with mixed feelings. Not knowing how my husband would react to the outreached hand after 20 years. The DH is a quiet man. He thinks a lot and does not express his feelings because of his own ADD. I had no idea what was going through his mind. After 2 weeks of him not replying to the letter or even talking about it I sat him down and told him what I thought. I said, “this young man has taken a step that took 20 years. He has taken a chance and written you a letter and initiated contact. You’ve spent the last 2 weeks not even talking about this. How insulting to him. You know he is waiting every day to see if you answer. It is time to either respond positively or tell him you’re not interested.” Basically Fish or Cut bait.
Finally the angst came out. “What do I say?” he asked me. “Sorry for being such an A-hole for not contacting you for 20 years? I don’t want to talk to his mother or any of that side of the family”.
“But do you want to have contact?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know what to say.” he replied.
So I wrote the letter talking about our life and his half siblings. I included a brief apology about not keeping in touch and included a wedding gift card and a family picture. Once again, the ball was back in his court.
He replied and we’ve started a tentative mail relationship. Yesterday the DH said, “I guess we should write Eddie Spaghetti back”. The significance of him referring to his childhood name and taking the initiative to write him back was refreshing. We have a long way to go with this relationship reconnection. It will be an interesting next few months as we correspond with each other. My hope is to pay their way up here for a visit. In my mind’s eye I see us meeting the bus at Arcata with an embrace as he and his wife step off. It would be a wonderful thing to be able to introduce him back into the family.