For the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour that finally got the United States off the sidelines in WWII, yesterday’s remembrance of that day seemed remarkably muted for such a milestone.
But for the last 20 years, the 7th of December would also serve as the final warning to a day that was equally momentous in terms of my personal destiny and the harbinger that its trajectory would be forever changed.
Mind you, 20 years ago today in the morning…I was out weeding my front garden when my father came round and gave me the rather unexpected news that there was a Christmas parade scheduled in downtown Clayton at about the exact same time Julia and I were going to do our variations on “I do” in a couple of hours.
I guess we solved the mystery of why 08 Dec 2001 was readily available at the Wagner House in downtown!
To this day, I have no idea why I was weeding that garden.
I suspect it was a combination of being nervous as hell about what was to come and channeling a bit of my grandfather’s Midwestern farmer spirit as the anniversary of his birthday had recently passed six days prior and even though I think of him often, those memories tend to be a bit more poignant at the beginning of December.
Somehow by some miracle I managed to get properly cleaned up and installed into the rather striking burgundy coloured tuxedo and find my way downtown.
My half of the vows were simultaneously the hardest thing I’d ever written to date and yet once I found a quote that summed up how I felt about the proceedings, I was able to write them down in near record time…about a half hour. And whilst I meant every single word of those words from the bottom of my heart…at that time I had no idea about the shape of that future before us.
“The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us.”
Citizen g’kar, “Babylon 5”
If I’m honest about it, the next few hours were going to be daunting enough in front of friends and family, some of whom had come from afar to witness a Christmas-themed wedding ceremony.
Finding parking was exciting as the crowds were already lining Main Street on what would be an unusually warm December afternoon!
One moment of the ceremony particularly stands out in my memory. As I was gazing across to the most beautiful person I’d ever met who was about to consent to putting up with me on a 24-hour basis in spite of my foibles and I’m reading off my vows half from memory, I realised that I was about a couple of seconds from completely losing what measure of composure I was pretending to have.
That’s when the unmistakable strains of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” started blasting from the instruments of the marching band passing right in front of Wagner House in the parade Dad had promised would be coming through.
If you grow up in the Army family, that piece of music is about as familiar to you as the national anthem and that day it saved me from breaking down in tears right then and there.
I took a deep breath, counted to three, and then carried on as if nothing untoward had happened trying to be heard over the band. I doubt anyone in the audience was fooled…Julia certainly wasn’t with that little smile that I’m reasonably sure (and hoped!) no one else saw.
The rest of the day was a blur if I’m honest about it. We adjourned to the back garden for the photographer to do their thing as the venue was being converted over for the reception. Dad would tell me later that more than a few people that had staked out their position for the parade actually came inside the house to help themselves to the catering. I don’t know if they were successful but he assured me he kindly suggested that they be elsewhere without the extreme prejudice that was the hallmark of his career choice. There are some things it’s just better to accept at face value! 🙂
Photo strobe flashes, music, a plate of food at the head of the table that I really couldn’t eat much of because I was still a bundle of nerves, more music, some attempts at dancing in probably the most uncoordinated and inept ways imaginable, an endless parade of friends and family and the next thing I know Julia and I are in the back of a stretch limousine heading toward a hotel on New Bern Av where we’d stay prior to flying out to Maui in Hawai’i the following day.
The hoagies that had been stashed in the hotel room were the first real meal I remember having in the previous 48 hours as the reception itself was a bit of nibbles and mostly conversation.
Neither of us could have imagined that evening what would come the next few years where one’s hopes of the ideal future comes into direct conflict with the reality that came our way.
Oh, we had an idea of eventually having kids as a family of our own though we disagreed on the number which she’d ultimately win when Katie became a bit of a surprise number three after we had endured the trials and tribulations of Alexander’s two brain surgeries and subsequent medical needs.
But who really imagines having a child with disabilities and everything that entails. That always happens to someone else, right?
Recent tragic events that have befallen a friend reminded me of Babylon 5’s Susan Ivanova describing the “Hour of the Wolf” which is probably the best way to sum up how I feel when this day rolls round:
“My father told me about it. It’s the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can’t sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should’ve gone but didn’t. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart. I’ve been living in the hour of the wolf for seven days, Lyta. Seven days. The wolf and I are now on a first-name basis. In times like this, my father used to take one large glass of vodka before bed. ‘To keep the wolf away,’ he said. And then he would take three very small drinks of vodka, just in case she had cubs while she was waiting outside. [she takes a drink] It doesn’t work.”
Commander susan ivanova, “Babylon 5”
I could point out the damnable statistic where 80% of families with a child with disabilities end up in divorce (and that’s the low end…it’s not uncommon to see that number approach 90%) and just chalk it up to being doomed by cold and uncaring mathematics. But that doesn’t tell the whole tale of why from Guy Fawkes Day to the 8th of December is a month-long exercise in being in the Hour of the Wolf for me every year since the separation and divorce.
No matter how I might try to rationalise things when things were heading downhill, the one huge regret I will carry with me every day of my life was going radio silent for months prior to the fateful day. Being completely incapable of coherently expressing how I felt and *JUST GET ON WITH TALKING IT OUT* did more to seal our matrimonial fate than anything else I could point to.
That’d be bad enough.
But what was worse was forcing Julia to take the step that I was completely incapable of taking because the memories of how utterly miserable being at ground zero of my mother and father’s divorce was for me even though it was ultimately the best thing the two of us could have done at that time.
My paralysing fear of even considering divorce much less dare speaking the word based on childhood memories and an overarching sense of guilt is what put her in that seat opposite me at Jimmy V’s that night and made her say that word first.
That she was able to speak to me afterward ought to tell you just how much of a stand-up person she is…certainly she’s a better person than I’d ever hope to be.
Divorce is never easy no matter what people might tell you. What I will tell you is that it is easier when you take the decision that even though I wasn’t able to avoid that fate, it sure as hell was not going to be the acrimonious psychological and legal warfare I remembered from my very youngest days.
But there are times where as painful as divorce is, it turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Once she got us past the word and we accepted the reality with the shared goal of doing what was best for the kids without going scorched earth and destroying each other in the process, we were able to remember the much better times of our relationship and most importantly started communicating more effectively than we had in quite a while.
It’s not always been perfect and I’m sure I’ve made her cross at me more times than I’d want to admit, I feel we’ve been in a far better place these last eleven years and for that I am thankful beyond the capacity of words to express.
And truth be told, there’s even been more than a few laughs along the way. One of these days I’ll have to tell you dear readers of the actual day the divorce was made final that included a mail-order Russian bride and a language barrier that was broken by a rather crude gesture and a bailiff of the court desperately trying to restore order. If that isn’t high comedy, I don’t know what is.
At the end of the day, though there are a couple of profound regrets, what I will never regret is having three of the most amazing children who are now at the cusp of seizing their destiny in their own hands and becoming that next great story that I hope will last a thousand years or more.
They occasionally drive me to distraction but life was cold and lonely without them and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars that they are in my life when they very easily might not have been had it not being for Julia who has always been there even when things were at their worst.
We don’t have the ‘ohana we imagined 20 years ago.
But the ‘ohana we have may be a bit broken from time to time but it is good and it endures come what may.
And *THAT* is what helps me find peace in the Hour of the Wolf. 🙂