Picking Up the Pieces
The title suggests that the process of re-building my life was delayed for a number of years. On the contrary, it was a slow and deliberate undertaking from the day I moved out until I finally overcame the intense pain of a failed marriage.
In the last post I did not mention two significant items. They were not really related to my career directly. Odd though it may seem, I have a harder time dating recent events than I do those from long ago. At some point Margery decided to sell the house in Woodbine and to relocate to Omaha. I think that may have been in 1996 or possibly the summer of 1995. I know it was not prior to January 1995. With the two oldest on their own and the youngest at Iowa State, the commute to work for her was no longer necessary. Without my even asking, she gave me half of the sale price of our former home. It seemed most logical to invest my part in a house of my own. I found one in Benson near Prep on 60th Avenue. I suppose at the time I bought it I imagined living there until I retired and possibly forever. I have a pencil drawing of that house done for me by Janet for Father's Day 1998 that memorializes that step in my life.
Janet was consistently the most challenging of my teenage children. I believe it was the spring of her junior year that Margery called to tell me that Janet had run away from home and wondered if I would like to help find her and bring her back. What an understatement! It did not take me that long to narrow down the possibilities. I knew she had started hanging out with some ne'er-do-wells from a nearby community in another county. I went to speak to the single mother of her "boyfriend." The woman expected me to respond positively to her overtures to be Janet's alternative mother. Wrong. I think Janet was possibly in that house even as we talked at her kitchen table. I gave the woman to understand that Janet had a perfectly fine mother and that if Janet was not home by supper, I would be moving into this house until I found found my daughter Janet did return as instructed.
I feared she might be pregnant. She wasn't. I did wish this particular family would extricate themselves from my daughter's life. They did not. Janet had managed to tarnish her image as it was and probably took a lot of guff from both the community and some of her school mates. At any rate, she refused to complete her senior year at Woodbine so her mother enrolled her at Cathedral High School in Omaha. It seemed to be a satisfactory resolution to both of us. She did finish high school and did make new friends as well as determining that everyone among her old teen friends was not an enemy. At least some rifts healed.
What I did find out before her graduation was that Janet was now pregnant and happily so but with no intention of marrying the boyfriend she had taken advantage of. Thank God for small favors. I was not so happy myself, but compared to the rest of the extended family, it seemed I was the only one that felt Janet had not been ruined for life. She wisely got busy and found herself a job to support herself and her unborn baby and moved out. This job was as a nanny (the second one) for a divorced Air Force sergeant, who was raising his three young children after their mother (a British national) left to do her own thing in the USA free of the burden of responsibility of her children. Those children were 9, 6, and 4 at the time Janet became their nanny. Janet herself was a little more than two months from delivering her own baby. What had raised the hackles on the back of my neck seemed, after all, to be an incredibly good solution not only for my daughter but also for the man who needed help with his own predicament as a single parent. My fears were allayed. It was I whom she called in late October for a ride to hospital for the birth of Brandon, my first grandchild. I was just short of 50.
I am not actually certain at which point Janet became more than employee, but she did let me know that she and George had begun to date discreetly. She hoped I was not against her being involved with an older man. When they began to talk of marriage, I told her that the only drawback I could see was that she most likely would some day be a young widow. I was a bit more surprised in September 1994 when she asked me to be the parent who helped her plan her wedding. I was glad to help and willing to work along with her mother, but Janet preferred to leave her mother out of direct planning. I suppose it may have been to avoid any extended family commentary about the inappropriateness of her having a church wedding in a white dress. Oh, well. The wedding was January 14, 1995. The wedding party included cousins from her mother's twin sister's family and my brother's sons as well as bridesmaids from both Woodbine and Cathedral and a maid of honor who was a long time friend from church camp. It was a beautiful occasion that the pastor referred to as "not coincidence but God-incidence."
These events were all during my last few years at Prep, where I received great support from very good friends, many of whom came to Janet and George's wedding at my Methodist church in Omaha. Margery's twin sister and her three children were the only maternal relatives to come, though others were invited. We all had a good time, and I got one of my longed-for photos: Margery and Marian with their six children (five redheads) who are actually genetic siblings--much more than just first cousins.
In the last post I did not mention two significant items. They were not really related to my career directly. Odd though it may seem, I have a harder time dating recent events than I do those from long ago. At some point Margery decided to sell the house in Woodbine and to relocate to Omaha. I think that may have been in 1996 or possibly the summer of 1995. I know it was not prior to January 1995. With the two oldest on their own and the youngest at Iowa State, the commute to work for her was no longer necessary. Without my even asking, she gave me half of the sale price of our former home. It seemed most logical to invest my part in a house of my own. I found one in Benson near Prep on 60th Avenue. I suppose at the time I bought it I imagined living there until I retired and possibly forever. I have a pencil drawing of that house done for me by Janet for Father's Day 1998 that memorializes that step in my life.
Janet was consistently the most challenging of my teenage children. I believe it was the spring of her junior year that Margery called to tell me that Janet had run away from home and wondered if I would like to help find her and bring her back. What an understatement! It did not take me that long to narrow down the possibilities. I knew she had started hanging out with some ne'er-do-wells from a nearby community in another county. I went to speak to the single mother of her "boyfriend." The woman expected me to respond positively to her overtures to be Janet's alternative mother. Wrong. I think Janet was possibly in that house even as we talked at her kitchen table. I gave the woman to understand that Janet had a perfectly fine mother and that if Janet was not home by supper, I would be moving into this house until I found found my daughter Janet did return as instructed.
I feared she might be pregnant. She wasn't. I did wish this particular family would extricate themselves from my daughter's life. They did not. Janet had managed to tarnish her image as it was and probably took a lot of guff from both the community and some of her school mates. At any rate, she refused to complete her senior year at Woodbine so her mother enrolled her at Cathedral High School in Omaha. It seemed to be a satisfactory resolution to both of us. She did finish high school and did make new friends as well as determining that everyone among her old teen friends was not an enemy. At least some rifts healed.
What I did find out before her graduation was that Janet was now pregnant and happily so but with no intention of marrying the boyfriend she had taken advantage of. Thank God for small favors. I was not so happy myself, but compared to the rest of the extended family, it seemed I was the only one that felt Janet had not been ruined for life. She wisely got busy and found herself a job to support herself and her unborn baby and moved out. This job was as a nanny (the second one) for a divorced Air Force sergeant, who was raising his three young children after their mother (a British national) left to do her own thing in the USA free of the burden of responsibility of her children. Those children were 9, 6, and 4 at the time Janet became their nanny. Janet herself was a little more than two months from delivering her own baby. What had raised the hackles on the back of my neck seemed, after all, to be an incredibly good solution not only for my daughter but also for the man who needed help with his own predicament as a single parent. My fears were allayed. It was I whom she called in late October for a ride to hospital for the birth of Brandon, my first grandchild. I was just short of 50.
I am not actually certain at which point Janet became more than employee, but she did let me know that she and George had begun to date discreetly. She hoped I was not against her being involved with an older man. When they began to talk of marriage, I told her that the only drawback I could see was that she most likely would some day be a young widow. I was a bit more surprised in September 1994 when she asked me to be the parent who helped her plan her wedding. I was glad to help and willing to work along with her mother, but Janet preferred to leave her mother out of direct planning. I suppose it may have been to avoid any extended family commentary about the inappropriateness of her having a church wedding in a white dress. Oh, well. The wedding was January 14, 1995. The wedding party included cousins from her mother's twin sister's family and my brother's sons as well as bridesmaids from both Woodbine and Cathedral and a maid of honor who was a long time friend from church camp. It was a beautiful occasion that the pastor referred to as "not coincidence but God-incidence."
These events were all during my last few years at Prep, where I received great support from very good friends, many of whom came to Janet and George's wedding at my Methodist church in Omaha. Margery's twin sister and her three children were the only maternal relatives to come, though others were invited. We all had a good time, and I got one of my longed-for photos: Margery and Marian with their six children (five redheads) who are actually genetic siblings--much more than just first cousins.