The bright golden sunshine of a gorgeous Maine summer morning streams through my window and caresses my face and awakens me. I drowsily turn over to peer through half opened eyelids at the bedside table clock, 9:00am. I lay there for a moment and listen to the sounds of the hubby and Gaby talking in the kitchen. I can't hear the exact words but I can hear laughter and the clink-clank of dishes which means that the hubby has already taken care of making sure Gaby has her breakfast. He's probably sitting there enjoying a cup of coffee and laughing at her first-of-the-morning-observations. I'm so grateful for this wonderful man whom I call my husband. He lets me be tad more lazy than is healthy on Sunday mornings. However, I also know how much he cherishes those moments with his rapidly growing daughter...just the two of them seated together at the table, whilst he listens to her chatter away as she shows him the world through her eyes.
I know that I need to get up and pop a happy pill and begin the task of preparing the house for Matt's arrival late tomorrow night. The disaster with the water heater yesterday and the subsequent flood pushed back everything we had been in the middle of and now we need to hustle in order to get everything done. Despite knowing I have so much I need to accomplish in just a little over 24 hours, I can't help but lay there and think about this day, 19 long years ago. I do this each and every year since he's been gone...since Joshua died. It's always the same. I close my eyes and begin the game again...the same morbid game of reliving the eve of his death.
It's a Thursday morning, August 9, 1990. I've been up for hours already. Six-month old Matt and Meaghan and 2 year old Joshua keep me busy. Joshua once again crawled into bed with us at dead-o'clock the night before and I ended up in his room, in his bed which is tucked under a sloping eave, curled under his bright red Mickey Mouse sheets, and he, that little stinker, is laying sound asleep on my side of the generous queen-sized bed. I drift off to sleep amidst the sounds of the raccoons scurrying across the roof top and sleepily hope that we don't have to trek all the way into Victorville in the morning to buy new trash cans again because the bears have once more absconded with them. This is life in the southern California small mountain ski village of Wrightwood.
Alas, our trash cans have been raided again, but are still intact. My former husband who had been out of work for some time due to a back injury, was outside sweeping pine needles whilst the twins and Joshua were playing in the front room. I enjoy this time, just the four of us in the house. The only sounds that surround me are the giggles and squeals coming from the twins, the crunch-crush of Joshua banging his firetrucks together, and the distant sound of a rake scraping along the dirt, gathering pine needles. Soon enough I know that I will have to trek into Victorville for groceries as the little independent grocer in Wrightwood has become far too expensive for our small family trying to eek out a living on disability income and a dwindling savings. I think about maybe picking up another garbage can, just in case, and then immediately shove the thought from my mind because it's more than our struggling family can afford at the moment. My former in-laws have already had to come to our rescue financially, more times than I can count, and an extra garbage can seems like an indulgence at this point.
The drive to Victorville gives me time to think about everything and try and sort out my thoughts of resentment for a husband who seems stuck on a treadmill going nowhere and is angry with me for returning to a childhood organized religion out of my need for fellowship and support...the Mormons. I was raised in the Mormon church and left when my parents had differing theological philosophies than those on which Mormonism is based. I was only 16 at the time. It was a huge sea-change for me but I still held fast to my own personal walk with Christ. I missed my friends but would stay in touch with them over the years.
My former husband always resented any involvement I kept with my Mormon friends. He came from a family of charismatic evangelicals, a group of Christians I knew absolutely nothing about and was a bit frightened of, to be honest. I never grew up (I should clarify that I originally was baptized as an infant into the Episcopal church and we didn't convert to Mormonism until I was 9) thinking Mormons were any different from any other Christians except that we didn't partake of caffeine (at the time) or nicotine products and we had this thing called "The Temple" that I'd learn about and go to, when I got older.
Despite our very "official" exit from the Mormon church, I remained close to those I grew up with and this caused no end of tension between my ex and I. It was when I discovered I was not only pregnant again, but was carrying twins,that I sought out my local "ward" (the Mormon equivalent of your "home sanctuary - based on where you live, that's where you'll attend Sunday worship services) and poured my heart and soul out to the Bishop. I was scared; the mother of an active 2 year old, married to an unemployed husband and now pregnant with twins. I needed the fellowship and support that I knew The Church would offer me. My former husband and his family saw The Church as little more than organized Satanism.
For the entire hour and fifteen minutes of the drive into Victorville I thought of little else than how hard we were struggling to get by and how much harder that struggle would be if it hadn't been for The Church. It wasn't just financial. I was struggling with how to cope with three small children all under the age of three and needed the camaraderie from the women in The Church. My ex and I had been to another very small hastily set up non-denominational evangelical church in Wrightwood, but it was fighting to gain a foothold in that tiny community and whilst I met the woman there, who would eventually become my best friend, we didn't settle into that church group and soon thereafter it completely dissolved.
My ex and I would fight constantly about my involvement with The Church. I'd remind him that we had food on the table thanks to The Church and that despite his smoking habit and 12-pack a day Pepsi habit, The Church had tried to welcome him with open arms as well. It didnt matter to him. It all boiled down to the theology and plain and simple he thought they were Satanists. He always refused to attend services with me on Sunday mornings and didn't want our children involved with them either, however he'd always try and make me take all three children with me, if I insisted on going to church. Often I'd not go because I couldn't handle two car seats and a two year old. It was just too much.
When I arrived in Victorville I didn't have any more insight into the situation at home than I did before I left. I drove back home with the unsettling feeling of how tired I was becoming of the struggle, the fighting and the sense of despair...the slow realization that we, as a family were sinking.
I pulled into the driveway and noticed a strange car parked near our garage. I put the Jeep in park, got out, walked up the stairs and across the front deck into the house and there, sitting on the sofa was a couple I'd never seen before. My ex had a huge smile on his face and the couple stood, hands extended in greeting, to introduce themselves. *Vic and Amy Lansing had warm smiles on their faces and immediately told me how gorgeous my children were. Then they launched into how my ex had contacted their church, of which Vic was the pastor, and told them that our small family needed prayer and that we were being led into the dark abyss that was the Mormon Church.
It appeared that in the mere span of the three hours I'd been to Victorville and back, they had decided to hold a prayer meeting for our family, and more specifically, for me, that very night at the home of a fellow member of their church, over in Phelan. The arrangements had already been made and I wasn't to worry about a thing. We'd have dinner at the Lansing family home and Joshua would stay there with their oldest daughter whilst my ex, the twins and I would attend this prayer meeting. Everyone was all smiles and contentment. There was no room for me to question anything or anyone. This was obviously a religious intervention and I was going. No ifs ands or buts. It was a done deal.
We ate dinner at the Lansings and Joshua seemed to get along fine with their oldest daughter, *Kelly. She was 18 and seemed very apt with Joshua, although I was nervous as hell. I'd never left Joshua with anyone other than family. Joshua was giggling as he chased a cat and then realized that we were preparing to leave and that's when the tears started.
I am back there, that night, as dusk begins to settle over the high desert area of southern California. The sky is a mixture of purple, orange, deep blue and pale pink. I look to my left and I can see the mountain range that shelters the little village where we live. I can smell the sage brush, the horses in the corrals off to the side of the Lansing home, and the cloying scent of garlic, oregano and cheese - remnants from dinner with the Lansings.
We're driving off to the prayer meeting in the Lansing's Subaru and as I crane my neck around, I can see Joshua standing at the screen door of their home, screaming. Tears are streaming down his face and he is yelling for his mommy. Kelly is crouched next to him at the door, trying to pry him away from the screen. She has a stuffed animal in her hands, although I've long forgotten whether it was a teddy bear, bunny rabbit, or maybe even his beloved Mickey Mouse. The dust from the unpaved dirt road starts to obscure from my vision the sight of my oldest child, my precious two year old little boy, with the blonde curls and big brown eyes...eyes which are now filled with tears, as he screams for his mother.
I lay here with tears in my own eyes thinking about this day, 19 years ago...the last time I saw my son, alive.
*Not their real names.
