True
Love
Jennifer Walker
Excerpted from "Meant to Be," by Barry and
Joyce Vissell. Published by Conari Press 2000.
When I was two years old, my mother put me in a day
care center. She tells the story of how I was terrified
to stay at this place until a two-year-old boy named
Bobby joined the group. As long as Bobby was there, I
was not afraid. Both of our mothers had to work
full-time, so Bobby and I were there every day together.
The staff reported to my mother that we were never far
from each other’s side. When nap time came we would
refuse to nap unless our blankets were side by side.
After three years in day care, it was time for public
school kindergarten. The day care staff tried to prepare
us for the fact that we wouldn’t be together again.
That didn’t make sense to my five-year-old mind. I
wanted to always be with Bobby.
Our mothers, acting independently of each other,
enrolled us in the district’s elementary school.
Imagine our surprise when I reluctantly went for my
first day of kindergarten and there was Bobby! We were
in the same class! Again, we played together every day.
Bobby was the bright spot in my life, since my home
life was anything but happy and secure. My father would
go out drinking and come home and hit my mother. My only
joy and security was my time with Bobby at school.
In first grade, the children started to tease us for
playing together so much. We didn’t care. Our favorite
activity was swinging and telling each other jokes. We
would laugh for a long time over our jokes.
Meanwhile, life at home was growing more and more
unhappy. Lying in bed at night, I would hear my father
yelling at my mother and hear my mother crying. I felt
so sad I didn’t know what to do. To comfort myself, I
thought of Bobby during those times and tried to
remember the jokes he’d told me that day.
In second and third grade the teasing grew intense.
The boys called Bobby a sissy for playing with me.
Sometimes he’d leave me and go off to play with the
boys. Those were very sad days. Usually, though, he’d
continue to play with me.
One night, when I was eight years old, my father came
home more drunk than ever and began hitting my mother
very hard. I tried to stop him and he struck at me. I
ran to my room crying. I wished I could sneak out of my
house and be with Bobby. In the middle of the night my
mother woke me saying, "Get up, pack some of your
favorite things. We are leaving here for good. Now
hurry!"
My mother’s voice was urgent and I obeyed her. We
got in the car and drove west for seven days. All the
time we were driving I cried. I wanted to be with Bobby,
the one person that I felt secure and happy with.
I gradually adjusted to a new life in California. I
never saw my father again. I learned to make new
friends, yet every night for years I thought about Bobby
and missed him. My mother would not let me write to him.
She said my father could then find us and maybe kill
her. That sounded pretty scary to me. As I grew, she
refused to tell me about my past, what city we had lived
in, etc. In time, I forgot all about Bobby.
I became a rebellious teenager and left home when I
was sixteen. At seventeen, I married a man ten years
older than me. I thought I loved this man until, shortly
after we were married, I discovered he was an alcoholic.
I wanted to leave, but didn’t know how. Just as with
my mother, my husband began beating me up after his
drinking binges. My mother and I weren’t talking. I
had no idea where my father was and I didn’t have any
close friends. I felt resigned to my fate.
One night, with two black eyes and a bruised body, I
got in my car and drove away. I ended up driving for
several days until I came to a coastal town in
Washington State. During the drive, I decided one thing—I
would never trust a man again! I concluded that,
since my own father was abusive and violent and my
husband turned out to be the same, then all men must be
bad.
Eventually I got a job as a waitress and began to
carve out a simple yet lonely life for myself. My mother
and I began talking every week on the phone. It felt
good to be in communication with her again.
One day, a customer brought in an ad for a workshop
on relationships. "Well that’s sure not for
me!", I remarked with much sarcasm. "I never
want to be with a man again. I’ve had it, I’m
done."
That seemed like a strong statement for a
twenty-five-year old woman to be making, so she teased
me a little, then seriously urged me to go. "You
are too young to give up on relationships," she
said with a smile. She then ripped out the ad and placed
it in my pocket.
Returning to my lonely room in the boarding house, I
looked at the ad. Something about the possibility of a
loving relationship intrigued me. Then all my fears came
up and I ripped up the ad and threw the pieces in the
garbage.
When I went to bed that night, I felt lonelier than I
had felt in years. Usually I was very good at holding in
all my feelings, yet that night I couldn’t keep them
down. I felt the pain of having an abusive father, then
having the same experience repeated in my marriage. I
felt lonely, but so fearful of ever trusting again. I
hadn’t given much attention to spiritual matters, yet
on that lonely night I prayed to be able to trust again.
After a while I slept peacefully.
When I awoke, I knew with a certainty that I must go
to the seminar on relationships. Something seemed to
have happened to me during the night. Then I remembered
my prayer. "Maybe this is the help I’m
needing," I thought as I rummaged through the
garbage to retrieve the ripped-up ad. Finding one piece
with the phone number intact, I called and registered. I
felt lighter and happier than I had felt since I was a
young child.
The day of the seminar came and I felt a strange
combination of fright and enthusiastic anticipation. I
quietly entered the room and saw that it was filled with
people. The frightened part of me grew and I almost ran
out of the room, but the enthusiastic part of me found
my way to a quiet corner where I awaited directions.
Right off the bat, a young man came over to sit next
to me. He said he felt a little overwhelmed by all the
people and needed to find a friend. He told me a joke
and made me laugh. Something about his manner made me
relax. I found myself opening to him. He told me he was
part American Indian and his name was Sun Bear. Sun Bear
and I spent the entire seminar together. At the end he
asked for my phone number and I gladly gave it to him.
We began dating. When Thanksgiving came, I asked if he
would come to my mother’s house with me for the
weekend. He agreed.
My mother greeted us both with warm hugs. She began
to ask Sun Bear about his past. I was getting annoyed
with my mother for probing into Sun Bear’s life so
deeply. Finally she stopped and a very strange
expression crossed her face. Abruptly she excused
herself and was gone a long time. I apologized to Sun
Bear for my mother’s unusual behavior.
Finally, she came back, holding a photo album.
"Sun Bear," she asked with choking emotion,
"Did you have a different name in childhood?"
He looked uncomfortable with this question and I was
seriously annoyed, then he responded, "Yes, my
mother and friends called me Bobby."
My heart began to pound wildly. With that my mother
pulled out a picture of two little children on a swing.
"I believe this is you, Sun Bear, with my daughter
Jennifer."
Love had guided us back together after seventeen
lonely years. We have now been married for thirty years
and feel so grateful to be together again. And oh -- I
still love to listen to his jokes.
— Jennifer Walker
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