During our May 2009 trip across the country – My Farewell Tour #1 – we were able to say goodbye to people without them knowing that it was a final goodbye. I said goodbye to Michael’s younger sister, her daughter and her grandchild; my aunt; our chef friend and Michael’s dad, Grant.
Michael’s parents were married when they were 17-years old then proceeded to have five children before they were twenty-one years old!!!!! After ten years of marriage, he left, joined the military and denied he had children. It took many years to get some sort of child support for his mom.
His parents put the entire brood on a plane to live with Mary’s parents. After a while, they moved into the projects. Michael is dyslexic, a September baby, a male and an identical twin. Today, they would have had him wait a year to begin school. He never graduated from high school and while in school, they would look at his address and put him in “other” classes; non-college bound classes.
Instead of school, he focused on making money. He has had a job since he was 13-years old, mostly in the food industry in his younger years. As there was never enough food, he and his siblings brought food home from their jobs. He even served a four-year apprenticeship at a Dutch bakery. This man knows his pastry!
One year, he wanted to have our son see where he grew up. The projects at that time were so dangerous that the sheriff’s department refused to go through the gates. Imagine how vulnerable I felt as the three of us drove up to his building in our fancy German automobile.
There was a young girl riding her bike in the parking lot. Michael hopped out of the car and pointed out his old home to her. He asked if it still had the tile floor his mom had installed and told her that his mom painted the cinderblock walls inside. They had a great conversation. We left.
It was definitely the projects and it did have a huge influence on his life as well as his siblings’ lives. Everyone is out of the projects but some are still there mentally. Michael once told me that everyone he knew was either in jail or dead. Just after we were married, we dropped by an old friend’s house. There sat another friend who mentioned that he was wanted. We turned around and walked out never to return again.
When I went back to work at the school in 1994, the Internet was rather new. I did a search for Michael’s dad, who he had never seen again after he left when he was a child.
I got a hit. He lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That evening, I gave Michael his father’s phone number. He phoned. We arranged to travel to meet him in two weeks. When we arrived, Grant’s first question was, “What do you want from me?” Michael replied, “Just to look at you.”
It was a strange meeting. He married a remarkable woman and raised five other children. He was still very angry with his parents who were long dead. His conversations did not include questions about Michael or his siblings but were about himself. He had been assigned to work with the locals during the Russian invasion in Afghanistan and lived all over the world working as an engineer on different space projects. He even did work with the shuttle. Very self absorbed. Very closed emotionally. He was a very strange and sad man.
He also was a total Alpha male. Michael is so NOT an Alpha male.
Later that year, Michael flew with his older sister to Albuquerque to meet him. For years, she had cried over him leaving her. After she met him, the tears dried up. Forever.
When I was planning this Farewell Tour, we thought we would see him again in Lubbock, Texas where they had moved. We met at the best restaurant in town, sat in a booth and my job was to keep his wife and granddaughter busy while Michael asked Grant questions about his family.
Grant didn’t want to talk about anything or anybody other than himself. After two hours, Michael gave me a look that only 36 years of marriage can read: Let’s get out of here. I looked back with a face that said that I was stuck in the middle of a booth and couldn’t move.
Michael suddenly said, “Why don’t we go outside and take some pictures?” We adjourned outside, got some shots and fled to our car.
“Give me your phone,” Michael said. He called his mom in Las Vegas and thanked her for getting a divorce. “My life would have been so screwed up if he had raised us.”
After three face-to-face meetings, we are done.
Goodbye, Grant. I hope you somehow find some peace in your life.
Next: Married with Twins
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