A Call to Life - And Its Answer

As the years went by, I kept working and making visits to see Doctor Funk.  One day I decided I needed a new look.  I wore the same old clothes day after day, and and I just got a whim to go shopping after work one day.   I went out to my little yellow car, (I called her Nellybell), and we went shopping.  I bought some new shoes, a new outfit, a white crocheted cape, new perfume called Heaven Sent, and new makeup.  The next time I went to see my Doctor, he was shock-ed!  He opened the door from his office and called my name and as I went past him, he just looked me up and down and followed me in.  I sat down and he sat down smiling.  We had a good discussion, and to tell the truth, I owed him a lot for all he had done for me.  It was getting close to Christmas, and I found one of my previous sketches of the praying hands.  It was beautiful.  I framed it and wrapped it up and put a laurel wreath on top.  When I went into his office and sat down, I laid the gift on his desk and told him it was for him to open.  He did, and he smiled, but didn't say anything.  He just sat there smiling the whole time I was there and when I got up to leave, he stuck out his hand and told me he had to really admire and respect someone who could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  I told him, "I had a lot of help", shook his hand and went on my way.  More and more my visits were just to touch base and see my good friend rather than seeing a doctor.  He had changed a lot of my basic concepts of myself and I was beginning to see the light of day and to find challenges refreshing rather than something I felt I just could not do.

Once my Dad came home, he found a good job working at Rohr, where they made aircraft parts.  He would bring me coffee in the mornings and I would take him to work, drop him off and go to work myself.  At night, I would pick him up and we'd go home.  Eventually I decided to take some classes at Southwestern Junior College, and he did too.  So 3 time a week, after we went home, cleaned up and ate dinner, we'd get our books and go to school.  We would meet at break and have coffee from the vending machine.  It was really fun and a time I got to spend time with my Dad as an adult and not a child.  I think he enjoyed it too.  He had tried to get my Mom to go with him, but she wouldn't.  When he came home to stay, she got mad at me and told me that he only came home for me, not for her.  I was hurt after all I had had to do to keep our family off the street.  I could not believe she said that, and she and I became very distant for a long while.  All the while, I was growing mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and was learning how to meditate from my doctor.  I got into Trancendental Meditation and spent a lot of my time in the evenings just meditating all night instead of
sleeping.  I grew more every time.  Almost imperceptibly at first, but it helped me to plan for the future, and to know that my journey would take me to great places.

Eventually, I got all my bills paid off, and even though I was paying rent, and buying my own food and clothes, and paying for my own medical care and prescriptions, I still managed to accumulate enough money to move out and into my own place.  I had wanted to do that for years, but had been too sick and while I was paying my Mom's bills, I got behind on my own.  They were very understanding though, as I had had good credit for a long time with most of my creditors.  They reduced my payments, and all sorts of things to make it easier for me to pay my debts.  I got them paid, and when I move out, a friend of mine at work had found the apartments for me, and she lived just around the corner.
My first apartment was really nice.  It was furnished, and had a really nice living room set, with large windows and drapes, a dining room table with 4 chairs, a really nice kitchen fully stocked with all the appliances you would need.  The living room and dining room were carpeted with shag carpet, and so was the large bedroom.  The bedroom had a queen-sized bed, a dresser, and 2 bedside tables with lamps.  There were lamps in the living room as well.  The bathroom was newly tiled, and had a heat lamp in the ceiling.  I loved it and I could afford it easily.

I had traded my yellow Nova for a brand new V-8, red Nova with the shift in the floor and had to make my car payment as well as my apartment rent, but I still had money left over and had gotten promoted at work, to a GS-5.  I had also sent in a Beneficial Suggestion at work to the Industrial Relations Department at work and had received a $500.00 bonus check because the suggestion I had made saved the Government over $3500.00 a year.  When you made a suggestion that was adopted and saved the government money, you got a portion of that money as an award.  So I had money and was able to still buy food, go out now and then, buy my clothes, and I would pick up some of my friends on the way to work and we all had a great time together.  Linda was my friends name and she had worked with me for years.  She had a little girl named Myisha Nicole, and was pregnant with another baby.  She had married a man named Melvin, and I had them over for dinner and gave Myisha some beautiful books I had bought for children and put away in my hope chest.  I was 28 at the time, and even though I had left home at 18, I had moved back in when my family came back from Minnesota.  I had moved out again at 23 to live with a friend in Imperial Beach, but we had a falling out and I moved back home and took care of my family.

Anyway, I seem to get off track with my story.  After all those years of being sick and wanting so badly to be normal and have a normal life, it was heaven for me to finally have my own apartment.  The first day, after my Dad and broher left, I laid in the floor in the sun with the drapes open and it was so quiet and so warm.  I just enjoyed the first day of doing little things around my new home and even though I was alone, I had peace.  Something I hadn't had in a long time.    I was trying to leave the past behind me, and have a good time in my life.  One night, I decided to write and sat down at my dining room table with a notebook and a pen.  I wrote a poem, sort of a wish, or an unspoken request to life itself.  I will see if I can remember it:

            Something as strong as a tall oak tree, this is the goodness
            of life to me.
            Beautiful sunsets light up the skies, clouds soft as feathers
            float swiftly by.
            How can I bear to leave this place?  To go my way, wherever
            it may be?
            When I feel so young and alive, how can I go?  Off to a place
            I do not know?
            For the essence of life is bittersweet.  One taste invites another.
            The memories linger on, long after the sweetness is gone.
            Sweet life take me where the skies are always blue,
            where sunsets are oranges in the sky,
            No sweet life, don't pass me by.

That was my call from my heart to have life come back to me fully.  As I had known it years before I was ill and had so much to bear.  I wanted to have all the good things in life, and somewhere deep in the recesses of my soul, the dream lingered and took form and grew. 

I had only lived in my apartment in National City for a few short months when there was a shooting and someone got knifed in the parking lot, so I moved into a different apartment, but owned by the same company.  The only thing different was the color of the furniture, and this apartment was in Chula Vista.  No one came to visit me except my Dad one day.  He went with me to buy a frame for a picture I had painted.  Once in the apartment in National City, my Mom and Dad had come to visit and she wanted to take a bath in my bathtub, so I told her sure.  But that was all.  My other visitors were friends and co-workers.  Jack & 
and I had talked at work and were getting to know each other.  One day he asked me out, but I was sick the next day and we didn't go.  After I moved to Chula Vista, one Friday night I called him and asked if I could visit and he said sure and gave me directions to get to his place.  This was the beginning of the answer to my call to life.  The beginning of the answer in all it's fullness.  It all unfolded gradually and our first date was in a white pick-up truck and he drove all over San Diego showing me the sights.  I had no idea San Diego was so big, and he had me laughing the whole evening.  He said he didn't think I knew how to laugh.  He did some characters from Star Treck and when he did the drunk doctor and captain routine, I was cracking up laughing.  We had a wonderful time and didn't get back to his apartment until 6:00 in the morning.  We had some instant breakfast, and since it was Mother's Day I told him I wanted to go see my Mom.  He was going to be moving his Mom and Grandmother that day and had asked if I wanted to go.  After the reception I got at my Mom's house, I wished I had gone with him.  But, we saw each other on Monday, and it wasn't that much later when we made plans to go out to Borrego. 

We started going places after work and hanging out together.  We went shopping for all the gear we would need for the desert and I was having the time of my life.  We would go back to his place and have dinner and listen to music, and I almost never went back to my apartment.  It stood empty most of the time and was a drain on our finances, and it wasn't long until he asked me to move in with him and we had money to play with.  We bought candles for each other, and music and jewelry and hats and all sorts of things we liked and we fixed up the little place we were living in.   I remember one night we had chili and tamales and we had a Vernor's soda.  I had never had it and didn't know that the trick to not getting choked on it was to not inhale as you took a drink!  I laughed when I caught my breath and we just so enjoyed each other's company.  So, we had met in March at work, and started talking a lot, went out in April and May and in June I moved in with him.  On July 16, in the parking lot at work, we were sitting in my car and he asked me to marry him and said he would give me a baby.  Something I had always wanted, a family of my own.  At first I said it was too late for me.  I was going to turn 29 on my birthday and for some reason I thought I was too old to have kids and a family.  I guess I had pretty much not counted on having that after the break up I had with my boyfriend.  I hadn't dated much, and hadn't thought much about having anything.  I was busy taking medications and trying to sort out my life to even think about having my dreams come true.  He said that just because there wern't any good role models in our lives, didn't mean our marriage would be the same way.  I finally saw the light and said yes and I was floating on air when we went back into the office after our break.  I went into the ladies room and Linda was in there.  I cried and told her what had happened.  She had always been my friend, even when I was so sick and she always tried to look out for me.  She was happy for me and went and told one of her other friends.  Jack had our engagement posted in the paper and went down early one morning to the little corner store and brought back several papers.  We went to his Mom's place and had a celebration party with his Mom and Grandmother.  It was a lot of fun.  My parents wern't as receptive to our announcement as his folks were.  But they always looked down on me because I had moved in with Jack.  They didn't even believe me when after we were married, and I got pregnant with the twins.  They told me they would just wait and hear what the doctor had to say.  It was pretty much hopeless, but you keep trying to believe your family still loved you...even when they made it plain they had no use for either of us.

The time we spent together was like a brand new life.  He introduced me to his long time friend Chip Hannaka, and his girlfriends name was Bonnie too!  We went to their house to visit one evening and Chip introduced me to Cherry Herring.  It was something he always gave his guests and it was really good.  I even use it now in one of my receipes for chocolate truffles.  They're great.  Over the next few month we were friends with them and had them over for dinner and things like that.  He also took me to Point Loma and introduced me to people he had grown up around.  I met Jo and Art Latham, and Mrs. Evans who had a Keshon named Wooly Bear who scared me half to death.  He was tall and walked up to me while I was sitting on the couch and he could look me right in the eye.  He was a sweet dog though and went back and laid down by Mrs. Evans and licked her feet.  We had a wonderful time just going out riding in the evenings and I eventually co-signed for a Fiat Jack liked, and we would put the top down and go riding in the evenings with the cool breezes off the ocean wrapping around us as we skated along the freeways and back roads all over San Diego county.  My dream was coming true in ways I could never have imagined.  We were so in love and so happy just to be together.  He introduced me to a whole new way of living and just being with him was all I could have ever asked for.  I took him to dinner at Love's Barbecue Pit for his 27th Birthday and we had New York Steaks, baked potatoes, cole slaw and baked beans and bread.  I remember even what I was wearing and him looking so fantastic in his new leisure suit and blue shirt.  He held the chair for me and I though to myself, what a gentleman.  He also never left me with an empty gas tank when I had to drive back to my place.  I had never met a guy who had his demeanor and manners and charm.  I was head over heels in no time and I could never have found someone like him on my own.  God planted me in the right place at the right time and brought him into my life just when I needed a friend the most.  You might think it is a fairy tale come true.  I do too.

I will close for now though and will be back sooner this time and tell you some more of the great life we have had together.  There were hard times too, just like for everyone, but you will see a love grow stronger and survive many difficult situations.  I have wanted to be able to remember all our lives together for a long time and it is a gift in itself that in telling my story, I also am remembering all the wonderful things we have done together and it just makes life full and rich and wonderful to remember.  Life does answer our calls.  We just have to believe it, and it will manifest our beliefs to us if we are willing to make that call, and be ready to receive the gift of life in all it's wonder.  Life is a beautiful gift.  I am so fortunate and so blessed and it is my pleasure to share my life with such wonderful people.  Read, enjoy and leave comments for me whenever you desire.

See you next time, love you, Grandma.