My early feelings or thoughts of my mother are not as clear. My first real memory of her was some time after we moved to the Abbott road house. After dinner in the evenings, we would get together with the neighborhood kids to play baseball in one of two small neighborhood parks. One night they needed a pitcher and an older boy put me on the mound. When I pitched the first ball, a boy hit a ground ball, it bounced off my toe and into my face, breaking my nose. A big deal was made over it and I remember a day later, sitting in the surgeon’s waiting room, listening to my mother tell another person about my accident. She was animated and I remember a feeling of deep concern for my well-being—not necessarily love, but serious, honest concern. After my nose was reset, my sisters each took me into their classrooms for show and tell. I stood there with two black eyes and a bandage over my nose as the first and second graders stared up at me and listened to my sisters’ version of my accident.
My parents were hardworking. My father was dedicated to his growing insurance business, community service, and his lifelong passion for golf. What time he did seem to spend with us was usually focused on my brother, David, his only son. My mother was equally dedicated to keeping a beautiful home, raising well-rounded children, and pursuing her creative and artistic talents. She enjoyed creative pursuits, taking art classes or cooking classes, and she was always willing to try just about anything new to her.
We were Sunday churchgoers from day one until I went to high school. Because of those early years of Sunday Mass and Sunday School, I have always felt at home in the Catholic Church; however, I never did develop a deep spiritual connection to the Catholic faith. As soon as my parents stopped making Sunday Mass mandatory, I stopped going to church. By the time I left for college, my spiritual foundation was nonexistent.
I have come to learn that my family was quite different from how we must have appeared to onlookers. Inside that big house on the hill, we were strangers to one another, not able to connect with each other on an intimate, openly loving level. My siblings and I certainly had a lot of fun together growing up. Our house was always humming with activity, and I especially remember our high school years full of girlfriends and boyfriends, coming and going. On the outside we were happy and involved with a lot of after school functions, like cheerleading and other sports. But for the most part, we lived on the surface of our emotions, especially toward our parents.
My father ‘s business turned out to be a great success, so my parents were able to provide for all my financial needs. They were not, however, available to me on a deep emotional or spiritual level. I felt they never expected anything out of me except to go to college and get married. So that is exactly what I did.
By the time I was a freshman in college, I had started a pattern of allowing whomever I was dating to shape the path of my life. I didn’t realize it then, but I needed a man in my life to define me—I was not worthy enough in my own right. Because I felt pushed aside and was emotionally neglected by my father, I gravitated to men who were both driven and focused (as my father was), but these men were also distant and emotionally uninvolved with me. It was the perfect set up to marry an addict.
I started college with no clear vision for what I wanted to do with my life. I was interested in politics, retail, and journalism, but I had no idea what definite path to choose. I just went about life at that age with little planning, lots of spontaneity, and no thought about what kind of woman I wanted to be. Some people would consider that a free spirit. In retrospect, however, I wasn’t free at all. I had no clue that the very essence of who I was born to be was already slipping away, even at that young age. Unaware of what I wanted or where I was going, I simply moved on.
After finishing my second year at Centenary College for Women in New Jersey, I left the East Coast for the mountain town of Boulder, Colorado, outside of Denver. I wanted to ski, so I transferred to the University of Colorado, even though I didn’t know a soul there.
Boulder in the mid-1970s, had such a bohemian and appealing atmosphere. The temperature warms in midday, never getting too hot or humid. Once the morning clouds clear off the flatirons, the pure blue sky is stunning. I lounged in that mountain setting, studying class schedules and writing letters to girlfriends. It was late August and students at the university milled around The Hill, a quaint business district just off campus. It seemed like everyone was moving a sofa into a new apartment, out of an old house, or onto a roof. On the outdoor terrace by the pool on campus, it was crowded with students sitting in the sunshine and fresh air. I sat alone, excited to be so far from home and enjoying my independence.
I had been at the school for just two days when I met Ben on the deck of the pool. I had found two chairs to set up camp, one for me and one to prop my feet. From across the way I noticed a handsome, dark-haired guy holding a clip board and walking toward me. He was smiling slightly, wearing dark Ray Bans and red lifeguard shorts. He looked like he’d just stepped off the beach, leaving behind the salt water for this student-filled pool in the mountains of Colorado. While he seemed nice enough and was good looking, I wasn’t looking to get involved. It was the furthest thing from my mind.
“Is anyone sitting here?” he asked, putting his hand on the back of the chair that held my feet.
“Yes, there is,” I lied.
“No, there isn’t,” he said.
“Yes. Yes, there is,” I shot back.
“I’ve been watching you,” he said. “And as long as I’ve been watching, no one has sat here with you.” He pulled the chair out from under my feet and sat down right across from me. He was so confident with those Ray Bans covering his eyes.
“ What’s your name?” he asked.
“Wheatsy,” I answered, without explanation. He looked at me with a frown.
“What kind of name is that! Wheatsy?”
I put down the letter I was writing so I could answer him. “When I was little, my sisters couldn’t pronounce my real name, Maurita, so they called me Wheata, which stuck and eventually became Wheatsy.”
“Wheatsy,” he repeated.
“Yes, Wheatsy,” I replied, somewhat annoyed. Why am I defending my name to this stranger?, I thought to myself.
“I’ve just never heard that name before, not even as a nickname.”
“Well, what is your name?” I asked.
“Ben.”
“Ben?” I responded. “What kind of name is that? Ben? I have never heard of that name before.”
“What are you talking about? Ben is a common name,” he said, thinking I was serious. I told him I was just kidding, and we smiled at each other. We continued talking and spent most of the afternoon discussing the East Coast and our majors.
“Why are you carrying a clipboard?” I asked.
“I am filling out medical school applications.” He gave me a quick glance and continued filling out paperwork, and I went back to writing my letters. We sat through the early sunny evening like that, a nineteen-year old girl in a new college town and a New Jersey lifeguard on the prowl.
“Would you like to have dinner with me this weekend?” he asked as he stood up.
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes, I would,” I said. What’s a girl to lose having dinner with an attractive man possibly headed for medical school? Nothing.
