8/15/07
My precious Chelsea,
This Friday you will be twenty years old. This Thursday we will be moving you from the home in Queen Creek to your dorm in Phoenix. I know from recent conversations that you are experiencing some anxiety over this move. This is normal.
I think I told you what it was like when I moved out at eighteen. That very day I had to drive to the veterinarian and pick up the body of Scooter, our family pet since I was eight. A remarkably cheerful woman brought him to me, frozen in a cheap trash bag. I was horrified. Couldn’t she at least find a box for him, I asked. She looked around fakely and told me “no.” Then, with some sick type of glee, she smiled and spouted, “He’s cold!” with a jovial cackle as she plopped him into my trembling arms.
I drove home, trying not to think about the resentment I held toward my mother, who had a couple of years previous banished Scooter from the house and into a splintery, homemade doghouse and a bleak, dirty area of our backyard, where he remained chained. I struggled too with my own participation in this neglect. Couldn’t I have tried harder to convince my mom that it was wrong to leave my beloved childhood friend out there—even in the bitter cold of a northern Michigan winter?! Right now I’m shuddering as I think about how incredibly cold Scooter must have been out there day and night… What kind of bastards could do such a thing?! When the vet saw him, he angrily told me, “Don’t you ever bring me an animal in this type of condition again! Do you know he’s blind? This is the sickest, most neglected dog I’ve ever seen!” It’s only now I realize how much guilt I still carry over this.
When I got home, I carried his body over to one corner of our yard, dug a hole, placed him inside and covered him up. I realized that this was a big day for me for more than one reason. I then packed all of my stuff into the piece of crap car that was a year older than me, and by nightfall was cruising down the road for the two and a half hour trip to Caro, where I’d just been hired for my first full-time job in radio. I was less than a mile from my parents’ house when a deer jumped out in front of my car and I hit him. I’d considered myself so good at spotting deer (and other animals) along the back roads in Tawas, but this one was too quick for me. I jumped out, and there by the side of the road lie a nice, big, majestic deer—dead as a dodo. And it was I who had killed it. Everyone I knew had done this at one time or another, and I never thought it would be such a big deal. But if you could have seen the size of this deer, the quality of his fur, the moisture still glistening on his nose… It kind of took my breath away. But I had to get back on the road. Stopping at the gas station on the corner, I noticed a guy who I knew lived very close to where the deer was. I told him about it, and he said, “Hot damn!” with fire in his eyes, shooting out the door to go claim the carcass. How different from my reaction to the same experience.
When I got to Caro I would stay with an aging elder and his wife from the local congregation, just for two weeks until I found my own apartment. They were very nice to me, but it was incredibly weird trying to interact with them. We just didn’t connect. I was working overnights at a little country station (gag me), so I’d usually get to bed around 7am. I would get up around 2pm, and go upstairs to see them. They would have uneasy expressions on their faces, and, after a couple of days, began asking why I was sleeping so late. I explained that I wasn’t getting to bed until 7am, and how 2pm might be late for those with normal schedules, but for me it was actually only around seven hours of sleep, and that was about right, wasn’t it? But they just couldn’t seem to get this, glancing at each other and back at me with furrowed brows. Had no one they’d ever known worked third shift? Were the mathematics involved in this calculation too much for them? The next morning I came up around 1:30pm, and the brother stated, “Jon, it got to be after noon. We got concerned.”
So this is the way my life started when I left home. Death had been put in my face in two ways, and then I’d gone off to live with weirdos. It was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, unsettling… And it was also the beginning of my understanding that not everyone was like me. So many people I’d meet would not speak my language and seemed to care about different sorts of things.
When I remember some of the experiences I had in the first couple of years away from home, I think of how horrified I’d be if it were you. Getting stranded after midnight in violent snowstorms where there was no light and no businesses for miles. Having to live out of my car for two and a half weeks, from late December until early January, idling in various parking lots, trying to sleep for twenty or thirty minutes at a time, having to turn the engine off to conserve gas, truly freezing in the sub-zero temperatures, eating white bread, squeeze cheese, and the cheapest baloney I could find.
Then it wasn’t very long until you came along, screaming into the world with those powerful lungs of yours! The most perfect creature I’d ever seen in my life. When standing in the delivery room, while your mother was under anesthesia, everything came in flawless slow motion. You were lifted up, brought over to a station where you were cleaned up, and then laid into a kind of bassinette. I couldn’t speak; just watched. The nurse started to take you to the nursery and I fell in step right behind her. On the way, an older man (probably another doctor) saw us and said, “Oooo, I’d keep that one!” You were beautiful. Perfect round head. Perfect skin. Perfect pink lips. Perfect hands and feet. It would be later that your eyes would take on their color: perfect, chocolate-drop brown. I still see that baby in you now, my beautiful, beautiful Chelsea.
You and I could have had worse childhoods. We both had parents (and others) who loved and took care of us. But both of us had a pretty jacked-up start in life, being born into a religious cult. During our formative years, we were manipulated into believing in things we couldn’t be sure of. We were denied the freedom to question them, our deepest thoughts and feelings being quashed. I’m so glad we’re free now; I think we’re both doing pretty well.
And I guess it’s that freedom that I want most for you (and me.) I’m sorry about any role I’ve played in stifling your freedom. I want you to be able to say anything you want to me, Chels. I’d like for us both to be able to share our feelings openly, knowing they won’t be trampled on. I don’t want us to be like my family was. Yes, they were tender and loving, but there was no real honesty. About the big things. About the deeper things. I hope we can have this freedom of expression.
I want so many good things for you. I want you to be successful at whatever it is you want to do. Fuck the Watchtower Society who made us feel evil for wanting a nice home and easier way of life. Whether you go on to be an attorney or decide upon another career, I want you to go for it, Chels! No pussyfooting around. Be the best, and be proud of being the best. If life stresses you out too much, take the time for yourself—but don’t let your dreams die.
I want you to find love. Real love. I want you to discover just what sort of person makes you happy, being able to recognize in him qualities you think will provide you with mental and emotional security. While I want you to be safe and to protect your own dignity, I also want you to find passion and for it to enhance your life. I want you to know “love” is the area of life with the most potential for pain. You have to know this, and to remember how you can cause pain for others as well. When this pain is visited upon you, I want you to have people to talk to about it. I want you to know you can pour yourself out to me too, if you feel comfortable doing so.
If it’s something you want, I hope you’re able to know the joy of having a child or children. But prepare yourself: it will pretty much become the purpose of your life for a long time. That said, I also hope you take time for yourself and your mate (if you have one,) knowing that giving all your time to your child means neglecting yourself and the one you love. And if it’s your decision not to have children, that’s great too. Those around us have a way of pressuring us to conform. Don’t do it if it’s not what you want!
Therefore I’m glad about a certain quality I’ve always noticed in you: you know what you like and what you don’t. When you were two years old your grandmother was amazed at how you insisted on picking out your own clothes, knowing precisely what you wanted to wear on that particular day. That time when you were crying your eyes out at the door your mother had just exited, you had no interest in any of the things I tempted you with. TV? No! Lady & the Tramp? No! Candyland? No! A million other things? No! But squirting each other with water bottles? In an instant, you knew for sure that was something you wanted to experience.
In my youth I usually tried to deny my heart. I’d become convinced that using your head was the only way to go. And, while it’s true going with your heart can lead to great sorrow, it’s also true that you can deny yourself great joy by just sticking with the facts. I think it’s a matter of not necessarily trusting your heart, but of being in touch with it and at least listening to it. I think you’ll be able to do that well.
I suppose I could go on and on, trying to relay what I think you can use in your life. But the truth is you’re going to have to find your own truths, your own wisdom, and I’ll never expect you to deny your own in favor of mine. You will become the sum total of your life’s experiences. I hope you take the time to reflect upon them—both before, during and after—so that you can understand them, learn from them, and share them with others where they can be of help.
I guess there’s no reason to continue ad nauseam. I’m still here for you, and will never abandon you. I’d like, if it’s possible, for our relationship to grow still more as we both move through life. You will always have a place with me, Chelsea; I’ll be here for you. And you should always know that your mother and I both love you more than words can describe.
With Deep Love,
Daddy