I had been at my marriage-saving Dell job for a little over a year when my wife’s mom committed suicide in a nearby town. I had just that week been converted from *contractor* to C-3 executive status. And in the middle of the kudos calls and congratulations at that moment, I was driving to Brady Texas to clean up and clean out a house none of us had ever seen.
The first trip was my wife and I, to scope the scene and get a grip on the project that was ahead of us. Blessedly, the police and forensics people had cleaned up the bed where it happened. Her house was odd. Small. Dusty. Very lonely. She had a new Subaru Outback sitting in the driveway, that we would demand USAA take the car back. At first they refused, saying there were processes for death. We left the car with the keys in the glovebox. And told them, “You take care of it.” They did.
When we realized the situation was going to take the weekend, we had a dear friend drive our kids halfway early Friday night. They were sad and also excited. MeMaw had been restricted in her solo access to them. She said and did crazy shit. So we all drove back to the strange little house in the strange little Texas town with excitement and exhaustion already pushing us to be a bit edgy.
That night my daughter walked in with a little terrier that had been roaming the streets. Scrambles was tucked under her arm. Comfortable. My daughter carried him around for an hour. Showing him the house, the yard, the bedrooms.
“Okay, kids,” I said. “It’s time for Scrambles to go home and you guys to go to sleep.”
“Please dad!” My daughter reluctantly relinquished the smashingly cute little dog into my arms.
“He needs to go home to his house, honey. We can’t just take a dog off the street. Even if he loves you and you love him. He is cute. But, don’t you think his people are missing him?”
There were tears. I put scrambles on the porch. “Go on home, now.” It was 11 pm, an hour late for even weekend bedtimes. At 2 am I woke up. I checked on the porch and there was Scrambles, huddling against the front screen. Shivering. The April evening had grown chilly.
“Come on, Scrambles,” I said. Opening the door. I picked him up and put him in the bed with my daughter. She woke. “Oh, thank you, Daddy.”
“Hello, Mr. Scrambles! Have you been outside this whole time? Let’s get you warmed up.”
A few weeks later, back at Dell, Scrambles was rescued from the Brady Animal Control Department, and I was getting ready for a move to Building 1. This was not only a raise, but an elevation of my exposure around Dell. Michael was in Building 1, the Blue Pyramid Building.
As they readied my new badge, new security access, and refurbed cube, I was still in Building 7 working on a powerpoint presentation. On my iPod a song shuffled on. “Wish You Well,” by XXXX. The moment struck me so deep, I’m sure amplified by the stress in my household, but the songs words were about letting go. Not rebuilding. But, giving farewell good wishes. I was crying. I pulled up YouTube and watched the video of the song. I was transformed. I knew my marriage was over. I felt it. And I was going to wish her well.
Last week, as my ex-wife and I dropped the boy at a place about 3 hours from town, we had a lot to time to talk. I had a burning question. I’d been wanted to ask for at least 10 years. But it was difficult to frame it correctly. I didn’t want to seem obsessed or overreach for a connection with my stunted and stunned ex-wife. I thought the conversation might provide some levity.
“There was a moment, back in the last months of our marriage, that I’ve thought about a lot.” She responded, “Oh?”
“I want to get permission to ask you something random, no related to the current events.”
“Go ahead, shoot.”
“I remember a moment. It’s stuck in my mind. Very clear and sparkly in my neurolibrary. I came into the bedroom, after putting the kids down. You were doing something on your computer. And a song came on, Goodbye My Lover,” by James Blundt. And you were singing, and in my memory, crying.”
“Oh!”
“Do you remember the moment?”
“I do. I remember you seemed a bit troubled by the song or my singing.”
“Or your tears.”
“Fair enough.”
“Here’s my question. You’re singing the song about your exiting lover, but I’m right there beside you. We’re in couples therapy to try and save our marriage. And you’re singing a “goodbye lover” song.”
“Oh, that’s not what it was about for me.”
“Really?”
“No. It’s just a song that lands right in my key. I can sing it in full voice and I was jamming.”
“So, you weren’t crying about the song?”
“Was I crying?”
“Memories are not always reliable.”
I paused and took a breath. She wasn’t showing emotion at that moment, 15 or 16 years ago. She was just singing along with a random song that she liked. My myth shattered. A deeper reveal, however, she was as emotionally dead back then as she is now. She’s been suffering mightily under the onslaught of our son’s angry journey over the last four years, since starting college. Yet, her emotions were so tightly covered up about so many things in her life, she was missing the “feelings” completely. Suppressive fire gets good feelings and bad feelings alike.
I could feel the sadness right there in the car with her. I could smell her anxiety and coffee-enabled continuation. I let her drive home. She was prone to nausea.
So many moments felt and experienced in hi-definition on my side. On her side, “just a song I liked.”
Fuck.
Family of origin damage cannot be compartmentalized forever. Either you do the work or you suffer, develop illness and anxiety, and eventually become detached from your own heart.
Five years after the divorce, Scrambles was ready to take the rainbow bridge. My daughter asked to come. So, as we held Scrambles for the last time as a family, he was curled in my daughter’s arms, just as he had been those years ago when he was found in Brady. She whispered in his ear. She was feeling this for all of us. I was quiet. Tears fell freely from all of us. My daughter, the future nurse, was calm and cheerful. Okay, not cheerful, but not afraid either.
It was a family moment. I was no longer part of that larger family. I was the outlier. I have always been the out-truther as well.
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