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Memoir: The 'Other' Son

Prologue: This writing is one of five produced while participating in an OLLI – Tucson class, Writing for Self-Discover, Spring 2023. This was the 5th in the series.


Memoir: The ‘other’ Son


There she was, lying on the floor in the middle of the living room, illuminated by light seeping in from the attached kitchen. Filled with despair, anger, staring at the ceiling. Her jaw is tight, hands clenched across her chest. It had been a long time coming. Grandma sitting nearby in the kitchen gently rocking back-and-forth, arms folded. Living but blocks away called.


Grandpa, never involved in family matters, at home. Kept at arm’s length. I don’t think he was a fan of this marriage from the very beginning, expecting it would end, as it has. His first daughter married and divorced years ago, resulting in a grandson. Remarried. Living far away.


Dad standing nearby, anxious. Inching his way toward the front door, wanting out, filling the room with promises never to be fulfilled. A cornered animal wanting to escape a cage, leaving one family only to join another. Why? When did their love die? Did it ever exist? Clearly has not existed for years. Mom is now pregnant by another. Rejection, dejection, gloom like a shroud breathing life out of the room, leaving heartache, walls built by lies. Lives separated over time filled by others.


Needs unmet for years, shattered by time and familiarity. Once united by a faith, children perhaps, now following divergent paths, leading each astray, into the arms of others, filling voids left behind.


Here I was on my knees next to my mother amid the adults who preached to me, who were supposed to have all the answers. I offered nothing. Raised to be seen and not heard. Never sought for advice. I was the ‘child.’ I thought I was a man, a newly wed making my way in life, kneeled with nothing to offer. I was never ‘that person’ knowing the right words to say, the one filled with wisdom ready to charge in with the definitive answer, solutions. My mind is spinning. With nothing to add, I remain silent.


Yes, aware, but… in my universe.


Dad moving slowly toward the front door, promises repeated, wanted to, if possible, walk unobserved through the door and vanish. In his mind, to escape. To be freed. Never to look back. Right hand now on the doorknob. Turning. Click. A last sigh. A slight tug. Pulled open.


What words remained, grandma? Me? Mom, a final thought interrupted the stillness. A last-ditch, Hail Mary, spoken by mom, “What about your kids?”


“I don’t want anything to do with them,” dad declared.


Another lie.


Door opens, dad exits, door quickly closes. We listen as he walks past the front window, to his truck. His truck door opens, closes, and a motor engages. Headlights flash in the front window as he pulls away for the last time.


Silence echoes.


Mom spits out a pill taken earlier.


“What am I going to do now?” she asks, still staring at the ceiling.


For every end, there is a beginning.


“We will figure it out,” I lied.


Interlude… Between today and tomorrow, this year and that, there is the real world. Hours of to dos to be done. Everyone seeking to survive. Everyone seeking to be engaged, filling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. We all tried. Except my dad, his promises, walked out the door with him.


The ‘unknown’ biological father, a manipulator, the self-indulgent creator of this new life, delinquent, relinquishes his responsibility.


My parents married 4/2/1948, divorced 2/15/1976. My mother passed away 1/29/1987.


It was early March 1998. I stood outside my dad’s room at the Veterans Hospice, Tucson, Arizona, listening to voices within.


Inside with Dad was one of the ‘other’ sons. He walked out on his first family years ago. He had become a stranger. Occasionally, arriving at my house, parked in my driveway, ‘stopped by to visit,’ we did, and once we visited him in Sierra Vista. He would call on days when he was an inpatient at the Veterans Hospital. For the sake of brevity, will simply say, I tried. An effort based on guilt. Small talk.


He left my Mom, and he married another and raised her children. He left his wife, Son, and daughter. I stood wondering if I should enter, intrude. Through a slight crack between the doorframe and door, I could see a male standing next to the bed in tears. Sobbing, begging my dad not to die!


Weeping heard him ask, “What am I going to do? I need you. You can’t die… I…”

Here on one side of the door was an ‘adopted’ son, weeping, begging for a miracle. On the other side of the door is his biological Son who he walked away from claiming he wanted nothing to do with him, his until-death-do-us-part family, until he faced death’s door.


A decision to be made.


I walked away. I never shed a tear. To be fair, we never went hungry, always had clothes to wear, and a roof over our heads. I made one last concession, a promise.


I promised I would watch the NCAA Finals for him. He died on March 28th. March 30th, I watched North Carolina defeat Utah 78 - 69. Promise kept.


Memorial services for ……. …….


Sierra Vista, Arizona, Friday, April 10, 1998


Followed by a potluck. No one spoke to us. Understandable? We were interlopers, neither wanted nor belonging.

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