The summer shortly before I turned twelve my parents decided to move across town. What excitement! A whole new environment, and maybe, just maybe, a friend? While Dad and Mum were gone to look at the house they had their eye on, I led Cindy and Michael in prayers to God hoping they would come home saying we were moving. "Our Father who art in heaven," "Hail Mary full of grace," and on we went through every prayer we knew. When we saw the car turning into the driveway, we ran to them to see if we were going to move or not, and when they said "yes," we jumped up and down for joy.
It was the summer before seventh grade. I walked down to what would be our new school. It wasn't as grand as our former school and church, it was older and not attractive, but it was the parish school for that part of town. I wondered if the kids would like me. I'd never had a friend at school before, maybe this would be different. On the first day I was filled with anxiety, but hoping for the best. I was dressed in the new skirt my mother had made me, a pretty blue with tiny white flowers. I took my assigned seat and looked around. No one looked back.
On the third week I came back to class early from lunch, and Cynthia was alone in the classroom. She came to me and said, "I just wanted you to know that the girls don't like you." And I replied, "thank you for sharing that with me." And from that day on I just sat silently at my desk and wished I could disappear.
But something new was about to begin. Across the street from our new home there was a boy about my age, and he sent another boy to ask if he could come over and just sit around with me. Now THAT was a shock. Someone liked me??? A boy, at that??? Of course I said yes, and Don began coming over every day. It didn't take long before I was totally "in love" with Don. "When school gets out," he said, "come to my school and we'll walk home together." By this time the boy's school at St. Francis had been taken down, and a new boy's school, run by the same "Brothers" was built down the street from my new school. So at 3:00 every day I'd walk over to "the Brothers" and Don and I would walk home together. My mother was working so the house was empty when we kids got home. Cindy became close friends with Marie, Don's sister, and most days they would play at Marie's house, while Don came over to mine. By now, Don was my whole life. Not only were we together every moment we weren't in school, but one day he asked if he could kiss me and I said yes. We were "in love." One day Don gave me a love letter, and asked me to respond. I did, and from that day on when we were apart we were writing love letters to each other.
One afternoon Don asked his mother if he could take me up to his bedroom to show me the totem pole he had made. The previous summer he had attended a boys' summer camp and a real live Indian had made that totem pole with him. He had it standing next to his window in the corner of his room. It was very colorful, and almost as tall as he was. He took it and showed me the different carvings on it and I handled it. It was a true work of art and I told him I loved it. He was so proud of it.
After about a year, our parents became very concerned at how close we had become. They told us that we had to stop seeing each other. Neither of us understood why they felt this way, and our parents became "the enemy." We began talking about how we were going to continue without them knowing it. Don had the idea first. "Let's meet at the cemetery," he said. "That way no one will see us and we can just be alone there." "Ok," I said, and then proceeded to tell Mum that I had made a friend at school, that her name was Sylvia and she lived on Water Street, but they don't have a telephone. I told her that I'd go to her house every day until suppertime, then I'd be home for supper. My mother believed me. Our plan worked!
Don and I met at the cemetery every day for another year. We walked among the graves hand-in-hand and read the tombstones and just talked and enjoyed each other. At supper time we both went home and we had a "hello" signal in the evening before going to bed. Don would turn his bedroom light off and on several times, his way of saying "good night," and I would answer by flickering my light off and on several times. And then we each would go to bed dreaming about each other.
I was happy. I didn't have a single friend in the world, but I didn't care that the girls didn't "like" me as Cynthia had told me. I had Don and I would have been content to love only him for the rest of my life. He agreed. Every day we parted with "I love you," and a kiss that became more intense as time went on.
One day Don called me at home. It was nearing the end of the school year and we had to get together and "synchronize our plans," which was the way he put it. One thing we could do was go to the public swimming pool as often as possible, our parents wouldn't be there so we could be together there. "But we need to talk about this and make sure we have the right stories." "Meet me at Rummel's tomorrow at 10:00," he said. Rummel's was the ice cream store nearby, where we had met several times for short visits. "Ok," I said, see you tomorrow at 10:00." "I love you," he said. "Love you too," I answered.
Then I went downstairs to put my rock-n-roll music on. Cindy would often join me downstairs. We each had a rocking chair and we'd sing for hours along with our favorite singers like the Everly Brothers, Neil Sedaka, and Bobby Vinton. We had one song we acted out - and would we laugh. "If I was a tower of strength," the song went, "I'd tell you goodbye, I don't want you, I don't need you, I don't love you anymore, and I'd walk out the door." We made all kinds of grimaces as we'd act out the words to that song, and then we'd laugh like the crazy teenagers that we were.
Saturday morning came and I was up early. I had breakfast and then I told Mum I was going over to Sylvia's. I arrived at Rummel's at quarter of 10 and sat at one of the picnic benches they had there. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning in June. The birds were singing and one dropped a "turd" right next to me. It didn't bother me, in fact I had to laugh. Everything was right in the world.
By 10:15 Don hadn't showed up. I began to wonder what was wrong. I suspected that his mother intercepted him. I waited another fifteen minutes then I went home. I looked over into his yard and saw him there, so I cornered one of the neighborhood boys and gave him a nickel and said "please go over to Don and ask him if he plans on being at Rummel's today." So the little boy left on his bike. A few minutes later he came back and said, "Don told me to tell you to go to hell!" I told him I'd never give him a nickel again as long as I lived and that he'd better be outa my sight before I could count to five. The little boy squealed his bike tires as he zoomed out of my yard.
I went into the livingroom and kept watch over Don's back yard. I watched and waited. Finally, I saw him get onto his bike and leave. He left in the direction of downtown, so I knew which way he'd be coming back. I went down the street to a wooded lot and hid in the bushes and waited. After about half an hour, I saw him round the corner on his bike and I ran out in front of him. He either had to stop or run me over, I didn't care which. So he stopped. And I said, "Donny, what on earth is this all about???" He grabbed his bike and went around me, and blurted out something like "when we're older," and left me standing there,
I watched him go, and went into a state of numbing paralysis. Later in life I would recognize this first reaction to shock. I'd just go numb. No emotion. Just numb.
I just stood there for a long, long time. Then I walked home and went in and sat on my bed. This was the first time of many to come, when I was truly out of my mind. My heart was reeling with shock and horror. He had not given me a reason, although I later found out that his father told him they were sending him to Alfred, a boy's school up north, if he didn't say goodbye to me forever. I guess it was quite a scene and they terrified him.
I was a child. Experiencing all the emotions that an adult would experience at having the same thing happen. Overwhelming shock. My life as I knew it was over.
After many hours of total shock, tears filled my eyes and stayed there for the next several years. It would be months before the shock wore off, but years before I would be able to come out of emotional hell. Truly, The rug was pulled out from under me.I felt like I had died and gone to hell.
I did not have a friend in the world. I had not made friends when we moved across town, because before school began I had entered into this relationship with Don and was with him exclusively every day for two whole years. I did not have a mother, I was "a difficult child" so she kept her distance. I did not have a father. He was a tyrant and felt that I was getting what I deserved. He hated me, and I certainly hated him. I had no aunt, no uncle, no cousin, no teacher, there was absolutely no one for me to turn to. Life had left me totally abandoned. I was spinning out of control. Modern medicine might have called it "a breakdown." A child having a breakdown? Yes. That's what it was. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and all kinds of evil entered my soul. I filled up with hatred, and rage, and my world became total darkness.
I lived as a zombie after that. Went through the motions of life. Began a new school in the fall, as I entered the all-girls Catholic high school in town. Every day I went home from school, went into my bedroom, closed the door and got on my knees on the hardwood floor before my statues of the Blessed Virgin and the saints that I had on a shelf in the corner of the room. Every day, every single day, I sobbed and sobbed till my body was shaking all over. I pleaded with God, "oh please, I'll do ANYTHING if only you'll send Don back to me." But God wasn't listening to me. And I knew that I had lived in sin with Don, not sexually, but lying to my parents and sneaking off to be with him daily for a long, long time. I knew that this was punishment. But I had nothing else, not a single friend, no one. There was not a soul in the world that loved me. No one.
As another school year was coming to a close Marie, Don's sister, came over to our house one day and told us that her family was moving to Ohio. I felt the blood drain to my feet and my stomach turned hard as a stone. "You're moving to Ohio?" "Yes, right after Christmas, my father will be taking a course there and we'll be gone for two years."
Reeling now, the world spinning around me, this was God's answer to my desperate pleas that he send Don back to me. To say I was devastated is the closest word I can think of to express the depth of emotion taking over me. Not only was Don out of my life, but now I wouldn't even be able to see him in his backyard. My life was over. I entered the world of the walking dead.
Desperate for SOMEONE to listen to me, I wrote my heart out to "Dear Abby." Several weeks later I received a reply in the mail. She said, "you'll be starting a whole new life in Ohio, you'll meet many new friends, just be patient and all will be well." Not even Dear Abby could comfort me. She hadn't even read my letter well. It's not I who was moving to a whole new world, it's Don who's going away.
The day after Christmas at 5:30, the time Marie had told us they were leaving, I went out to the roadside and hid behind a snowbank. I watched them load up the car. I watched the car slowly back out of the driveway, and I watched them turn onto Silver Street and drive out of my life. I stayed there a long time, sobbing, just sobbing, my body wracked with heaves of sobbing.
In all this, I didn't hate God. I knew how sinful I was and never questioned the fact that this was judgment on my sin. Besides, if I didn't have God to cry to, and cry I did, I would have no one. No one. Not a single one in this world.
I was totally alone.
Dying.
