A Newtown Story

Many years ago, when my dear friend Regina was 19, she and her two older sisters decided to go home to Detroit for Thanksgiving.  At the time, none of the sisters had a husband, but they did have four children, two boyfriends, a rattle-trap of a van, and a dog among them.

On the day before Thanksgiving the women loaded the children, the dog and themselves into the van and set off to drive to Detroit.  For some reason that Regina is unable to explain now, they decided to go via the "New York route", so they began the journey by heading south on Interstate 91 from their starting point in Greenfield, Massachusetts. They got as far as Newtown when the van began to sputter.  They limped along to the parking lot of a discount department store when the van refused to move another inch.

In those days there were pay phones, not cell phones.  Even home answering machines were rare.  Regina's sister used a pay phone to call a Newtown mechanic who came and after an inspection declared the van to be terminally ill, with no hope of recovery.

After delivering this news, the mechanic left. The women attached themselves to the pay phone and began to make calls, hoping to find someone to come to their rescue.  They called their boy friends and then other friends, but didn't find a single person at home.  Considering that this was the the day before Thanksgiving, it wasn't surprising.  The women were discussing what to do about their predicament when the mechanic returned. The mechanic had told his wife about the women and she sent him back to rescue the stranded family.

The mechanic arrived at the parking lot to find the women huddled around the pay phone.  He extended the invitation and it was accepted.  Seven people and a dog piled into the mechanic's pick-up and headed back to his home.

The women gratefully enjoyed the lodging and Thanksgiving dinner.   Even now, Regina doesn't know how that family managed to expand a Thanksgiving dinner for a family of four to include seven visitors.  But somehow it all worked.

For many years Regina exchanged Christmas cards and holiday greetings with the mechanic's family.  Their act of profound kindness could not be forgotten.

The incident that put Newtown in the news this week is not a reflection of real life there. Regina experienced the real Newtown.  A place that has kindness, heart and fibre.  A place where we would like to live. A place to protect.

A place that is America.

How Soon They Forget, and Maybe That's the Way it Should Be.

This past weekend my husband Joe and I were invited to attend a surprise birthday party for the wife of one of Joe’s oldest friends. Also invited to attend was Joe’s ex-wife (“M”), who drove with her boyfriend all the way from Chicago to share the birthday celebration with her dear friend.

Joe and I have been married for five years and he and his ex-wife split up another ten years before that. Just a year or two after their breakup, M moved to the midwest and has only made a few short visits each year to our neck of the woods to visit her son and his children who still live near-by.

I have never felt threatened at all by M so I was surprised to dream about her the night before the birthday party. In my dream, Joe told me that our marriage was over because he and M had decided to reunite. In the dream I was amazingly calm and accepting of that news, even patiently and soothingly explaining the decision to a few infuriated friends and Joe’s distressed children.

Joe and I arrived at the party at the designated time and M arrived about an hour later. She hovered across the room and then disappeared into the kitchen before she and I even had a chance to greet each other. My husband went to the kitchen to get a drink and emerged a minute later.

Joe came right over to me with a funny smile on his face. “She called me Bill”, he said. Then under his breath he added, “Her first husband was named Bill and he’s been dead for over ten years!” I thought he was joking, of course, but a minute later M followed Joe from the kitchen and after greeting me she apologized to Joe for forgetting his name. Joe was gracious, of course, but I hardly knew how to react to the absurdity of it all.

How could a woman forget the name of a man she was married to for nearly twenty years? I suppose there are a number of explanations but none of them particularly matter to me. I’m just amazed that I wasted an entire dream on my apparent anxiety about M’s arrival. And I am very grateful to M for providing the material that has kept me amused for the last three days.

Joe....I love you and I promise I will never forget your name....even twenty years from now.....until we get to the assisted living facility. Then all bets are off.