This was the first time I witnessed Mark communicate something less than the truth, an episode that I have considered and reconsidered in different lights over time. Had knowledge of this gotten out, who knows what the media would have done with it?
The longer we stayed in politics, the more contemptuous I became of this media circus and its carnival atmosphere complete with barkers and stunts and people who are trying to trick you. This battle over who controls the image affects everything the politician and his family do. It felt to me as if they were always looking for the slightest mistake or for something they could twist and sensationalize. As a result, we all found ourselves calculating how whatever we did might look to an unsympathetic audience, even if we had done nothing wrong.
Mark had made a mistake building a fire in those conditions, but it’s the kind of mistake that happens all the time and the wind had shifted and strengthened. Would political pundits weigh in, using it as a metaphor for Mark’s judgment? Perhaps a future opponent would use the story to blame Mark for taking advantage of the same state resources whose budgets he cut back. In that way, it is understandable that he wanted to keep this quiet. On the other hand, his fear that the story might show him in a poor light caused him to sacrifice a piece of his own integrity. The same Latin words that mean “not” and “touch” are behind the word integrity. A person of integrity is whole, complete, untouched. People of integrity are the same in the dark as in the light. The fear of how this would look caused him to withhold the truth then, and in time he would do so to the press, and to me, again.
One of Mark’s trips during his last term in office was to India, something that incited a mundane crisis, but one that made me wonder again about our future together. We were flying to Seattle over Memorial Day weekend for my brother’s wedding. Mark thought this would be a good time to pick up some extra income and a way to put into practice something he’d learned watching so many poor in India: Don’t be so attached to things. From his distant perch in DC, he rented our house to some Citadel grads. He didn’t consult with me about this, and then he got the dates wrong, renting it two days before the boys and I were supposed to leave. I was suddenly, frantically, cleaning the house so that it would be presentable to the renters, then we had to move somewhere for two days (an expense in and of itself—the net gain on this weekend was not much!) so that I could attend Landon’s kindergarten graduation before we flew west.
Mark flew directly from DC to Seattle, so I flew with all four boys (all under the age of eight at the time) and met up with Mark there. On the long flight, Blake (one and a half) conveniently got sick and I was more than happy to pass him to Mark’s clean arms upon arrival. My nerves were frazzled from the trip and I was fuming.
Our relationship was chilly that weekend, to say the least. Once alone, I told him I thought he was incredibly self-absorbed and disconnected from reality and from me. I reminded him that the special privilege of marriage is that the two partners get to know each other in a deeper way than the rest of the world, in fact, one hopes, almost better than they know themselves. I thought the world that Mark lived in illuminated the image, the superficial, a part of him that was calculated to be unknowable. It wasn’t the first time I thought it, but it might have been the first time I articulated it: The more he succeeded politically, the more time he spent living in that persona, and none of it served our marriage well.
Mark knew he was still in the dog house even after we returned from the wedding. He sought help by calling the leaders of a fellowship he and several other political figures attended when in Congress and asking them to speak with me. I wasn’t pleased to do so. I figured that Mark had portrayed me as an irrationally angry wife and that they would gang up on me to convince me to drop this issue. They did anything but. All three of the men comforted me by telling me that I was right to be angry with Mark. But a member of the group, whom I’ll call Jack, advised me that staying angry with Mark was not an option. If I wanted to heal the relationship, I had to open my heart and be kind, even if Mark was in the wrong. They would work on Mark. We even went so far as to talk about sex, and he told me not to withhold it as punishment as that would make everything worse. The marriage and family mattered more than this one issue, he advised. I was buoyed up by this support and all the new things I had to consider when looking at Mark and the pressures he was under, the strange way public figures live their lives and are with their families. My meeting with these men from the fellowship was the first time I heard an explicit description of the term “disconnect” in reference to politicians, and it seemed apt. I think one even called it “the Congressional Disconnect.” Move on and let go of the anger I did.
I had become pregnant with baby number four just as Mark’s final campaign for Congress began. Mark was so popular in his district that he had no major party opponent so our campaign was fun, consisting mainly of public appearances in front of friendly crowds. But Congress doesn’t stop for childbirth. I was scheduled to have my labor induced so that Mark could arrange to be present for the birth. Right up until that day, however, we worked. Two days before we were scheduled to be at the hospital, Mark and I spent hours on the tarmac at the military base in Charleston shaking hands with folks at the air show as our boys climbed in and out of military helicopters, planes, and tanks. It was hot and humid, and I gripped my hands tightly beneath my giant belly, fearful the baby I was carrying might drop flat on the steaming airstrip if I let go.
Mark’s friend Senator John McCain, who was quietly beginning his run for president, visited our home the next day, a Sunday. Mark had a group of about thirty men for lunch to meet him. I served sub sandwiches from the deli on paper plates, about all I could handle at that stage in my pregnancy. Mark prompted McCain to tell stories from his time as a POW and gathered our boys to listen. The hubbub of boisterous political talk died down as the whole group leaned in to hear his tales from the Hanoi Hilton.
One story that particularly moved Mark and me was about McCain’s cellmate, Mike Christian. Every day, no matter what horrors he and the other prisoners had endured, they rose to pledge allegiance to the flag. Mike Christian had sewn a replica of the flag onto his shirt for the soldiers to look at when they pledged. When the guards discovered it, they ripped the flag off his shirt and beat him severely. Upon return to his cell, he quietly began sewing on another flag. He was, quite literally, willing to die for his flag and his country.
Mark and I drove to the hospital the next morning and Blake arrived easily, another healthy baby. Mark and I decided to give him the middle name of Christian, in honor of the patriot-soldier in McCain’s story. From the first, Blake seemed calm and steady, something that still serves him well as the youngest of this brood. Mark then caught the mid-morning flight to DC in time to vote in Congress. Having these kids was so easy for Mark, I think he would have been happy with ten sons, but the pregnancy and birthing of them all was clearly less easy on me, and we had decided that these four healthy blessings were just enough. The next day I was scheduled to get my tubes tied.
As I was wheeled in for surgery, the nurse asked me why I didn’t have anyone with me for support. I was surprised at her question. It hadn’t really occurred to me that I would need Mark there for the surgery. What would have been his role? He could wring his hands and worry about my progress from Washington just as well as he might have from the waiting room. In any event, I told her my husband had been with me the day before, but he’d gone back to work. Maybe her question was perfunctory, or maybe she truly was surprised to find me alone. Either way, I can see now that our circumstances were unusual. Somehow, I had become perfectly accustomed to managing alone. My independence gave Mark tacit permission to leave that day, and, I can’t help but wondering, later as well.
Late in the 1990s, Mark was nearing his last term in Congress and his anxiety about what would come next in his life was active on all fronts. Impressed by the dedication and professionalism of the military he saw through his activiti
es on the Hill, he began to regret that he had never served. He lamented the increasing disconnect between the rights that go with being an American and the responsibilities of citizenship. So, during his last term in Congress, he enlisted in the Air Force Reserves. In addition to seeing this as a responsibility of citizenship to participate, he also wanted to set a good example for our boys. By the time the military accepted Mark, he was already running for governor, but he decided to honor his commitment, and I was proud of him for that decision, even as I understood that he would now have even fewer weekends at home for the family.
Perhaps part of Mark’s anxiousness was also because he was approaching forty, and he wasn’t taking it very well. By that point, ten years into our marriage, I was accustomed to his restlessness and list making, but the confluence of passing that age marker and ending his time in an important job made this transition more fraught than others had been.
Mark’s zest for living life to the fullest comes, I think, from his fear of dying, and of dying young in particular. I think this feeling overcame him as a young man when he quite literally put his father in the ground. He often spoke about how short life is and how he needed to fill every minute. Mark is not alone in his point of view, of course, but the worry that stuck most in my mind was his sad feeling that past the age of forty he would have “no more good summers.” As someone who treasures every day, every season, this statement was and is unimaginable to me. On the brevity of life, we both agree. The difference is how we chose to spend our time. I wanted to savor each moment while the boys were young and he clearly wanted not a moment to sit still.
As a result, the small signs that he was starting the inevitable process of slowing down unnerved him. When his back hurt or his sore knees kept him from running ten miles at the same pace he had when he was younger, he took this as evidence of his approaching death. He brushed aside my suggestions that he adjust his exercise pattern to suit his age. He was going to fight this at every turn, never giving in to the inevitable.
He’s not alone in this fruitless struggle. Our culture celebrates the hardness and vigor of youth, the edge that comes with it, and seemingly has no time for its opposite. But I believe in what Marcus Aurelius said: “There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe.” I feel strongly that the best way to age is not to fight it and the change that comes with it. Rather, I try to embrace it and grow through it.
Whatever our differences though, his concerns were genuine and, I have to admit, the inspiration for a great fortieth birthday party.
Naturally, I threw him a surprise party. He thought he was going to give a formal speech at Middleton Plantation but on his way to the building in which he expected to speak, his friends and family emerged from the gardens all dressed in funeral wear. Everyone wore black, the women were handed lace veils, and someone even came dressed as the grim reaper. The special feature of this celebration wasn’t presents. Nearly everyone there had written a eulogy for Mark. His worst nightmare—that he would die at forty—became the inspiration for a memorable celebration that, I hoped, showed him how much he was loved.
Mark was a good sport about the party, though perhaps the rest of us thought it was a lot funnier than he did. In trying to gently—or not so gently as the case may have been—rib him about his worry, I hoped to relieve him of it. I wanted to show him that life was not anywhere near over and that he was not now on the path to decline. I wanted him to see that there was much fun to be had then and ahead.
EIGHT
I EXPECTED THAT IN 2000, WHEN MARK KEPT HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE not to run for a fourth congressional term, he would return to a smaller-scale life with me and the boys. I believed Mark would be ready to return to working in real estate and be even more successful for all the knowledge he gained in Congress and all the powerful and important contacts he had made while serving there. All of this, combined with more time with me and the boys, would give him, I hoped, many more ways to quantify his accomplishments, to feel successful and finally appreciate that his life had meaning.
We never really had the time to find out. It wasn’t very long before people from across our state started to urge Mark to consider a run for governor, probably one of the hardest jobs in politics. As with his first run at Congress, Mark’s appetite for a challenge was whet at the prospect of seeking a job where it would be difficult to get elected. He would yet again have to win a tough primary against six other Republicans and after that, he would face a well-funded Democratic incumbent, Jim Hodges. He was also energized by the idea that if elected, it would also be a challenge for him to succeed.
South Carolina state government operates under a truly archaic system. After the Civil War, politicians worried that a heavily black constituency would some day elect a black man as governor. With that in mind, then-governor Ben Tillman led the effort to change the state constitution dramatically, stripping the governor of most of his powers. The legislature, a variety of constitutional officeholders, and various un-elected boards and commissions have largely run the state ever since. The governor is often the first to be blamed when he can’t fulfill his promises, even though the mechanism of state government is arranged in a way to block him at almost every turn.
Mark spoke with advisers and consultants and friends about whether or not to run. The more people he talked to, the more excited he became about the possibility of making real change. Instead of accepting the idea that he would be working within a highly restricted environment, he wanted to run on a pledge to reform the government and to bring fiscal responsibility, common sense, and a businesslike approach to all the affairs of our state. He saw the need for a governor to look out for the interests of the state as a whole, as a chief executive should. Just as important to him was preserving the aesthetic look and feel of the state. He had strong feelings about protecting open space, keeping rivers pristine, and saving forests. He wanted to avoid the kind of overdevelopment seen in South Florida. This was and still is a rather rare stance for a Republican. With these as his issues, we calculated that there was a slim chance he would win.
Our wedding day, November 4, 1989
Past bedtime, primary night, 2002
Campaigning was always a family affair.
Boyhood fun at Coosaw, the Sanford family farm
Blake meets President George W. Bush.
Mark’s swearing-in for his second term as a U.S. Congressman, January 1997
Fun at the Governor’s Mansion
More fun with friends, celebrating my fortieth birthday at the Mansion
The boys with my father, Christmas 1999.
Sisters Kathy and Gier with me and Mom
Gubernatorial inaugural ceremonies, January 2007
Mark’s third and final term as a U.S. congressman, summer 1999
Our maturing family, May 2009
Mark also consulted the boys and me about his decision, and we all were unified in our support. The way I saw it was not so dissimilar to when Mark decided to run for Congress. The prospect of running for the state’s highest political office energized Mark; the intense focus and his ideas for new possibilities for the state clearly would make him happy. I also figured that this would be a fifteen-month undertaking from the day he decided until what might well be a primary defeat. If Mark happened to win, I would at the very least look forward to all of us living together under the same roof, unlike his time in Congress.
He wanted to go for it; I pledged my support. But this time, I was adamant that I would not serve as campaign manager.
Mark hired a young woman to handle his schedule and another to manage incoming money and plan fundraisers. Next he hired a press secretary who, though worth his weight in gold, came cheap (which Mark liked) because his most recent job had been playing in a rock band. Many others showed up to volunteer through that first summer and the momentum started to build, but Mark was frustrated having to manage the staff and seemed un
able to find a manager to his liking. As the summer wore on, he began his push to get me to change my mind and return again as campaign manager.
Although I was proud of running his successful congressional campaigns, I knew from experience the toll the job would take on the boys. I also knew it would likely unhealthily shape the kind of time I would have with Mark. These were reasons enough to refuse the role, but there was another big reason I worried about. If I took the job, ours would be the only statewide campaign in South Carolina ever led by a woman, much less a wife. There were—and still are—many in the political and power base in the state who sneered openly at me and suggested it was not my place to do this work. I have come to love South Carolina deeply, but I’m not blind to the challenges still in place for women there. There still exists an old-fashioned chauvinism that would have women stay out of positions of power or strength. Perhaps they forget that South Carolina has plenty of strong and successful women in its history.
One such famous trailblazer (and a personal hero) was Eliza Lucas, who, in 1738, was left in charge—at the age of sixteen—of her family’s three plantations in the lowcountry. In addition to overseeing the plantations, she educated her younger sister and some of the slave children, pursued her own courses in French and English, and did legal work for poor neighbors. All the while she experimented with a new crop called indigo. By the age of nineteen, Eliza Lucas became the first in South Carolina to successfully produce blue dye from indigo, ultimately leading to great wealth for the area. After marrying Charles Pinckney, Eliza had four children, including two who were key players in the move toward our nation’s independence and the war that followed. Not only did Eliza Pinckney accomplish great things when facing life’s challenges, she also gave back to the world. She was a loyal wife, she raised successful children, and she left an indelible mark in more ways than one.
Staying True Page 9
