“You ready?” Mom asked. We had a shopping trip like none other ahead of us. I tied the red strings of the bag and handed it to her to bring with us out to the driveway.
After a familiar drive down the highway toward Worcester, we were pulling into the Shrewsbury BMW parking lot. My mom supported my longtime dream to drive the car that had inspired me, outlandish as it may have been, and now we were here. We sold the Grand Prix and used the money for a down payment on my would-be new car. Mom was determined to show me a way to make my dream a reality.
We walked into the showroom together and I felt like I was living out a fantasy. Immediately I zeroed in on the car— my car— that I had only seen flashing by on commercials for years, never up close. It was even more magnificent than I thought. The Z3 was perfect, it was gorgeous, and it practically grinned at me on the showroom floor.
“Would you like to sit inside?” asked a salesman. He opened the door and I handed my crutches to my mom, lowering myself down into the driver’s seat.
The roadster sat low to the ground, and the bucket seats hugged my body. The fresh new leather smell was intoxicating. I gripped the steering wheel and imagined whizzing by my house and back to school.
Everything was compact inside— it was the perfect fit. I stretched my leg out to feel the surface of the pedal under my foot. Part of me hesitated, fearful I wouldn’t be able to reach, but I was pleasantly surprised when, with a simple adjustment of the driver’s seat, the ball of my foot easily met the gas pedal. My dream had come true, and I had accomplished exactly what I had imagined. The car was mine.
When I drove the roadster to school, my friends were always excited to join me for a ride. If anyone needed hairspray, mascara, or beer, I made sure to volunteer, just to have the chance to drive. But the biggest thrill in my new car came in a most unlikely place: the drive-through Wendy’s just off campus.
One day, after ordering a junior bacon cheeseburger and a Coke at the outdoor speaker (a place I’d never seen from the driver’s side), I did something I only dreamed would one day be possible: I drove around to the pick-up window and easily reached outside to pay for my food. Finally, after so many years of fantasizing about such little exercises in independence, I was doing them.
Under a cold, moonlit sky that winter, I stood in front of the apartments at the Dell. I couldn’t believe I was there. Somehow, I had mustered up the gumption to rush Phi Sigma Sigma, and I was about to go to my first sorority party.
I had found their flyer a week before deciding to rush. The theme of this week’s party was Charlie’s Angels and I considered it to be a sign. I had come to think of Mike as my angel because, through his death, I finally learned to truly live my life. Plus, joining a sorority seemed like a great way to get involved and meet people. Phi Sig, as I would come to know it, was nothing like the stereotypes I’d heard about sororities. For starters, it wasn’t made up of only tall, thin, Barbie-doll types. Phi Sig welcomed girls of all shapes and sizes. The sisters were from all different races and backgrounds, and some were tall and skinny while others were short and round. They were inclusive, funny, and warm. And it was clear to me, even as an outsider, that they all had one thing in common: how much they genuinely enjoyed being there. It seemed like they appreciated the little things in life, too (even if that didn’t include taking out the trash or flipping on a light switch), so I could certainly relate.
Their motto was “Aim high.” When I hung out with the Phi Sig girls, I didn’t feel like I had to fit into any particular mold. I could just be myself, and they seemed to really like me.
In my first interactions with the Phi Sig ladies, I wondered if they did those girly group things. Did they gather in one girl’s room at night to watch movies and order in pizza? Meet between classes to gossip? Borrow each other’s hairspray? I had never done any of those things and wanted so desperately to be able to say I had. Maybe this was my chance.
One of the Phi Sig sisters, Nicole, was average height and on the voluptuous side and she embraced everything about what made her different. Her commanding presence and lack of filter when she talked made her stand out— she spoke my language. She made being different (and being loud!) seem fun, and it felt natural to be by her side, as if I were her apprentice.
So it was only natural that when it came time to assign the new girls “big sisters,” she would be mine. With me as her “little,” Nicole invited me to that party at the Dell. So this was what the girls in my hall experienced the first few weeks after enrolling at UMass? I thought to myself when I arrived. This was the thrill of being at the Dell at night, to be part of the organized chaos of drinking and partying that seemed to come so naturally to everyone? I tried to pretend it was natural for me, too.
I took it all in and watched the partygoers outside before I worked up the nerve to enter through the apartment door to meet up with Nicole. It was intoxicating to be around so many happy, laughing, carefree people, who seemed to be living in the moment. I had spent my whole life thinking about the future and how I would fit in and thrive. But everyone around me that night was concerned with nothing more than that party.
With a deep, shaky breath that I hoped no one noticed, I entered Nicole’s apartment. I recognized lots of friendly faces from the rush meetings, and plenty of new ones, too— Nicole introduced me to many of them. I hoped that in the weeks to come, I would run into them on the way to classes and say hello, stopping to chat before we went our separate ways.
As the party wore on, an endless stream of people made their way in and out, but I was totally content to stay put and watch. I recognized a bunch of Limp Bizkit songs that I used to hear while huddled alone in my dorm room. But this time, there wasn’t a TV dinner in sight.
I followed Nicole, who insisted I call her “Coley,” into the kitchen and watched her mix a few red cups with alcohol and juice.
“Hoochies!” she yelled teasingly across the room to a few sisters dancing on the coffee table. Then she turned her attention to me. “All right, what would you like, Peanut? Or should I call you Hollywood because of that cute little car of yours?” she asked.
Surprised and happy that I had a nickname of my own, I paused. I had no idea how to answer her question.
“What do you suggest?”
She studied my face and smiled. I had “newbie” written all over me.
“Well, do you like the taste of alcohol or no?”
I thought back to the time that we helped Papa move out of his house. My uncle Scott and uncle Bobby, both drinkers, were there, too, and one of them had a vodka on the rocks that I had mistaken for a glass of water.
“I definitely do not want to taste alcohol,” I said with a laugh. “Have anything fruity?”
“Sure do, Peanut!” Coley added a splash of coconut rum to a red plastic cup filled with pineapple and orange juice. It tasted sweet and satisfying. By my second cup, my cheeks felt warm and my lips tingled. We plopped ourselves on the couch and talked, meeting other students as they came through the party.
“You need to come over more,” she said. “And get out of your room.”
I promised I would.
“There’s another party tomorrow night— you’re coming.” It was an order with a smile. And just like that I had plans: real plans with new friends, sisters, and no need to go home for the weekend. I couldn’t stop smiling.
“So what’s with the crutches?” Coley asked, her legs curled underneath her and her arm stretched out across the back of the sofa. I sat facing her with my back pressed up against the armrest.
“I had surgery,” I answered, taking another sip of my drink.
“What kind of surgery?”
I was stunned by her question. It had always been so obvious to me what surgery I needed. Could it be that from Coley’s perspective I didn’t look all that different? The thought thrilled me, as I told her about what I’d been through.
She was the first person I ever shared my story with besides Mike.
&n
bsp; The fall of my junior year, UMass looked completely different to me than when Mom and I pulled up for the first time. Shades of red, yellow, and orange took over the campus, which no longer looked dreary and cold. I framed the photos of Mike and me and put them up all around my room, so that when my girlfriends came over and asked, I could tell them all about my guy from home, just as they talked about their friends from high school.
And when Thursday nights rolled around, the bustle of preparty preparations no longer scared me. This year, I was right in the middle of it, smiling and laughing in the cloud of hairspray and girlfriends.
As for my dad, he eventually adjusted to the idea of his little girl going off to college. And I adjusted to the difficulties that used to feel insurmountable to me. I even crossed the street in the winter when it was snowy out! I just took my time, greeting friends along the way. I felt like I could do anything.
I seemed to be making friends everywhere I went, too, because at first, whenever there was a significant snowfall on campus, I’d schlep out to my car with a friend or two, prepared to spend a couple of hours digging it out. But each and every time, I’d find my roadster dry and ready to drive off on a side street lined with snow-covered cars. I always figured a maintenance worker on campus knew that it was harder for me to dig out my car than it was for other people and lent me a hand. I even left the worker a thank-you note and a little bag of cookies once for all the help.
One morning, after about a foot of powdery snow had fallen overnight, a sorority sister saw me on the way to class and said she saw a man digging out my car around two a.m. after the snow had stopped. I asked her what he looked like, hoping to hunt him down through the school to thank him. But her description matched someone else I knew, right down to the wool hat and gloves and shuffling gait.
It was my dad.
Every time it snowed, he would drive the hour and a half to campus to dig out my car. He never told me he did it, either. And if my sorority sister hadn’t spotted him, I might never have known.
CHAPTER 13
My Knight
My marine pen pal in his boot camp graduation photo.
DESPITE GETTING OFF to a rough start, my college years eventually became the best of my life. I did everything I could to make up for being stuck in the blue recliner during high school and in my dorm room freshman year. I joined the literary society and the UMass Dartmouth Theatre Company, tried my hand as fund-raising chair in Phi Sigma Sigma, and took every opportunity to meet new people. My dorm room walls grew cluttered with photos of friends and memories. I dined out often with my sorority sisters, which made the memory of eating processed, gravy-soaked Salisbury steak from the microwave seem laughable. I promised myself that I wouldn’t ever take my new friends for granted.
I never wanted to leave UMass, and when the time came to graduate I didn’t feel ready to give up the free, fun-filled life I had fought so hard to achieve. Beyond the campus was a bigger world, and I was confused about my place in it. Away from the protective walls of my dorm room and all the familiar faces I had come to love, the real world felt far too big for me to fit into.
The outside world also became more violent and unforgiving than anyone could have imagined. On September 11, 2001, in my junior year, I awoke to a frantic phone call from my mom, urging me to turn on the news.
“We’re being attacked!” she shouted over the phone. “I can’t believe this, we’re under attack!”
I stumbled out of bed and flipped on my TV, and within minutes there were knocks on my door. Everyone in my hall huddled together, speechless as a second plane hit the World Trade Center and the towers fell.
The attacks on our country made me angry and I wished I could do something about it. I wanted so badly to maintain my family’s military tradition and enlist just like my Papa and my mom had done. I would have felt so proud— and I know they would have, too— if I had been able to follow in their footsteps. But I would never be physically capable enough to do so.
So it was bittersweet whenever a recruiter would call looking for me.
“Good afternoon! I’m looking for Tiffanie DiDonato,” the recruiter for the air force would begin. I wondered if he looked like the recruiter I’d so admired in the living room when I was a little girl in Douglas. “Have you given any thought about what you want to do with your life?”
If he only knew. Respectfully, I declined the offer to go to his branch office, but made sure to thank him for his service.
Before I knew it, young men were missing from my classes, called to duty, and their plans to graduate were put on hold. It was one of the most piercing moments in my life, a time when I truly despised my disability. But since I couldn’t serve abroad, I discovered that the act of serving could also mean doing something on the home front.
Like many people all over America, my sorority sisters and I began signing up to write to the troops and attending various care package events in our hometowns. Local malls set up kiosks to send an e-mail to service members and the government joined in with Web sites dedicated to connecting a solider or marine with a voice from back home. It didn’t matter if you knew them personally. The need to help, to reach out and connect, was a strong one. Everyone around me just wanted to help and find a way to be involved.
After I graduated and settled back in at my parents’ house, I felt the need to continue supporting the troops in a war that was quickly defining my generation. Before long, one of my sorority sisters stumbled upon a military networking Web site and forwarded it to me. At first glance it looked a lot like a dating site. The setup was the same: post a picture, write a little bio, describe your interests, and check the reason you were joining. I was skeptical, but one of the options to check was “pen pal.”
“What the hell,” I said to myself, staring at the screen. I had done worse on the computer. It was just another outlet to connect to someone far away from home who needed to know that his service meant something to his fellow Americans. Eventually, stories began airing on the news about deployed combat troops who didn’t get any mail at all. It broke my heart. I logged into the site, clicked on “pen pal,” and posted my bio and a simple head shot. I didn’t get many hits, but when someone did write to me, I made sure to respond right away and send off a letter and a care package.
I sent a lot of mail to various soldiers, sailors, and marines. My friends came over and we tied little yellow ribbons around Tootsie Pops and those became care packages in their own right. We put so much thought into each one we sent. For one marine deployed to Iraq, Lance Corporal Arthur Viana, and his platoon, my mom and I canvassed Middlesex County for donations. In the end, we gathered ninety pounds of coffee from various Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and grocery stores. The FedEx employee who helped us with our customs sheet was amazed that two ordinary people who didn’t belong to an organization would show up with so much to send, with no particular reason.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Why not?” I replied.
About a month or two later, I woke up to the sound of our doorbell. A bouquet of gorgeous yellow roses had arrived at my door from the newly promoted Corporal Viana. The card read: Thanks for making me smile!!! So I hope this makes you smile as well!! Love, Arthur.
Other troops who received our letters and packages called the house to thank my mom and me. It wasn’t a big deal to give out my number. These were America’s finest. It felt good to get to speak to them and I’m proud to report that I still casually converse with some of the troops to whom I sent care packages. I’m sure I didn’t play a huge part in their safe return, but I did the best I could. I jam-packed every box and at the end of the day, I felt as if I had found my own way to serve my country. I may not be able to dig a trench, shoot a fifty-cal, or fill a sandbag, but damn it, I could give support. I could be a friend.
One cold night in the middle of January 2005, I logged into the site and noticed a message from Lance Corporal Eric A. Gabrielse. Dressed in his blues, his
hands in front of him in a modified parade rest, he stood straight and proud in his photo, but there was no hint of a smile. I thought that was a little odd, considering many of the photos of other service members showed at least a touch of happiness, or at least a casual stance. In his message, he explained to me he was stationed in North Carolina, part of the Marine Corps infantry, and he was leaving to go on his second tour of Iraq in July. He told me that he didn’t get much mail during his first tour and he noticed in my profile that I was a writer, so he figured it would be nice to have a pen pal. His message was genuine and, like me, he was just looking to connect during the war. I couldn’t click “reply” fast enough.
When I wrote back I gave him my instant messaging contact, despite the fact that it was strictly against the rules of the Web site. After a few chat sessions, I gave Eric my phone number. He called two days later and I was struck by how his voice sounded— deeply alone. Our conversations weren’t all that spectacular at first. They were very basic. We talked about movies, favorite foods, music, and other random likes and dislikes. I asked where he was from and this led to the discovery that we were natural baseball rivals— Eric’s hometown was in New York; mine, outside of Boston. This discovery coaxed him out of his shell and we playfully teased each other about the Yankees’ and Red Sox’s stats and star players.
Before long, I decided to send him an early draft of my memoir. It was a work in progress, but I wanted him to know who I was. More than that, I wanted him to know who I was not— a five-foot, ten-inch busty blonde with smooth, sexy legs. I knew what it was like to suffer and to force yourself to fight. I knew what it was like to feel exceptional physical and emotional pain. Most important, I knew what it was like to lose someone you care about for reasons you don’t understand. I wanted to be up-front and honest. I also wanted him to feel more at ease talking to me. We were fairly close in age and got along well in our casual chats, so I wanted to make sure he knew I could be a real friend and not just a fair-weather one. Maybe he’d been through some shit during the first tour and he could very easily go through a whole lot more. I needed him to know I could relate on some level. I’d been through a lot, too.
Dwarf: A Memoir Page 18
