“Your grandmother Esther is at the hospital with your sister, Joan. We’ll go there so you can be with them,” Mr. Minkowski said. “I’ve rented a furnished apartment about a block from the hospital so Esther can be nearby.”
Joan didn’t respond, but rested her head on Meyer’s shoulder. She whimpered quietly all the way.
As the car stopped in front of the hospital, Joan opened her door and started to get out. She looked back at Meyer. “Please come with me. I don’t think I have the strength to do this alone.”
Mr. Minkowski told Meyer, “I’ll arrange for a rental car to be delivered to the hospital. If you need anything else call your mom or me.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll call you later with any updates.”
As they walked into the hospital, Joan was holding Meyer’s hand with both her hands. She was angry with God for doing this to her family, but thanked him for sending Meyer when she needed him so desperately.
Meyer inquired at the front desk for directions to Golda’s room. They arrived on the proper floor and Joan saw her grandmother talking to a doctor. As soon as they looked at each other, they both started sobbing. Grandmother Esther gave her a huge hug.
“Are you ready for this?” the doctor asked.
Joan nodded.
Meyer put one arm around her and the other around her grandmother’s shoulder.
“Your sister is still in critical condition but at least she can breathe on her own. She suffered quite a bit of facial trauma and you may not recognize her. Her pelvis is broken in three places. If she hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, she wouldn’t have made it to the hospital. We have her heavily sedated and will keep her sedated until later tomorrow. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her even though she won’t reply.”
As they entered her room, Joan saw Golda was in an oxygen tent. She was covered with tubes, wires, and bandages. She walked in ahead of Meyer but as soon as she saw her sister’s face she turned back to Meyer and buried her face in his chest.
Her body shook as she sobbed and kept asking, “Why? Why?”
Golda had purplish blotches over the non-bandaged parts of her face and arms. Her bruised eyelids were jammed shut from swelling. Her cheek and the left side of her jaw were purple and the jaw had a row of angry-looking stitches running down it. Her fiancé, Aaron, sat at her side holding her hand. He stood up and hugged Joan and shook Meyer’s hand.
Grandma and Meyer each put an arm around Joan. Her sister’s injuries were horrifying to look at. The doctor was correct. Golda was not recognizable.
Meyer and Aaron engaged in conversation.
Joan and her Grandma went out to the hallway.
“I have a huge favor to ask you, Grandma. I want to stay with you tonight because the rented apartment is near the hospital. I want Meyer to stay as well.”
“That’s fine, Joan.”
“There’s another favor, Grandma, but it’s difficult for me to ask you this.”
“I know, honey. You want to sleep with him tonight so he can hold you.”
Joan’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t look at me with such surprise on your pretty face. When your grandfather, Manny, was alive it meant the world to me when he held me. I see the way Meyer looks at you, and I especially see how you look at him. Believe me, Joan. I would give anything to have Manny here with us tonight so he could hold me.”
“Grandma, I should have known you’d understand.” Joan wrapped her arms around her grandmother.
Around midnight, the three of them went to the apartment. Meyer and Joan slept on a foldout couch in the living room. Joan tried to sleep, but was getting overwhelmed by knowing she would never see her parents again. She had just started to get sleepy when she realized she would have to plan a funeral…life seemed to be giving her an emotional battering.
Meyer’s parents assisted with her parents’ funeral.
“God bless you for all you’ve done for us,” she told them. “There were many times during the funeral, when the only reason I remained standing was that Meyer was holding me.
After the funeral, Meyer flew back to school and Joan moved into her parents’ house.
Soon, they began to hear better news from the doctors. Golda was improving every few days. Three weeks later, as Joan and her Grandma walked down the hall toward her sister’s room, she saw Golda’s fiancé, Aaron, talking to the doctor. The doctor was smiling and Aaron had tears in his eyes.
“You have one tough sister,” Aaron told her. “She woke up this morning and asked for something to eat.”
“Does she know about our parents?”
The doctor replied, “She’s still groggy from all the pain medication and she hasn’t asked about them yet. You need to be prepared to tell her what happened to them. Her prognosis is much better than it was when you first arrived here. If this keeps up she’ll have a chance at a fairly complete recovery. Be aware though, she’s going to need lots of help for the next six months, minimum.”
“Help we can give her. Thank God she’s getting better,” Grandma Esther said.
They all walked into the room. The oxygen tent had been removed and her sister looked at them and smiled briefly.
“Joan…Grandma…” Her voice trailed off. “If you’re all here then—Aaron, what’s going on? How are my parents?”
Aaron grasped her hand. “They didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”
“No. Please, no. Joan, please tell me it’s not true—Grandma? It’s not true.”
“It’s true Golda. They’re gone.” Quiet sobs filled the room.
* * *
No matter that she knew it was true, Joan couldn’t believe she and Golda had lost their parents. It was surreal. When Shiva started she exchanged pleasantries with the people who came for the visitation, but otherwise had no interest in taking part in discussions of what everyone remembered about her parents. When she thought of them, Joan felt an anchor was dragging her emotions down. Whatever managed to keep her happy before the tragedy was no longer buoyed her spirit. She wanted to sleep all the time and experienced an unusual number of headaches. The endless greenery of the Northwest previously made her happy, but now her surroundings just felt gray and lonely. Her world was becoming a shell of what it once was. The rare times she went shopping for clothing the only colors that appealed were gray and black.
She was unable to put her emotional life back together. To avoid feeling any more pain, she created an emotional bubble of numbness. The battering she endured from her the loss of her parents, dragged Joan into depression.
With their parents gone, she and Golda felt cut off from family. They were very grateful that Grandma Esther was still around.
* * *
Golda had a long talk with Aaron before she left the hospital, telling him she might not be able to have children because her hips were so severely injured.
He grabbed her hands and kissed her cheek. “If you can’t get pregnant we’ll adopt. Don’t worry about it now. We’ll just concentrate on your recovery so we can be married.”
When they were alone, Golda said to Joan, “I don’t know why all this happened to us but I intend to spend the rest of my life giving back to Aaron the blessed kindness and support he’s provided me during this ordeal.”
On one of Joan’s visits, one of the nurses spoke to Golda about Aaron. “He was talking to you the whole time you were unconscious. Some of the nurses were betting the first words you would say to him were going to be, ‘Aaron, please stop talking.’”
He managed to see her every day after work and visited longer every weekend.
When the psychologist came by to see how Golda’s emotional state was, she told him thanks for stopping by, but “I have my own psychologist and support system named Aaron. He is keeping my spirits up on a daily basis.”
Joan and Grandma took turns visiting Golda at the hospital during the week days. They also had been getting her parents’ home ready for Golda’s arrival. Joan discovered Grandma Esther and Mr. Minko
wski paid for modifications to make the house wheelchair accessible.
After eight weeks in the hospital, Golda finally came home with her beloved Aaron constantly at her side.
Joan’s parents left her enough money to finish college and she arranged to take classes locally so she could stay in her parents’ house that now belonged to her and Golda. Her life was settling into a routine of classes, taking care of Golda, and working a part time job.
She decided not to continue her relationship with Meyer. The thought of having a partner in her life who might depend on her, was more than her current emotional state could endure. He sent her some thoughtful letters; she replied as briefly as possible, her letters not really saying anything.
Eventually he took the hint and quit writing, which only added to her sense of sadness, feeling as if she’d betrayed him. They’d experienced so many great times during their childhood but she thought they had no future together. As depressed as she was, she felt he was better off with someone else.
Grandma Esther returned to the Midwest once Golda came home. On the weekends, Golda tried to get Joan to go out when Aaron was there to take care of her. She meant well, but Joan really preferred just staying around the house and sleeping or reading.
* * *
The years passed by as a gray blur for Joan. Golda and Aaron married and have been happily so for four years; and much to their delight, a child was on the way. Other than a slight limp you couldn’t tell Golda had been in a terrible accident.
Joan was convinced that people could tell which house was theirs when they drove down their street—it was the one with the glow coming from Golda and Aaron’s love and devotion to each other. She often thought they were the definition of a perfect couple.
When Joan’s college degree was complete, she started doing tax accounting for some small businesses. She managed a brief relationship with one of the guys from school.
His name was Sam Stein. After they’d gone out a few times, her body was letting her know she needed to have sex with someone. She and Sam did it a number of times before he was shipped to Vietnam. There was no romance or emotion…it just relieved an urge. It certainly wasn’t what she and Meyer shared. When Sam left for Vietnam they decided their relationship had no future. Joan let him know, he deserved someone who wasn’t depressed all the time.
Within weeks of Sam’s arriving in Vietnam, Joan received two life changing phone calls. The first call was from her gynecologist telling her she was pregnant. A week later, she received a call from Sam’s parents asking her if she would attend his funeral as he had been killed in Vietnam.
As if she wasn’t suffering enough mental anguish over her parents’ death, now she had to decide if she wanted to keep the baby she and Sam created. She’d made up her mind to have an abortion when she learned about his death. Joan felt a responsibility to this man who had given his life for his country. He would never have a chance to have another child. Sam’s parents would never have a chance at grandchildren as he had no siblings.
What impact would it have on this child if she brought it into the world without a dad? Would she be able to make a decent living for them? If she married someday, would her husband treat Sam’s baby as his own? Joan was confused, with no clear direction and certainly no clear answers. The questions swirled in her mind in the way clothing twists and turns on a clothes line during a windy day.
She would have given anything to have the nerve to call Meyer to discuss all of this. Joan was quite sure she shouldn’t interrupt his life…especially after being so mean to him concerning the way she ended their relationship. Certainly, she was the last person he wanted to hear from.
After more sleepless nights than she could count, Joan finally decided to keep the baby. A few months later she found out she was going to have a girl. She decided to name her Samantha, after her dad.
Joan drove out to view Mt. Rainer. The base and bottom two-thirds of the mountain were clear as a bell but the top one-third was obscured by clouds.
“That’s the way my life looks. My future is certainly obscured just like the top of Rainier.”
That day was the first time she felt Samantha moving inside her.
“We have to make some changes, Samantha. We’re going shopping for colorful clothes. I’ll do my best to make sure you enter a happy world with a together mom.”
She started an exercise program for pregnant moms, which helped to a huge degree. Joan was sweating away her negative feelings and moodiness plus making new friends. Even Golda and Aaron told her she was noticeably happier.
Samantha’s birth brought more joy into her life than she felt she deserved. During the day, while she was busy taking care of Samantha and running her tax accounting business from her townhome, she didn’t have much time to worry about their life.
At night, however, she was concerned about their situation. Getting a decent night’s sleep became a problem. She still worried about Samantha growing up fatherless. Her financial situation was on thin ice; any change would be problematic. Joan’s doctor prescribed a sleeping aid which she depended on every night.
As Samantha passed her third birthday, she started asking why other kids had fathers and she didn’t. Joan did her best to explain her father’s death in a war, but her answers never satisfied her daughter.
Joan’s social life was non-existent. As soon as a potential date found out she had a child, he would immediately lose interest. She dreaded the thought of raising Samantha by herself. She didn’t know it then, but the Lord was watching her. In the years to come, just when she started thinking her physical and emotional state couldn’t get any worse, He found a way to bring Meyer back into her life when she truly needed him the most.
Chapter Four
~ College, Larry and the Twins
My mom, an incredibly wise mother, sent me to college near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. “Meyer,” she told me many years later, “I figured the sight of all those bikini-clad bodies at the beach would give you motivation to get good enough grades to stay and finish college.”
She had a point—soon after arriving, I learned there was a school for airline stewardesses not far from our school. They were gorgeous, and they completed their training in eight weeks, which meant new trainees would arrive. Oh yeah, I had all the motivation I could handle.
Dad and Mom decided to sell the house I grew up in. They were going to move to a smaller home closer to Seattle. Briefly, I was sad to think I wouldn’t ever go home to the same house again. It was, however, just a house. A home is the physical location where all the hearts gather.
I was still sad about my parting with Joan after our week at the cabin. I thought meeting and making new friends would compensate for the feeling of emptiness I felt at our parting, so I made a habit of trying to meet the quieter people in my classes.
One quiet classmate was a Business Management major who worked in a boatyard installing engines in Fiberglas boats—a fellow drummer, Larry Shapiro had a serious side when it came to studies, but he exhibited a quiet confidence when we went out in search of the not-so-elusive female.
Both our dads had insisted we get some kind of job while we were in school, and like me, Larry planned to stay in Florida and take classes over the summer to graduate as soon as possible.
“Hey Meyer, I get paid a hundred and fifty dollars for every engine I install at the boatyard. It takes from eight to twelve hours to install and test it. Would you like to help me? I’d split the fee fifty-fifty.”
“Sounds great,” I told him, even though I knew from my experience working with friends during high school, engine installation was a back breaking, knuckle busting kind of work. It would be especially miserable in the hot Florida sunshine.
We went out looking for an apartment to rent and found a small, two-bedroom unit not too far from the intra-coastal canal. It was walking distance to college and close to the boatyard where Larry worked. Since we could walk to school, I didn’t need a car, but I wanted one f
or dating, so I called my dad to ask for car money.
“A car’s a great idea,” he told me. “I’ll send you five hundred dollars and you get a job to pay me back. Also, be sure to save some of the money you earn for paying for your own books next semester.”
Well, since you put it that way, Dad…so I looked for a decent job all that week, but found nothing. With classes starting the following week, I was getting desperate when Larry said he had four engines to install the next weekend and could use my help.
It would take the two of us all weekend to get them installed and tested. As the temperature was in the upper nineties and the humidity was tropical, I didn’t look forward to the weekend’s work. Three hundred dollars, however, would go a long way to paying back my dad.
The work was miserable, as I had anticipated. Fiberglas finishes was crude in those days, and if you weren’t careful could cause days of itching.
I learned Larry’s father was a cab driver in New York. Larry was the first person in their family to go to college, literally working his way through. He was becoming a friend and there was no way I could say no to him when he needed help. I became a regular part of the engine install team. While it continued to be miserable work, it was good money, and after a few weeks seeing what a hard worker he was, I found I too was adjusting to the work. I can honestly say our working together made us friends for life.
Shortly after second semester began, I received a call from my dad. He’d told me Joan’s parents and sister had been in a terrible accident. Her dad had died at the scene, her mom died in surgery, and her sister wasn’t expected to live the night. Dad set up a flight for me to come home right away.
It was a terrible few days. Joan seemed emotionally drained and more distant every day. I flew home after the funeral, but wrote a few letters her in the weeks after. She only answered with “how’s the weather” kinds of responses, never really saying much. After all our great times growing up together, it seemed our relationship had hit a dead end. I buried myself in my studies and going out picking up girls. I didn’t want to think about the painful emptiness I felt knowing Joan wouldn’t be part of my life and—knowing that I couldn’t protect her from everything after all.
Finding a Soul Mate (Meant to be Together Book 1) Page 4
