Abandoned

When I was eight years old my Mother died.

I remember the day so clearly.

I headed home from the grind that was third grade at PS 89, navigating the five blocks to my parent’s attached house and climbing the 17 steep steps from the sidewalk to the front door, looking so forward to my after school treat of Hostess Cupcakes and milk.  

As soon as I got to the first step, I saw my Father on the porch. I was confused. He wasn’t usually home at this time. He had clearly come from work wearing his taxi driver “uniform” of a white, short-sleeved, button-down shirt and gray chinos. From the sharp angle of the stairs, he looked even bigger, his broad form filling out the doorway to the enclosed porch. But somehow, he seemed weaker. His customary slumping shoulders were even more pronounced, turning his body into a human question mark.  I thought I heard people crying from inside the house. My stomach hurt. My heart was beating faster. My father never expressed emotion very easily. And truth be told, I can’t remember what he said. But his inability to look at me, his uncharacteristic sadness and halting speech, combined with the plaintive sounds coming from our living room, told me the news without him saying anything. 

It’s funny the things you remember and the things you don’t. I don’t remember what my Father said to me. I just remember I was sent across the street to a neighbor’s house to have dinner and spend the night. My sister went to another neighbor. The only thing I remember is what I ate (spaghetti and meatballs) and what I watched on TV (Sargent Preston of the Yukon). I don’t remember what anyone said to me that night. 

There was a monumental effort made on behalf of my sister and I to make it seem like nothing had happened and life was just going to go on. So it did. So I did. But I was eight and had no idea how this event would shape the rest of my life. 

As I got older I took my Mother’s death as a rite of passage I went through before most everyone else. I saw it as spur to my independence something that gave me the strength to be independent at age 19.

When my father died shortly after my 23^rd birthday I was a full-fledged orphan. There was a certain pride I felt in being completely on my own with no support mechanism, and unlike virtually all of my friends, no safety net

After a short lived marriage (2 years) in my early twenties, I embarked on a number of relationships, often simultaneously. I was always honest those I dated in declaring my lack of interest in a permanent commitment. The result was, that I would break off relationships or someone would break up with me because of a desire for exclusivity.

Finally, in my mid- forties, a woman I was dating, casually blurted out, “you know maybe if your Mother didn’t die when you were young, you wouldn’t be so afraid of someone you love leaving you now”. There it was. What ten years of therapy failed to get into my head. Why that statement at that time registered, I’ll never know. But it all seemed to make sense to me-if I was dating multiple people, and one person left me, I wouldn’t be alone; and if I didn’t let myself love someone completely I wouldn’t be devastated when the left me.

Most married people point to their wedding day as the most significant event in their relationship. For me, it was taking the risk at age 52 to get married. It took the better part of my life to believe I could find someone that wouldn’t leave me. But even now that I have, it doesn’t take much to my trigger abandonment fantasies: My wife coming home unexpectedly late; or being distant or cold for no apparent reason. When that happens, I shut down, fighting the coldness with my own withdrawal, and the fear comes back.

Do I really believe she’ll leave me? No. But I don’t think I’ll live long enough to ever take that for granted.