Going to TOWA Without You

April 23, 2001

Dear Jim,

I am getting ready to go to the TOWA Conference in Kingsport, Tennessee and I remember the fun times we have had at them. It won't be the same without you to share the happy times.

Jim April 6, 1961, Valley Forge, PA,
on a business trip early in his career as
an insurance salesman

Today, I've been busy washing clothes and I called Merrily Moss to send a "hello" to everyone because I decided that I was afraid to drive alone. Merrily said, "Come over and go with us." She made my day. I had been feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to go, but I was afraid.

Norma, April 1961,
outside Independence Hall, Phil. PA,
on a business trip with Jim

Oh, how my heart aches for you to be here and for us to be sharing fun times, the drive and the experiences at the Conference!

We always enjoyed the camaraderie, you seeing your fellow writers, me, enjoying the Spouse Trips. We always enjoyed the area, wherever we were. And the motel. Of course, I always said it was another "honeymoon trip." I miss you so much -- it's just so lonely going to "fun places" without you. No one can take your place in my heart. You've had it for 50 years and I want you here with me still. I'll never stop loving and missing you. 

All my love, always and forever.

Norma Jean

Jim and Norma, circa 1995 on a TOWA trip

Sundays Are Not The Same

April 8, 2001 Sunday 7 PM

Dearest Darling:

I have been thinking of you and missing you all day.

Jim Parker, August 13, 1963, en route to the Great Smoky Mountains

Honey, it's so difficult to go to church without you being with me, to sit in church by myself. I'm still sitting in our pew, but it's not the same. Every Sunday, little Cannon ("Boom Boom," you called him) comes and gives me a big hug. He is so sweet, tender-hearted, and sensitive.

I need your advice. You need to be here -- the car is acting up. I need to dispose of your carts and have to have them fixed first. The batteries are low -- I'm sorry.

I can't stop crying. I thought I was doing better, but I'm not now. I went to talk to a social worker at Baptist Hospital in Huntington and I felt better, but it only lasted four days. I can't stop loving and missing you. My heart aches. Nothing can compare to losing you, sweetheart. I just want you to be coming home, like you're still in the Navy.

I re-read your letters and I want you to be coming home to me, that it is 1953 when our love was new and strong. Life was good. I knew it then and in 1999, too.

I just love you and miss you so much.

All my love always and forever,

Norma

Notes:
Norma was 67 when Jim died in 2000 and, for the first time, she was living alone. The adjustment to being single was difficult for her and she hated the word "widow." She wasn't interested in moving north to live near friends and her daughter. She stayed in the house they shared in Waverly Tennessee, the one he loved, with a view of the creek running behind his back porch. She was lonely and alone but she wanted to stay close to Jim's grave and she spent time with his family who were always ready with a story about him. Talking about him helped a lot.

Like many people who grew up in the '30s and '40s, Norma and Jim had clearly defined ideas about household responsibilities. Taking care of the cars was Jim's job. I remember one conversation between Norma and me that may have taken place around the time she wrote this journal entry. Norma was furious with Jim.

Why? I asked with surprise. What could he have done from beyond the grave to make her so angry?

Connie (left) and Norma, June 1960, near the family car

Norma's car needed to be repaired or replaced, she didn't know which would be best, but making that decision was Jim's job, not hers. Damn him for dying. He needed to be there to fix the damn car.

This outburst was extraordinary for two reasons. First, Norma was not prone to hissy fits and second, she rarely swore. Saying "damn," and saying it multiple times to her daughter, was a real eye opener.

I channeled my inner dad and told her that, given the choice, Jim would probably opt to take care of the damn car over his current circumstances.

Norma gave a weak laugh and we discussed people she might speak to who could help her make a decision with more confidence, but the bottom line was that she wanted life back the way it used to be. I could not blame her.

April 7, 2001

Dear Jim,

Photo: USA Pictures

I just got home from Metropolis, Illinois. Polly, JoAn, Barbra and I went up for two nights and three days. We had fun, went to Players Casino that Merv Griffin owns but has just been sold. Remember we used to see TV ads about it.

As I played some machines or walked around, I remembered our trips to casinos out West and I missed you. Missed sitting at adjoining machines and see what game you were playing and you teaching me poker.

When I cashed my "winnings" in, I wanted to tell you! I got back almost $90 that I lost the first day. So, maybe I broke even (or less! HA!)

Then when I went to the hotel "AmeriHost," it was time for more memories of motels we  stayed in these past years when traveling. When I took a shower -- I remembered when we took them together! Sweet memories of a love that was a joy, fun, and always exciting.

I dreamed about you last night. You were walking down the street smoking. I was hitting you, screaming, crying, begging you to stop so you wouldn't die. I woke up exhausted. Oh, how I wish you had quit in 1954. You would still be here with me.

I'll love you forever,

Norma

Your Birthday March 31, 2001

Dear Jim,

Jim with a book, circa March 1998,
his idea of the best birthday present he could receive

Happy Birthday, Darling. I wish you were here with me to celebrate.

I had planned to have a surprise birthday party in 2000 for your 70th birthday, but it was not to be.*

The past 435 days and empty nights have been a nightmare. I miss you so much.

Today, Polly** and I took 2 bunches of silk flowers to your grave. We all miss you so. I leave a piece of my heart each time I go.

Like your Korean War Navy letters said to me,

All my love,

Norma

Notes:
  * Jim died in January 20, 2000.
** Polly Sparks, Jim's eldest sister

Query: What places can you travel to over and over again?

I would like to say that I have had dreams of traveling over and over again to some romantic or glamorous place like Paris or New York, and that I followed those dreams, but that simply isn't true.

When I was 37, I was sent to Paris as the account executive covering a TV commercial shoot for a client. It seemed like it would be a dream come true. The shoot was to take 2-3 days, but we were booked there for 10. It turned out that we needed the 10 days. In the entire time I was in Paris, I had about a day and a half to spend on my own. My mother met me in Paris, traveling from middle Tennessee, to celebrate my birthday during my working vacation. She and I took a trip down the Seine one evening and I spent one afternoon in the Musee D'Orsay. The rest of the time was spent holding the hand of a nervous client and re-arranging the shoot locations during an August that was unseasonably cold.

My mother had the vacation of a lifetime. She arrived in Paris the day before me and somehow navigated her way from the De Gaulle Airport by bus to the hotel on the Left Bank where we had reservations. Parisians, notorious for their impatience with visitors who don't know French, passed my mother from person to person, escorting her from the airport to the right bus (no expensive taxi for her) to the concierge of our hotel. It was a miracle that occurred throughout her trip. Forced to either sit in the hotel while I was working or explore the city on her own, she thumbed through her guide book planning each day's events with the hope that I could join her and each day I was forced to work the job that inconveniently interjected itself into our plans. Each museum tour, each adventure into a quaint shop or patisserie, produced a Parisian who happily took my mother under their wing speaking broken English and directing her to whimsical, offbeat locations and secret installations of museums, providing stories she regaled me with at the end of the day when she and I met after my work day was done. I have photographs of her trip to Paris. It was wonderful. I was jealous for years.

When I was in my 40s, my mother and I planned to take a return trip to Paris. I spent months floating around the elementary school where I was then working singing "April in Paris" to anyone who would listen and to those who tried to run away. About two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, I fell asleep in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. An uncommon event. When I awoke and made my way to the bathroom, I noticed my face in the mirror. I was far too old for acne, but there was my reflection covered with pimples. I sighed, still fatigued, and headed back to bed, where I immediately fell asleep again. Hours later, I looked in mirror again and realized I hadn't seen a pimpled-face teenager, I had a face covered with Chicken Pox. I was quarantined in my apartment and the Paris trip was cancelled. My mother and I said we would reschedule but we never did and since she died, I have had no interest in returning.

Since moving to Michigan from New York City, I have returned once. I spent a week at a conference and had a long weekend to myself. I saw an old friend, walked through neighborhoods that had once seemed like home and was overwhelmed with sadness and loss. I had chosen to leave, hadn't I? Why was I so sad and lonely? I think it was because the New York that I knew, the one that had been so exhilarating and exciting, was now a piece of memory. Times had changed, my time had changed. People had moved on, moved out, and disappeared from my life through their choices or mine. I was worse than a tourist because I was looking for a New York that no longer existed. New York was no longer my home.

These days, the places I return to again and again are in books, which may seem like a sad choice to some, but I don't see it that way. I return to Hogwarts, to a House on the Prairie, to Naria time and again. Sometimes, they are as I remember them, other times I bring something new with me or I discover a new aspect that had escaped me before. The journey is comforting and comfortable and each trip feels like I'm coming home.

Prayer for The Parents of A Dead Child

Yesterday, as we watched CNN broadcast the cycling stills of parents, some standing frozen with shock, some racing with hair flying, some leaning with their faces against car windows, Jeff and I talked about grief.  I told him stories from my childhood and we've been married long enough that he had heard them all.  Funny.  I don't remember telling them.  That is the stuff of grief.

My sister died when I was 11.  She was three.  Her name was Janice.  After she died, we were left behind, my parents and me.  Just us in a bungalow that had only recently begun to feel slightly crowded.  We were left behind in a house that was vastly empty.  We were left to wonder about God and justice.  Mercy and forgiveness.  Life after death.  Love after death.  We stopped saying her name because the pain of the word wafting over our lips was too deep, too raw.  We shut the door to her bedroom and kept it shut for years.  But I would sneak in when I thought no one was looking and I would open the drawers in her bureau to gently finger through the neatly folded anklets, tiny t-shirts, battered dolls.  And I would stare out the window of her room at the lilac bushes framing the back of the yard.  Had she loved them as much as I do?  It was just one more thing I would never know about her.

It's not the same, of course.  Janice was killed accidentally.  The children in Connecticut were killed by a monster.  It's not the same.  But ultimately, a child is suddenly gone.  "Children are not supposed to die before their parents," my mother started whispering at the funeral.  "This kind of thing, it doesn't happen to us," I murmured to myself as I sat in the back seat of my uncle's car when he drove me home from the hospital.  I heard those two phrases repeated, repeated, repeated on every broadcast yesterday.  They are our mantras and our truths, but we are wrong.  Children die before their parents.  It does happen to us.

At some point, and for some of the parents it may have happened already, each parent of the children murdered in Connecticut will find themselves forgetting.  They may see something so absurd that laughter erupts from them.  They might be listening to a piece of beautiful music and their soul soars light with hope.  And then they will remember.  They will remember their child is dead and they will be filled with searing guilt.  How could I?  they will ask themselves.  What kind of parent am I? In that joyful moment, they will have forgotten about death and they will think this means their child is gone from their life forever.  They will experience the loss of their child again with grief washing over them on fresh waves of guilt.

When that happens, I pray the parents will remember the moments, frozen memories like still photographs, when their eyes met their child's and they experienced love so deep and wide they thought their hearts would burst.  I pray the parents will remember the small face mirroring that love back with every child's greatest wish: their parent's happiness.  I pray the parents will forgive themselves.  They could not have known.  They did all they could.  They will find joy and peace.  I pray.

Women's Work

Irma, on the left, was one of my mother's favorite bosses (and not the subject of her notes). Norma is on the right.

My mother worked for years as a secretary in a public school district. I found this in a notebook my mother had with To Do lists. Even though this was written more than 30 years ago, I was struck by how much it applies to the district today. People are still being asked to do jobs that aren't their responsibility, still being asked to work without compensation during the summers. And when a "favor" is given, the compensation is quickly forgotten. Just goes to show, the more things change, the more they stay the same.


From my mother's notes:


For the past six years I have (on the whole) been a loyal employee. I have done tasks beyond my job description. Every summer, I have worked beyond my "last day" without any remuneration - monetary or otherwise. I did it again this year, working a day and a half moving the department things over to the workroom. The thanks that I received were... none. No money, no thanks, nothing. I was even asked to come back earlier so that "the department could begin smoothly!" Of course, this would have been the usual, a "take from Norma" and maybe let's give her a "thank you" or a lunch!


Thanks to the sarcasm of today, my extra mile has come to an end. I realize just what my station in the office is and certainly will not cross the line that is drawn. I now work eight hours and no more Ms. Nice Lady. I will not stay one minute beyond my scheduled time and will not do one job beyond my level. No more doing the coffee at 4:30 for a meeting. I will fix that first thing and then let the rest go to hell in a handbasket.


I don't want a promotion. It will just mean more work for me, more responsibility and I've decided it is not worth it. To put it pure and simple, today the boom was lowered and this will have far reaching consequences for me and my attitude.


For the first time, I really feel the class distinction and I doubt if I can ever fully forget it. I felt like a child being scolded by my mother or a teacher and when you are 58 it is a bitter pill to swallow. Gone was the buddy-buddy friend, there was just a stranger. Maybe it is time for me to get real and set a limit on what I will accept as the work to be done. Maybe I should set my own work rules. For far too long I have tried to do every job ASAP and left the tasks in my job description to be done last. No more. A job will be started when the last job is done, filed, mailed, whatever. No more Ms. Friendly. We are now quiet and all work! No more idle chitchat in Room 16, no goodies, no eating, no nothing.


I did not plan to be late on Friday, but I should have cleared it with you. I did not realize that you are a stickler for lunch hour time, but I should have known that. I was surprised by your reaction to it and my feelings were hurt when you pointed to your watch and asked where I had been. You asked what time I left for lunch. Since I have worked uncompensated in the past to finish jobs, I thought that my few times of returning late from lunch evened things out. I will certainly be more careful of the lunch hour and I will be a stickler about leaving each day at 4:30.