The Phone Call

It' always a simple phone call that changes your life. This piece is about a phone call changing my dreams about my first grandchild.

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My husband, Ron and I, were staying at the Dashwood Manor Seaside Bed & Breakfast, an historic English Tudor mansion built in 1912. It sat on the cliffs tucked up against the Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, British Columbia with a view of the San Juan Islands. We were celebrating my forty-eighth birthday and Mother’s Day, they always fall within a few days of each other.

We walked to a nearby coffee shop for a late breakfast and then Ron and I drove about a half hour north to visit Butchart Gardens. They were celebrating their 100th Anniversary. We strolled along the acres of winding trails appreciating the incredible gardens filled with over 900 varieties of roses, tulips, magnolias, daffodils and peonies and so much more in every color in every direction. As well, over 300,000 bulbs spring into a kaleidoscope of color each year. We stopped for a break and enjoyed a proper high tea mid afternoon; warm scones, clotted cream and strawberry preserves, crustless cucumber sandwiches, and pastel colored pastries along with a pot of piping hot tea, a lovely way to top off a perfect day. Bees buzzing at every turn, there were little patches of heavily perfumed havens tucked between the rose bushes, sweet aromas, pallets of deep magenta to the palest of pinks, arched walkways.

We were exhausted after hours of taking in such beauty and we’d come back to relax until it was time to go back out for dinner. Our room on the second floor was wrapped in a rose colored wallpaper, carved, heavy wooden furniture with bits of lace details kept the room warm and welcoming. The small TV on the dresser opposite the four poster bed was on and we were watching Larry King Live like we did most nights. His show came on CNN twice each evening at six and was repeated again at nine in case you’d missed it the first time. We’d been following the trial of the decade daily and that night Larry was interviewing Sharon Rocha, Lacy Peterson’s mom.

Sharon’s son-in-law, Scott Peterson, was charged with murdering his wife and unborn child on Christmas Eve, 2002. Because of him Sharon would never have her grandchild. I had been closely watching the trial and relating to our shared stage of life. I could hardly imagine the pain she was experiencing. Sharon had been waiting for her first grandchild, as was I.

I took off my shoes and sat near the open window in a low club chair covered in a moss green colored chintz with a matching ottoman perfectly placed to rest my tuckered feet. I could hear the crashing waves below and see the islands in the distance in the softening early evening light. In my lap was the pink chenille yarn I was using to crochet my expected granddaughters first blanket. My grandmother had taught me to crochet when I was ten years old and I looked forward to teaching my granddaughter to crochet when she turned ten. I knew that Sharon Rocha had had her dreams, too. I often felt a bit of shame in my anticipation knowing Sharon’s heart was breaking daily and would never stop. She’d never have her daughter or first grandchild.

My husband was lying on his back on the bed with his head propped up on the pile of lace trimmed pillows, resting with his eyes closed when his cell phone rang. He grabbed the phone and answered it while propped up leaning on one elbow. I heard someone talking without the normal greetings exchanged. I laid the baby blanket down, looked over to see if I could tell who had called. I saw a look of confusion start to settle in on his face, brows furrowed, eyes darkening, and then abruptly he shoved the phone at me and said, “I can’t understand him, I think it’s Daniel.”

Dan is my son from my first marriage and he and I had always had a special bond. He’s a firefighter and paramedic and a good guy all the way around. He’d been married to Jennifer for three years already and they wanted a houseful of kids. Jen had been brought up in a home without many privileges and she was quite religious as well. She and I were still working on our relationship, trying to find common ground, we didn’t share a faith.

Jen’s doctor had required she be on bed rest shortly after she’d become pregnant due to a tilted uterus. I did what I could from afar. We lived in Southern California, a three hour drive from Dan and Jen’s house in Phoenix but I’d hired a housekeeper for her to help with the house while Dan was at work. I tried to be supportive when I could in ways that would not offend her values or her beliefs.

Taking the phone from my husband, I could tell it was Dan but he was crying and his words were jumbled and I, too, couldn’t understand him. I thought I heard ‘no hands’, I was sure I’d heard ‘no forearms’. I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid to ask any questions. I didn’t know what to ask. I was afraid to imagine what any of it meant. I asked my twenty-six year old son to sit for a minute and I’d call him right back, he wanted answers and I wanted to give them to him but, I had to gather my thoughts and tell Ron what I’d learned.

We turned the TV off while Sharon was pleading for sympathy and justice, it was exactly 6:30pm and I’d stopped listening. It only took me a couple of minutes, I couldn’t leave my son sitting there to suffer. I didn’t know what words to gather that would bring him any comfort or answers but I had to do something. When I called back, Jen answered the phone. I listened to her tell me what she knew and I asked a few questions.

“You’ve had all your sonograms? And all your doctors appointments and they didn’t see it until now?” I asked gently.

“Yes, she was turned with her back towards the camera and this time the tech thought to turn her over so we could count all the limbs and thats when she turned off the screen and went to get the doctor. He came in and tried to move the baby around to get a better look. Then he confirmed as best he could, she had no forearms and no hands.”

I then asked, “Do they know what could have caused this? Do you need a second opinion?”

“No, mom, I saw her with my own eyes. I’ll have lots of tests soon and then we’ll go to a geneticist to try to find out why.”

“Oh, Jen, I’m so sorry. I know your heart is broken and I don’t know what to say to offer any comfort. I just don’t know.”

We cried together, we sat in silence, not knowing what more to say.

Then she asked me, “What do we do now, Mom? How do we go on?” Wanting to know literally, what should they do now. She’d been on bed rest for months and now she claimed that was over. She couldn’t take this lying down.

I didn’t know what to tell her. I’d never imagined anything like this. I had no words of comfort, not for Jen having her first child, not for Dan, so worried about the love of his life and his unborn daughter, not for myself when my heart was breaking, and especially not for Sharon who had no hope at all.

With Dan and Jen living in Arizona we were so far away that there was nothing more we could do for them that night. All I could think to say was, “Jen, go through the motions of minute to minute life. Sit together and hold hands, make dinner, whether you eat it or not, call your small group from church and see if they’ll meet tonight so you can pray together.” I knew that prayer and faith would bring them some comfort and even though I am not a believer, I am supportive.

When there were no more words, we hung up.

Ron had been listening and turned to me and said, ‘What do we do now?’

All I could think was I want to know why people think I have the answers? “We have dinner reservations at seven, we go.”

“Really? You can eat?” Ron asked with surprise and I thought I heard a hint of judgement in his voice but chose to ignore it and forgive him.

I didn’t know if I could eat or not, but I was following my own advice. When life gets unbearable it’s because you feel out of control. We could control our schedule and our routine, though not the health of our first, and as yet, unborn grandchild. It was all I knew to do having learned from past heartaches. You continue to live your life until it feels like your own again, a new normal.

Ron and I held hands while we drove the short distance to the Italian restaurant we’d found in town. We were seated right away and found the restaurant cozy and warm; brick walls, white tablecloths, and lamps with beautiful bottles of olive oil on each table.

After glancing at the menu we ordered dinner and a bottle of wine and tried to go through the motions. We sat there together talking, imagining, dreading, hoping it was a dream or a nightmare and trying to figure out what to say to the kids. What wisdom can I find in my heart to share that will help? How do I accept this? Neither of us could eat a bite of the steaks we’d ordered but somehow we got through the entire bottle of wine. Our minds were going in a hundred directions and knew we had to go. We apologized to the waiter for not touching our dinners, grabbed our coats and left the restaurant knowing that a tidal wave of grief was on its way.

We made our way back to the bed and breakfast, going through the motions of life; pajamas on, TV on, Larry King Live on for the second time that night and again, Lacy’s Mom picked up where we left her, it was 9:30 on the dot and the second time the Larry King Live Show was on and there she was, Sharon Rocha still speaking, conveying her pain, and I wished that the last three hours of my life had not happened. She’d picked up where we left her but our lives had changed forever. Earlier I’d empathized with Sharon, cried for her but now I had my own pain, separate, different, but just as heartbreaking. Both of us grieving over dreams lost, what could have been, what should have been, what never was to be.

I sat in my chair but couldn’t pick up that pink chenille blanket to finish it, not for many years in fact.

As I was trying to sleep that night I thought of Lacy’s mom and compared the weight of grief, a futile exercise, there was no way to be comforted. No turning back time, only facing it head on.

My husband and I spent that night crying, tossing and turning, hugging, holding hands, knowing Lacy’s mom was doing the same, as were our son and daughter-in-law. We were facing a reality that none of us could’ve expected.

Ron turned to me in the morning while yawning and said with conviction, “That was a horrible night. I could never do that again.”

Involuntarily, a bit of a chuckle escaped my grieving mind falling on my lips, knowing as a daughter, as a mother, as a woman, I’d already had so many nights of sorrow and would surely have to face many more nights of sobbing, worry and regret in my lifetime.

It had just begun, she wasn’t even born yet.

By Linda George Brown

From: United States