Dream New Dreams (2 page)

He was in Chapel Hill for only a couple of days, and his time was booked for meetings with university faculty. But on the second day of his visit, Randy asked if I would like him to stay another day so we could go out again. I was flattered and said yes. After I got off from work, he rode the public bus with me back to my apartment. He lost no time in changing his schedule, making phone calls on his cell phone right there on the bus. Not many people had cell phones
at that time and Randy looked very out of place making business arrangements. I had never before had someone move heaven and earth to be with me. I felt so special, so lucky for this sweet treatment.

Later that evening, we debated graduate school stipends, student loans for people pursuing degrees in professions that wouldn’t afford the students a salary on which to pay back the loans, and so much more. We fit a lot in during that inexpensive Chinese dinner.

Randy was so handsome to me, but it takes more than looks to make one truly fall in love. I guess it must have been the combination of intellect and fun, geek and athlete, technology and the arts, honesty and integrity that drew me to him. I loved that he was a serious scientist and an intellectual, but not a snob. He didn’t take himself too seriously, even though he voiced serious opinions and felt strongly about his convictions. He was full of life: that person who brings energy into the room and to whom you naturally gravitate. And the way he looked at me, even from the first moment, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and maybe never will again.

After that encounter, our romance was a whirlwind. He lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, so naturally there was lots of travel involved to nurture the relationship. Sometimes I would travel up to Pittsburgh where he would show me the city, introduce me to friends and colleagues, and quietly begin to integrate me into his life. Love started to bloom, though I could not see it. I wasn’t sure I could believe that such a man would be serious about me, about a woman who was already divorced at thirty and still working on her PhD in literature.

As our courtship continued into the fall, I brought him to my grandparents’ home in Chesapeake, Virginia, for Thanksgiving. As a
gift, he brought a gingerbread house for my grandmother that he’d made himself in the evenings after work. How surprising to find a man who baked and created gingerbread houses! And he did this from scratch and from a pattern he had made out of cardboard, not from a kit purchased at Michaels. The effort and attention he put into creating and transporting the house spoke volumes about him and the things he valued. He could have bought a bouquet of flowers to my family gathering, but Randy went the extra mile to make a good impression. It showed the real creative side of him, too, one that didn’t
do
ordinary.

Later on, he took me to Columbia, Maryland, for his mother’s and father’s birthday celebrations. His gift to his father was simple: homemade chocolate chip cookies. In Randy’s opinion, gifts weren’t about showing how much money one was willing to spend, but rather about the amount of heart one put into it. His philosophy resonated with me, and I grew to love and respect him even more.

Soon we were spending every weekend and every holiday together, and Randy introduced me to some unforgettable experiences. It could be a behind-the-scenes tour of a theme park design at a popular amusement park or meeting people who were full of intriguing ideas. He invited me to come to business dinners and on business trips, even though I wasn’t a computer scientist. I loved the intellectual stimulation, the conversations that challenged my preconceived notions, and the eclectic subject matter. Knowing I didn’t have his technology background, Randy explained to me the basic ideas behind the subject at hand so I would be able to participate. He did this in a considerate, matter-of-fact way without any condescension. Moreover, he would ask me my opinion or impression, listening carefully, demonstrating how much he valued my input. As the weekends flew by, the weekdays stretched out longer
and longer. It was getting harder not to be with the guy all the time. The distance between us couldn’t be closed by a telephone call.

I vividly remember a field trip to Chicago with his Carnegie Mellon master’s program students. We saw Blue Man Group for the first time together. One of the most unique theatrical performances today, Blue Man Group involves three actors painted blue from head to toe who never say a word on stage, but rather use drums, technology, and body language to communicate with and dazzle their audience. It was so novel, unlike any theatre we had ever experienced. At the end, Randy was blown away. He turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “I’m so glad you were here to experience this with me.” Later that night, we went to see
Tony and Tina’s Wedding
, a play in which the audience is treated as guests at the wedding, even participating in the action. So when the actors called for all the single ladies to come up to catch the bouquet, Randy and his colleagues insisted I go up. To my surprise, I caught the bouquet. You can only imagine the ribbing we both got from his colleagues and students. After the trip to Chicago, I knew it wouldn’t be long before Randy formally proposed to me. But I wasn’t sure if I could let go of my fears and truly give my heart. I worried that I would be trapped once again in a marriage with a husband who would not work on problems but continue destructive behavior, and I would have to live unhappily or go through a painful divorce. Was I going to let my past cloud my future? Would I stay tied to that one failure or recognize my strength and try again? These were some of the questions I asked myself again and again.

He was fun, he was witty, but most important, he was caring. I knew he loved me because he showed me, not just told me. Randy’s actions revealed his heart and character, in little ways, like buying me an umbrella when I didn’t have one, or big ways, like promising
me he would pay all expenses to move me back to Chapel Hill in the event our relationship soured. Though I had great trepidation, I trusted Randy and our relationship, and I agreed to move to Pittsburgh. I was still scared when I gave my two-week notice as outreach coordinator and office assistant at the Department of Computer Science, told my friends and family I was moving, and started looking for an apartment and job in Pittsburgh. Every time I drive up to Pittsburgh on I-70 W and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I remember my trip with Randy in the U-Haul truck with all my worldly possessions packed in the back and car in tow. Those feelings of fear and excitement bubble up when I remember Randy behind the wheel, looking at me, smiling, reaching over to hold my hand. After one failed marriage, it took courage to trust someone again. But Randy made it easy for me to believe in him and in us. I knew our marriage would never end in divorce. I knew it was “until death do us part”; I just didn’t know it would be so soon after uttering our vows. We were married on May 20, 2000, in Pittsburgh, under two large oak trees in a simple ceremony with just close family and a few friends in attendance.

Even after Dylan, Logan, and Chloe came along, the magic continued. Randy loved being a father and wanted enough children “to pile into the car,” as he explained to me. I was thirty-four years old and Randy forty when we started our family. So there wasn’t a lot of time between children. Dylan was born at the end of 2001. Logan came along two and a half years later, and Chloe nineteen months after Logan. Three children in five years! Small children put a lot of stress on a marriage, and ours was no exception. When Dylan was born seven weeks premature at two pounds fifteen ounces, Randy and I were terrified of losing our first child. I remember Randy went into his problem-solving mode to create a working schedule where
my mom, me, and he all took turns getting up with Dylan every three hours to feed and change him, and record his input and output so the pediatrician could measure his growth, even going so far as to describe the consistency and color of his stool and how he ate. (I believe I still have some of these charts in a file. Imagine describing infant poop at three a.m.!) The danger when he was small was that he was too weak to cry when he needed food, so we did this for about three months straight until Dylan gained enough weight that we could wait for him to cry out when he was hungry. Very exhausting. I don’t think Dylan ever slept through the night until he was about five years old and had learned to put on a story CD to listen to when he woke up in the middle of the night. We learned during this time that Randy did not do so well waking up in the middle of the night, for he couldn’t get back to sleep and would then be exhausted in the morning before going to work. Because I could stay home and nap during the day when the children napped, I took over the night shifts to relieve Randy and make his life a little easier. Give and take. That’s what we always did together to work through the tough times and to make our lives better together.

As I threw myself more deeply and completely into taking care of Dylan, Randy saw I was in danger of losing all boundaries between my tiny infant and me. Always self-assured, he believed he knew what I needed when I wasn’t thinking straight because exhaustion and fear had colored my decision-making process. Seeing the rabbit hole I was down, he imposed time away from our baby and our house so that I would take a breath of air for myself. I did not like this arrangement at all but grudgingly left Dylan in his father’s care. I remember going to a park and sitting there trying to read, unable to concentrate on the words on the page. All I could see was red—anger that I wasn’t with Dylan. After a few more times, I learned
to extract myself from Mommy mode and use the couple of hours to pursue some interests of my own. That newfound sense of self-awareness and self-preservation served me well as our next two children were born soon after and close together. It might not have been what I wanted to hear or to see in myself, but Randy and I had such open and honest communication that we could share anything with each other. If one didn’t agree with the other’s point of view or suggestion, we would respectfully disagree or find a compromise that worked well enough for the both of us. I can remember only a few times when we raised our voices in anger or frustration with one another, which is remarkable, given the stress of child rearing and a life-threatening illness. Randy was always so rational and reasonable, and he loved me so completely that he would do anything for me.

Although the infant stage was hard for him, Randy really came into his own when the children got to be about two years old. He was the one who would do crazy things with them. One of their favorite games was Scare the Mommy, which usually consisted of silly tricks. When they were little, Randy liked to balance the kids in the palm of his hand. The child would stand up straight as Randy moved his hand up, down, and around. Of course, I would scream and cry out at the appropriate moments, and the kids thought this was great. Randy was also the one with whom they could curl up on the couch. Mommy always seemed busy taking care of one child or another or preparing some meal or snack, but Daddy was their snuggle buddy, giving them lots of one-on-one attention, talking with them about their day or some topic of interest. Randy also cooked with them, mostly breakfast on the weekends, when we had more leisure time. Randy’s favorite thing to make was animal pancakes. He didn’t use a preformed mold, but rather poured the mix
directly onto the skillet in such a way as to make a shape that kind of looked like something. It was the kids’ job to determine what shape the pancake was, perhaps a horse or a pig. It was like a Rorschach test, a fun game that elicited much conversation and laughter at the breakfast table. We spent many a happy morning over those crazy pancakes!

As much as we loved spending time together, we also loved being with our families. We wanted the children to know both of our families, even though we lived at least four hours from our closest relative. So we would make trip after trip to Maryland and Virginia to visit, from the time the children were just babies. I remember the last family trip we took before Randy learned he had cancer. It was the summer of 2006, and we had decided to visit my younger brother in Raleigh, North Carolina. Most people would not see the combination of a newborn with a twenty-two-month-old and a four-and-a-half-year-old for a long road trip as their idea of a vacation. But we were committed to the idea of keeping our family ties close. Little did we know how much we would test those ties as we soon would call on our families to help us.

It was early August and the weather was hot—Southern hot, when the humidity hovers around 90 percent all the time and the day starts off at a cool 85 degrees. We stayed at a little hotel with a pool not far from my brother’s house. The key word here is pool. During the few days we stayed in Raleigh, we spent most of the time in the water. The boys and Randy loved it; the two took turns jumping in, waiting for Randy to catch them, while I held baby Chloe in a more tranquil part of the pool. My brother and his wife came over to grill out in the evening and relax in the shade or play in the water with the kids. My friends from college came by to join us for a dip.

I particularly remember one friend watching Randy play with the boys; she was so touched by their love for each other and the joy they had being together. I remember looking at the same scene and thinking how happy I was that I was part of such a wonderful family and how many more times I would see this scene unfold in different ways throughout my lifetime: my husband, their father, loving them, being with them, enjoying the simple pleasures in life. This was one of my dreams come true: having a family—a loving, happy family. It had its challenges, no doubt, but the rewards were far greater than I ever expected. I loved being a mother and a wife, and I threw myself into these roles with fervor, learning how to grow my heart big enough to love four people. When life looks so rosy, it’s hard to imagine the ground shaking and opening up to swallow you whole. The worst thing I could imagine at this time was one of the children having an ear infection. We couldn’t know that our journey as a family and as a couple was about to take a serious turn—one that would test us and threaten to break us. What we had going for us was our strong bond and a love built on trust and communication. I think back on how I hesitated to leave my old life in Chapel Hill to build a new life with Randy in Pittsburgh. It was the right thing to do—to think carefully about marriage, knowing with 20/20 vision how difficult it is to maintain a healthy relationship. It’s a decision I never regretted, even to this day.