Lost and Found; 'Under the Boardwalk'

It was three weeks into June, and for a state where locals say that "summer is little more than six weeks of bad sledding", Royal Oak, Michigan was unusually warm. I was about half way through the hour-long drive home from work. It was Father's Day and I was thinking of my dad. He was killed in a car accident along with my stepmother on the second of June in 1978. I was 18 years old. As I drove down I-75 that week in June, ten years had passed but the pain was still very much there. I was crying. I hated Father's Day.

My parents had divorced when I was too young to remember them being married and, because my father's visits to see me and my two brothers were very few and quite far in between, I cherished the every moment. He had remarried and he had another family and with his job in the Navy he was always on the move.

One of my fondest memories was when dad took me and my brothers to a place he called Poop-deck Pappy's. It was a man-made lake with a huge concession stand and out in the water there were swings and giant slides and towers with long rope swings. I remember being sun burned, and the sand that I ate along with my hot dog, and I remember sitting right next to my dad on the blanket -- and there was a song playing on someone's transistor radio. "Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby is where I'll be -- "

I remember looking up at him, seeing him smile, and I remember wishing that day would never end. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

My mother had also remarried but I was not very fond of my stepfather. It wasn't so much the hitting and the emotional abuse as it was the occasional "touchy feely" moments that bothered me. And, as I got older, the "touchy feely" moments escalated.

When I was almost 16 years old I finally talked my mother into letting me go live with my father.

Of course, the consent of his new wife was required but, under the circumstances, she agreed. So, with a suitcase full of clothes and my heart full of hope, I boarded a plane to Connecticut and toward what I thought would be the start of a new and wonderful life.

This was another of my happiest times.

My dad was in the Navy and it was hard when he would head off for his six-month trips in the Mediterranean Sea. I mean, before I moved there I rarely saw him and now that I was living with him he still seemed to be gone all the time. But I was happy nonetheless. At least the beatings and the groping were over.

I was making new friends, doing well in school (especially excelling it art class) and I discovered a love of writing in addition to studying both ancient and modern history as well as religious beliefs. I even found I had a knack for acting and joined the drama club.

Yes, compared to where I came from, all things were good. Unfortunately there is too much truth to that old saying about, "all good things" and the fact that they, "must come to an end".

I am not exactly sure where everything started to fall apart. I wasn't really paying much attention. I was too busy enjoying my days without beatings and feeling safe enough to fall asleep at night without having my step father slip into my room to notice the danger heading at me from another direction.

Maybe it was because my stepmother thought I monopolized too much of my father's time when he was home. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to make up for lost time. Or maybe it had something to do her annoyance that I looked "too much" like my mother. But, if I had to guess, I'd say the clock started ticking soon after I met my stepmother's parents. More specifically, it was the unexpected bond I fell into with her father that seemed to raise her hackles.

You see, he was an artist and loved to paint pictures of old sailing ships. I tell you, that man could paint water and waves with such skill it would look like a photograph. I was fascinated and he loved my enthusiasm and my determination to learn everything he could teach me. Whenever we would go there for a visit it wasn't long before he'd take me by the hand and scurry off with me to his basement studio where we would paint and talk sometimes until the sun came up.

Lord the fights she would pick with my father after our trips to her parents house. All the way home, from Rhode Island to Connecticut, the car was filled with either the shrill sound of her screaming or the deadly silence that settled in between. She hated that he was so fond of me. What made it worse was that he didn't seem to care too much for her daughter, his own flesh-and-blood grandchild.

I will never forget the day her parents came to our house and her father came to me with a great, big bag.

"I have something for you," he said and he opened the bag and handed me each thing one at a time. There was a sketch pad, a set of brushes, a case full of oil paints. He even brought me out to the car where he pulled out my very first easel. As he helped me set it up I was so anxious to start my first painting -- until I saw the look on my step mother's face.

I realized early on that her father wasn't exactly fond of her daughter and for the life of me I never understood why and it was rather mean of him to bring something for me and not his own grandchild. But my ignorance was not so much in not knowing how to gracefully handle this delicate situation regarding the relationship between her father and her child but rather in not recognizing that my connection with him was to be the proverbial nail in my already compromised happiness coffin.

As things started deteriorating in my new home I started spending more and more away from home. I engaged in more after school activities but the drama club and extra art classes only occupied but so many hours -- and there were summers when school was out.

Then one day my father suggested I find something else to do with my time and he told me about a place I could go where they studied the Bible on an in-depth level. He knew I liked that sort of thing and he said it might be something I would enjoy. He even arranged to have someone pick me up and take me to the classes once a week and my step-sister could even go with me so we could spend time together.

I have to admit, the classes were incredible. We would sit down, read a passage and tear it apart word by word comparing it to things written in other spiritual texts and digging to find the connections. Even the place where the classes were held was fascinating.

It was this beautiful old mansion that sat high up on a hill top. The fireplaces were huge with incredibly detailed carved mantels. The railing that followed a winding staircase was woven from the trunks of grapevines. Out back, they had an enormous vegetable garden where they grew pretty much anything you could think of and they even had a cow, which supplied those who lived there with milk.

As for the people who lived there? Some were my age, some were older, but most of them were adults and most of the adults were counselors. You see, "the mansion" was a home for people who had no place else to go. Some were recovering alcoholics or drug addicts and others were abused wives, girlfriends or children. Some had physical handicaps while others had disabilities of the mind. It was a quirky gathering of miscellaneous people that seemed odd yet perfectly natural at the same time. Still, as uncomfortable as my stepsister felt in their company, I felt strangely at home.

Months later, as Easter drew near, my father and stepmother approached me with the idea. They thought it might be fun for me to spend the upcoming, three-day holiday weekend with my new friends at the mansion. Things at my new home had become more strained so the idea did seem rather appealing. Maybe some time away would allow things to settle down.

The plan was they would drive me there after school that Thursday and they would come back to pick me up the following Sunday. I would be making the trip by myself, of course. My stepsister would not be going with me. But it didn't really matter at the time. We weren't getting along much either by this time so it did seem to be for the best. So, on the appointed day, with my little bag packed, I was driven to the mansion and dropped off at the front door.

They never came back to get me.

Turns out, they had the whole thing planned and, about a week after they abandoned me, the director of the mansion told me I wasn't the only one they had fooled. My step mother had done most of the negotiating on having them take me off their hands. It was all part of the reason why I started going there "for classes" in the first place. It was the Director's suggestion. It was a stipulation.

Where they were ready to take me there and drop me off on day one he wanted to allow me the time to get to know some of the people there so the "transition" would be less of a shock. The Director admitted that my stepmother had convinced him that I was a "problem child", that I was hooked on drugs -- lots of drugs -- But, after a week of no access to drugs it had become embarrassingly evident by the utter absence of any withdrawal symptoms or even the slightest of tremors or shakes that I was not the "problem child" she had presented me to be.

When I asked if they would ever come to even visit me, the Director looked genuinely sad for me. But he knew, in spite of my fragile state, the truth would be better than false hope. No, they would not be coming to visit. In fact, the day after they dropped me off they packed up and moved out of the state. I was told they were living somewhere down in the panhandle of Florida. "So, we might as well make the best of it," he said.

"Make the best of it"? Was he serious? How exactly do you "make the best of it" when you've just found out your father has deceived you and dumped you off and moved to the other end of the country?

I did my best to adjust. I didn't have much of a choice. But, "making the best of it" didn't mean I had to like it. My father had signed custody of me over to these people and they were now responsible for my welfare and education. I was enrolled in a new school, put to work in the garden and guess who was given the job of milking the cow? I was stuck.

Weeks stretched into months and months became a year. My days were supervised, always under the watchful eyes of the counselors. Then one summer day, to my utter surprise, I was informed that I had a visitor. I was told he was waiting out front. You could have knocked me over with one of those proverbial feathers when I opened the front door and looked out.

Yep, standing in the circle driveway, leaning back against his old Dodge Colt was none other than my father. I didn't even go down the steps to greet him. I only had one question.

"Are you here to pick me up?"

His silence was the only answer I needed. So with what dignity I had left, I stood up straight, lifted my head up high and said, "If you are not here to take me home there is nothing you can say that I want to hear and as far as I am concerned, it's me who doesn't want to ever see you again." He never did speak. He never even tried, and with nothing else to say to him I turned around, went inside and closed the door behind me.

That was the most painful day of my life. Not only was my heart still aching from the knife he stuck there but here he was a year later, not to pull it out but rather to twist it a little deeper. I went straight upstairs to my room and fell across my bed where I stayed crying until, at some point, I fell asleep.

I was miserable. The surprise visit from my father, just to show up and leave me all over again, had undone every bit of my "make the best of it" effort. I was determined to find a way out. I did not belong there, I hated being there, so I set into action the only plan I could think of.

Late at night, after everyone had gone to sleep, I would sneak downstairs and slip into the office. Sitting under the desk with the phone on the floor, I tried to call my mother. My soul sank when I heard the recording. "We're sorry. The number you have dialed has been changed or is no longer in service -- " I was so upset I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.

The next night I had a new plan. I would call my grandmother, my father's mother. She had always been my champion, my life raft, the one I could always depend on during the most difficult times in my life. She would save me -- if only I could remember her number.

Back beneath the desk with the phone in my lap I began dialing what I kept hoping would be my grandmother's number. The first night of attempts failed. As soon as I would hear the groggy voice of the stranger I had woken from a sound sleep on the other end I would hang up, my heart pounding, half wishing I had pleaded my case to the stranger anyway. But what good would that have done? What would they have cared? The only things that would have happened is they would think I was just some kid making a prank call or when I told them where I was they would put a call in to the Director or the police and I would get in trouble. So I kept trying.

I would only attempt a couple of numbers each night and I never tried to call on too many nights in a week. I knew the people in the office made out of state calls and a few would go unnoticed but if I did it too many times in one night I was afraid that when the phone bill came that a large series of similar numbers would raise some uncomfortable questions. So I forced myself to be patient -- and eventually my determination paid off.

I will never forget the joy in my heart when I heard her voice on the phone and it was so hard not to shout my relief, to hold back my crying and to speak quietly yet clear enough to tell her where I was. She called my mother as soon as she hung up.

As it turns out, my father never told anyone what he had done. I was lead by the Director and counselors to believe my mother knew and approved. My father had told them it was the reason she had changed her phone number. She didn't want me. No one wanted me.

The truth was she had tried to call me several times but she was always told I wasn't home, I was out someplace or I was asleep. There was always a convenient excuse. My mother never forgave him for that.

As for my grandmother, I don't believe she ever got over what her son had done to me either.

After my grandfather had died, I went with my brothers and many other family members to spend time with. The subject of my father was always difficult for her. His death was hardest of all on her. It was her son and she loved him and missed him dearly. Still, it was during that visit she told me she was so sorry it had happened. She felt I needed to know that and it did help in some small way to sooth that wound that had never healed.

She died three weeks later.

So, there I was, ten years after my dad's untimely death, listening to some oldies station while making my way down I-75 and feeling absolutely sorry for myself. God I hated Father's Day.

Tears were welling up so much by then I could barely see the road ahead of me. It was all coming back, the hurt of being abandoned like some unwanted dog on the side of the road, the anger of seeing him standing there in the circled driveway by his Dodge Colt just to leave me there again, and the pain of him dying before ever trying to tell me or giving me a chance to ask him why! And my words came back to haunt me. The last words I said to him, " -- as far as I am concerned, it's me who doesn't want to ever see you again."

I hated myself for saying that and I hated him for making me want to say that. But it wasn't just him and myself I was mad at anymore. Oh no. I was mad at God now, madder at Him in fact.

At least my human father and I had the excuse of being human, fallible, imperfect mortals who were expected to screw up and make bad decisions, especially when it came to being parents and children. But my Father of the Heavenly variety, He wasn't supposed to let me down that way!

Relatives, the people in church, even the counselors and the director at that damn mansion kept telling me how God loves me and how He would always be there for me. The Bible is full of those parables and promises and like an idiot I had read and believed them all!

"Why did You let him do that? Why?" I found myself asking, pleading, looking up through my windshield and screaming at the sky above me.

I knew He was up there. I knew He could hear me and I wanted an answer -- and then I stopped screaming. Something caught my attention. On the radio, a song was playing. It was a song I knew all too well.

"Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby is where I'll be -- "

I was stunned, shocked. I was shaking. I couldn't believe my ears.

Why that song? Why that song on that day right then? Not only did I believe at that moment that God didn't give a damn about me I was convinced He was doing this on purpose, intentionally doing whatever He could think of to see how far He could push me until I cracked.

I lost it. It was too much, the last straw. I couldn't take it anymore.

I turned the radio off. The anger and tears were erupting with such force I had to pull over on the side of the freeway. My rage was so explosive that had someone walked up to the side of my car they would have thought I had lost my mind. I guess in some respects I had lost my mind. The weight was so heavy I just didn't want to carry it anymore. I was screaming, beating my hands on the dashboard, strangling and yanking on the steering wheel as if I were trying to tear it, column and all, from the control panel.

"Why?" I screamed. "Why did you let him do that? I trusted You! I believed in You! You made me believe that if I had faith in You, You would be there for me and protect me and save me from people who want to hurt me! You lied to me! You lied to me! WHY DID YOU LET HIM ABANDON ME!!!!"

Have you ever heard that other old saying? "Don't ask a question if you aren't ready to hear the answer?"

Well, "Ask and ye shall receive."

An odd and heavy silence settled within my car and in the discomfort of that strange and weighty stillness I heard a voice inside my head. It was as if God Himself had suddenly sat down in the passenger seat to whisper calmly into my ignorant ear --

"If I had not let him abandon you, you would have been killed with him and your step-mother in the car accident."

I have no idea how long I sat there after that. All I know is that the hurt and the anger I had carried for ten years suddenly disappeared.

My life changed that day. In those first seconds that ticked off after, my blind eyes were opened wide and it was all so vividly clear. It's amazing how quickly your perspective changes when you get smacked upside the head with a 2 x 4.

Yes, life can deal you some hard and devastating blows sometimes and sometimes those blows are so unexpected and so painful that we literally want to die and no matter how hard we try we cannot understand why God would let something so horrible happen. It's hard to get back up when you've just hit the ground. But it's like what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Faith is taking the first step when you don't see the whole staircase."

In the aftermath of a crisis, when the dust of destruction has yet to settle, it is hard to see things clearly. But the destruction wasn't random. It happened for a reason. Good and bad, everything that happens in your life is part of a carefully laid plan.

Think of your life as an enormous mosaic being created by the assembly of many pieces. Sometimes you will see a piece and understand its purpose right away and at other times the only way a piece will make sense is when you have the opportunity to view them from a distance.

If you are hurting right now and you don't understand why things are going wrong -- give it time. It's okay to be afraid, to feel hurt or even angry when tragedy strikes you at your core. But don't give up. Please don't give up.

Give it time. It "heals all wounds", they say.

And who knows, maybe one day you too will look back and realize that the thing that came and hurt you so bad you wanted to die might actually have been the very thing God sent to save your life.