The phone rang this past Friday, and the voice said my real name, not something on my social security card. Suspecting a telemarketer with a sly, friendly approach, I asked who was calling. She replied, “This is Patrician Wheaton Harrison.” “The Patty Wheaton who lived in my apartment house in the 80s and moved to Utah to become a Mormon,” I asked. Laughing, she clarified, “I was always a Mormon.”
It didn’t take long for us to pick up the conversation that was interrupted some twenty-three years ago. When I knew her in Houston, Patty became a mother, giving birth with no husband in sight. I didn’t remember that she worked for Children’s Protective Services, but I did remember that she was a kind, loving soul who also impressed me with her bravery. She remembered my kindness to her and her baby. That fall, I invited Patty and her baby to Thanksgiving with my family, who lived in a suburb of Houston. My own daddy, then on the brink of a heart attack that for some reason took us by surprise, was so taken with the mother and child that he wanted to adopt them. My oldest sister lent Patty a rocker, which Patty remembered on this Friday as being upholstered in orange fabric. “My sister still has that rocker. She had it reupholstered recently.” That baby is grown with a child of her own.
I had heard that Patty was in Utah, but I didn’t know that she had remarried—“a dermatologist,” she explained, but not before she had asked me all about my own family. “Mother is still living, 88 and hanging on to life by an unraveling thread,” I answered. She, my oldest sister, and I live on the same 200 acres my parents bought 30 plus years ago as a retirement place.” Daddy had a heart attack in December of that Thanksgiving year and died on the first day of spring, 1981.To my question about other children, she replied, “we have a sixteen and a half year old son,” who is among other things an accomplished musician.
We talked for most of an hour while she was driving up the mountain to her home near Salt Lake, recounting that short time in the early 80s when we were neighbors, her partying mother who came to stay after the baby was born, our apartment manager Paul, Bobby Weeks her upstairs neighbor. “He’s burned himself out, I’m sure,” Patty said. “No, I can’t picture Becky,” I answered, who apparently was my upstairs neighbor for a short time before I moved to a different apartment. Patty tells me that Becky is married with children and lives in a town near me, something she discovered on the Internet, along with finding me. “Do you remember Kevin, the guy off the streets that Paul brought home?” she asked. I didn’t. He ended up living with Becky and sharing her bed, as well as Paul’s. “Paul was not a good person,” she added, and then asked if I knew of his whereabouts. “The last time I saw him years ago, he was in the wasting stages of AIDS,” I replied.
Before we interrupted our conversation for the time being, she invited me to Utah to visit her family, and we both were urged to say it seemed like only yesterday that we were neighbors in Houston. I needed that call on that day. It amazed me, opened the well of hope, inspired me to call my old friend David, now living in New York, Columbus Ohio, New York, commuting to Chicago. He rode the subway to his office near the Twin Towers, but was late getting to work on September 11, 2001. Thank God for some habits. David was Patty’s neighbor as well. He was 24 then. He’s celebrated his half-century mark. The news of Patty’s call brought a smile to my mother’s face and led her to reflect on my history of friendship. Friends don’t give up on friends.
It didn’t take long for us to pick up the conversation that was interrupted some twenty-three years ago. When I knew her in Houston, Patty became a mother, giving birth with no husband in sight. I didn’t remember that she worked for Children’s Protective Services, but I did remember that she was a kind, loving soul who also impressed me with her bravery. She remembered my kindness to her and her baby. That fall, I invited Patty and her baby to Thanksgiving with my family, who lived in a suburb of Houston. My own daddy, then on the brink of a heart attack that for some reason took us by surprise, was so taken with the mother and child that he wanted to adopt them. My oldest sister lent Patty a rocker, which Patty remembered on this Friday as being upholstered in orange fabric. “My sister still has that rocker. She had it reupholstered recently.” That baby is grown with a child of her own.
I had heard that Patty was in Utah, but I didn’t know that she had remarried—“a dermatologist,” she explained, but not before she had asked me all about my own family. “Mother is still living, 88 and hanging on to life by an unraveling thread,” I answered. She, my oldest sister, and I live on the same 200 acres my parents bought 30 plus years ago as a retirement place.” Daddy had a heart attack in December of that Thanksgiving year and died on the first day of spring, 1981.To my question about other children, she replied, “we have a sixteen and a half year old son,” who is among other things an accomplished musician.
We talked for most of an hour while she was driving up the mountain to her home near Salt Lake, recounting that short time in the early 80s when we were neighbors, her partying mother who came to stay after the baby was born, our apartment manager Paul, Bobby Weeks her upstairs neighbor. “He’s burned himself out, I’m sure,” Patty said. “No, I can’t picture Becky,” I answered, who apparently was my upstairs neighbor for a short time before I moved to a different apartment. Patty tells me that Becky is married with children and lives in a town near me, something she discovered on the Internet, along with finding me. “Do you remember Kevin, the guy off the streets that Paul brought home?” she asked. I didn’t. He ended up living with Becky and sharing her bed, as well as Paul’s. “Paul was not a good person,” she added, and then asked if I knew of his whereabouts. “The last time I saw him years ago, he was in the wasting stages of AIDS,” I replied.
Before we interrupted our conversation for the time being, she invited me to Utah to visit her family, and we both were urged to say it seemed like only yesterday that we were neighbors in Houston. I needed that call on that day. It amazed me, opened the well of hope, inspired me to call my old friend David, now living in New York, Columbus Ohio, New York, commuting to Chicago. He rode the subway to his office near the Twin Towers, but was late getting to work on September 11, 2001. Thank God for some habits. David was Patty’s neighbor as well. He was 24 then. He’s celebrated his half-century mark. The news of Patty’s call brought a smile to my mother’s face and led her to reflect on my history of friendship. Friends don’t give up on friends.
1 comment:
well,
your blog has now become part of my morning routine. check the email, visit my farmgirl blog site, check the family blog site and visit with harold. i really love your writing style, and it particularly helps me when i have a touch of the old homesickness, (i am a galveston county girl).
please keep us posted harold i love your memories.
love, fran
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