(I am not so sure this post was worth the wait, but here it goes).
So the other day
Julie got me thinking about why I now find myself, in my almost-mid thirties, with no children. Was I a selfish, career driven woman who figured that having a family could wait? No. Was I in a stable relationship in my mid-twenties that would have been a reasonable setting for me to try to bring children into the world? No. Was I financially secure and able to afford proper care for a child? No. I am, as Julie described, merely a victim of circumstance. By the time all the stars aligned and my world finally became a "suitable" situation for procreating, I was already in my thirties.
However, as naive as I was back then about my fertility status, I did have a fertility back-up plan in place.
I think that I was almost 23 years old when I first established my back-up plan. My normal state of mind back then was one of bitterness, due to the on-again, off-again, unstable relationship with R that I was chronically a part of. In the back of my mind I always sort of knew that R and I would never go the distance, and I found it prudent (even at the young age of 23) to come up with a contingency plan for my future. I always felt that I didn’t NEED to have a husband, but I absolutely needed to have a child. If life decided to hand me lemons and leave me single (with no prospects) at the age of 30, I would begin the process of becoming a single parent.
The only issue would be finding a suitable, um, donor.
Thus begins the story of the dead man.
I have to back up to December, 1990, when I was a sophomore in college and currently on the outs with R. In fact, I had been dating a friend of his, S, for about 5 months, and it too was clearly a doomed relationship. It had no staying power. It was far too emotionally turbulent, and not the kind of relationship a person could stay in permanently without losing their sanity. But, we were trying to give it a shot, not quite ready to give up on it just yet. In fact, S had attempted to make a bold move in the interest of our relationship and decided he would use the upcoming spring semester to do his required internship. He searched high and low for an internship that would bring him home, and keep him closer to me. When S returned home from school for Christmas break, he and I went together to go meet M, the guy he would be an intern for, the program director at the local cable channel.
That meeting changed my life.
To say I was attracted to M would be the understatement of the century. I was instantly enamored. I liked the way he looked, I liked his personality, I liked his mannerisms, I liked HIM! Attraction is one of those things that you can’t always quantify with mere physical attributes. I never understood the question “what is your type of guy?” because I have found myself attracted to blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys, and brunette-haired, brown-eyed boys, and Caucasian boys, and African-American boys, etc. Attraction, in my humble opinion, happens more often than not because of some invisible draw that pulls you toward one person more than it does toward another. Not simply because of the way someone looks.
My relationship with S continued to deteriorate, and by the time the summer of ‘91 rolled around we were over. But in the meantime, I managed to become very friendly with M, since I spent a lot of time at the cable station with S throughout his spring internship. I was there as S’s girlfriend for sure, but my attention was focused entirely on M. “Would you mind meeting me at the station?” S would say. “No, not at ALL!” I would respond, probably sounding a bit too eager, because it meant I could spend time with M. Once S and I parted ways, I was fully integrated into M’s world, and it was perfectly normal for me to continue to go visit him frequently at the station, long after S’s internship was over and he was back at school. Soon after that I turned 21 and it wouldn’t be uncommon for M and I to go out for drinks once in a while.
As for me, I became mildly obsessed with M, although many of my friends would dispute the “mild” part. I had placed him on a pedestal; he became larger than life, he became the ultimate yet unattainable goal for me. My college girlfriends would daydream about Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise, and I would daydream about M, the man that was eleven years older than me who would never, ever look at me
that way. He was, in my opinion, as close to perfect as a man could get.
Fast-forward a few more years, and I actually remarkably found my relationship with M progressing a little further. We changed our relationship from a “strictly friends” status to a “friends with benefits” status. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. For me, it was the equivalent of my college friend finding herself “hooking-up” with her own dream-man, Tom Cruise. I would often find the voice in my brain screaming “I can’t believe I am kissing HIM!” as I was kissing him.
It was then that my contingency plan was formulated. If I hit the ripe old age of 30 and was still a single gal, I would march straight up to M and ask him to father me a child. It was settled. It was PERFECT. M had all the genes and traits I would want in an offspring, and I knew a request of this nature wouldn’t freak him out. He was not the marrying type, I never suspected that he and I could ever develop a real “relationship,” but I definitely thought this would be something he’d do for me. Or that he would at least strongly consider. No need to tell him, though, not until (or if) that day ever came.
Two weeks after this profound decision of mine, M disappeared off the face of the earth.
His best friend had no idea “what had happened” to him.
Another mutual friend, who I ran into a few months later, very sadly informed me that he suspected M was dead. There was not a trace of him, not one person had seen or heard from him in months, and it was the only reasonable explanation for his prolonged and mysterious absence.
I was devastated. I cried. I bawled. I mourned. I was sad. Months passed, years passed, and eventually when enough time passed I was able to solemnly chuckle over the irony of the situation, that I couldn’t even get my back-up plan to work. But whenever a memory of him would enter my mind, or whenever a situation reminded me of him, I got very sad. And I grew full of regret.
I should have told him. As soon as I decided on the plan, I should have told him. He would have appreciated the gesture. He would have felt honored. He especially would have loved knowing he was loved so much by someone. I would have loved to know that someone out there thought he was THAT special. Not telling him my plan became one of my biggest regrets in life.
As the years moved along, I met Anthony, we enjoyed a fabulous relationship, the kind I had never quite experienced before, and I was able to reconcile the fact that I had never told M about my big plans, because it began to look as though I would not need a back up plan in my life.
Six months after Anthony and I became engaged, I got an email out of the blue from my ex, S. Hadn’t heard from him in years, and he had gotten my email address from a mutual friend, yadda yadda yadda. It was great to catch up with him, and we exchanged a few brief emails back and forth one evening when I was at work late.
The next little white envelope appeared on my task bar.
“So, when was the last time you heard from M?” S inquired.
Ugh, I thought, he doesn’t know that M died? I have to tell him? This isn’t good. Unless…..
“It’s been years,” I typed, “what about you?”
“I talked to him last year. He was working in New York City at xxxxxxx.”
My heart literally skipped a beat. All the blood drained from my face. My hands turned icy cold and started shaking. My heart started to pound…faster…faster….
“I have to go.” I brushed off S as quickly as I could and picked up the phone to dial information.
“Yes, New York City, the number for xxxxxxx?” my voice trembled to the operator.
I scribbled the numbers and took a deep, deep breath. I dialed.
“This is M.” The voice on the other end of the phone was unmistakable.
I hung up the phone. I had just heard the voice of a ghost. The voice of a man I cried for and mourned for, the voice of a man I thought was dead for six whole years.
Duh! What are you doing? Call him back. CALL HIM BACK!
“This is M.”
Silence on my end of the phone. Do it. Just do it! Say something!!!
“Um…..this is Dawn, from Dedham?” I asked him, almost as if I assumed he would not have the slightest idea who I was.
“PUMPKIN! SWEETHEART!” he began to laugh into the phone. “How the HELL are you???”
And we spoke on the phone for the next hour, catching up, reminiscing, making plans to see one another. It was the most surreal moment of my life. All the hair on my arms was standing on end. I just kept thinking over and over, but I thought you were dead? I thought you were dead?
Life doesn’t usually offer second chances, and I had just been handed one. I was happily engaged and perfectly content with the path that my life was on, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t about to shift gears because M was back in my life. Anthony was my present and my future. But I decided that I needed to undo the regret I had been carrying around with me for six years.
He came to Boston a few weeks later, and we went out for dinner and drinks and a little bar hopping. I had told Anthony the WHOLE story and, since Anthony is not a jealous guy, he had no problem with me going out with him. He knew it was important to me.
I will never forget the look on M’s face when I told him everything, about my back-up plan, about me considering him “the Ideal Candidate,” about me suspecting he was dead for six whole years. He looked truly, deeply touched.
“I don’t think anyone has, or ever will, pay me a higher compliment than this. This is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, ever,” he exclaimed. He appeared to be almost a little choked up. We hugged for a long, long time.
“Is the offer off the table?” he asked, basically flirting.
“Yes indeed,” I answered. “But I still thought you ought to know.”
“Thank you so much,” M said.
“You’re welcome. I have regretted not telling you for six years now. Now, I have no regrets. Thank
you.”
