Time, space and fate.

Sunday, June 24th, 2007 2:54 pm -
Shit, do I ever come up with some weird stream-of-consciousness stuff. Okay, not really so much weird...just paradoxical.

Sean goes to see his dad in less than three weeks; Nichelle is flying down with him. The whole family will be there (or as many as can be there, anyway).

I find myself thinking way back to 1980...to what could almost qualify as a "chance encounter"....(funny, how insignificant those two words look, almost like bumping into someone at the supermarket, and saying "excuse me". Maybe not even looking up from the Brawny paper towels {if you can afford them} and the rib-eye steaks {ditto}).

Well, the point I am trying to make (naw, I was only leading up to it, really), is how we have no idea how important someone is going to figure into our lives when we first stumble upon one another. Eh, I 'm not talking about falling in love. That's too common, too...pedestrian. EVERYONE thinks his or her love is "one of a kind", because love just can't be that ordinary, can it?

I grew up in Southern California; so did Bruce. We didn't meet there. I went through basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and Bruce did, as well. Nope, didn't meet there, either. Nine thousand miles from home, that's where it happened. That's what's interesting. The distance. I met Bruce in Germany, during the fallout after Michael and I broke up...and it was a temporary breakup at that.

Back home I flew, and it was in Southern California where Sean was born, and it was in Southern California where Sean spent the first 17 years of his life, and it was Southern California where Bruce returned in 1983; it's where he still lives.

It wasn't until I was living 700 miles from there that we finally got in touch.

What about time?

I found out I was pregnant while still in Germany, but due to some errors on the part of the medical team caring for me at the time, I wasn't sure if the child was Bruce's. It was a lot easier to buy into the doctors' belief that I was an entire month farther along than I really was, because that made Michael the father and it was Michael I wanted to marry, to have babies with, to travel the distance with, in both space and time.

Of course, I didn't come to grips with Sean's paternity until after I'd already left Germany; at the time, it wasn't what I would have considered to be an especially pleasant thought. It fucked everything up...well, not where it came to loving my son. The only thing that put a temporary ding in that area was Age 13. (shudder)

Yeah, so what then? How long did it take to arrive at the true conclusion? Back when I was pregnant, it seemed like forever. Sean had to be born a whole month beyond my "offcial" due date. (Trust me, when you're thinking you're not going days or a week past that magic day, but an entire lunar month, it's a white-knuckle situation.)

It would be nearly 13 years before I would sit down with Sean and discuss Reality with him. I wasn't trying to hide the truth. Perhaps very early on, I avoided acknowledging it; I will never go so far as to say I would have been ashamed by the truth. I will say that I was afraid of it. I was afraid of rejection. Bruce was only eighteen years old. What guy of that age wants to be a dad? Bruce didn't. I know, because I recall (vaguely) asking him in a somewhat roundabout way. I wasn't even certain that I was pregnant yet; I suspected it, but I didn't know, and until a woman's pregnancy is confirmed, she is wise to keep her mouth shut, and that's what I did.

Back to rejection: I didn't want to have my pregnancy rejected (a pregnancy, by the way, which, if one examines it, was only "mine" alone, because of that fear of rejection). I didn't want Bruce telling me to "get rid of it". Granted, at the time, Sean would have been scant more than a grain of rice, a little red smidgen of future humanity, unseen, unnamed, gender unknown. In spite of his being a baby more in an abstract sense (odd to think of Sean as an embryo)...my baby was a my child nonetheless. The thought of my child being pushed away by his own father was more than I could bear to imagine.

Sure, I would have been pushed away as well, but eh, that in itself would not have devastated me. I suppose that's fairly obvious, since I already stated that I loved Michael. (See what you caused, Mr. Simons? Had you kept your fucking hands to yourself...well, never mind that...Sean as I know him, wouldn't have happened. I most likely wouldn't have even become pregnant at all.) Hell, now that I think of it, actually, I owe you a debt of gratitude there, Mike. I am not being sarcastic, either. I had a wonderful son, and later, I bore a beautiful baby girl, and you did father her.)

In any event, what I am trying to convey here, is that The Truth would have found me rejected by Bruce (and again, I say, that alone is no biggie), and Sean being rejected by Bruce. Moreover, I would have been rejected by Micheal, and ditto for Sean. Well, perhaps not right off. I believe Michael would have wanted to marry me regardless, and he would have wanted to be a father to the baby as well. Whether or not he would have kept that commitment across the span of 9,000 miles and a year apart is another matter altogether. Eventually Michael did know Sean was not his biological son, but it was a situation that didn't change things much...at first. Shit, now that I think of it, Michael hasn't treated Amanda with a measurable amount of consideration, so perhaps, in the long run, it didn't really change things at all. Not for Michael, anyway.

I mean, hell, we are divorced. I haven't seen him face to face in over 15 years. Sean and Amanda, as they are now, and really no more than a notion to Michael. My children, on the other hand, are the world to me. They are life itself.

So, Sean took 9,000 miles to conceive, and for Bruce, he took 26 years to find out about.

At the time he and I were involved, neither of us could have ever imagined the importance of it all, the sort of impact our brief encounter would have on so many lives (the most important being Sean's...his life depended
on it). It almost brings a rueful smile to my face to think of Bruce's reaction to what it all would have meant if he'd known then what he knows now. I suppose he would have executed an about-face and run like hell.
Of course, it is the "then-Bruce" I speak of. The "now-Bruce" is considerably wiser, and he's a consummate dad. I feel certain that he would not wish his son away. My God, going by his initial reaction alone, it would have broken his heart to lose Sean forever.

This is where the "weird" comes in. (Or a not-quite paradox.) Actually, it would have been more of a limiting factor, as it were.

Had I the power of clairvoyance, I could have said something cryptic like, "Well Bruce, I'll see you in 26 years." (Or talk, anyway.) Okay then, it is a paradox, because if he'd asked what that meant, I would have told him he'd just fathered a son he wouldn't meet for over two decades...but knowing what I do about Bruce now, he would never have allowed 26 years to pass without being a dad to his firstborn child. First to be born, last to be discovered,

By the grace of God, I found my son's father. After so many, many years of speculation and twinges of sadness, Bruce has been located, and he has finally, finally connected with his son. Of course, this connection certainly doesn't put an end to speculation and sadness; it only shifts them in a different direction. So many birthdays missed, milestones unwitnessed, participation that never got to happen, pride that was never shared. That part is profoundly tragic. Nevertheless, it is not wholly heartbreaking; there is still the future, and Bruce and Sean have accepted one another, and they are looking forward to making up for at least a little bit of that lost time.

Besides, to look at things another way, I feel quite certain that having the truth evade us both was the only way that permitted our other children to be allowed into this world. Would I have had Amanda otherwise? I'm certain things would have happened differently. It only would have taken a small change in the way events unfolded to have missed her completely, regardless of my son's paternity.

On Bruce's end, the distraction of becoming a teenage father would probably have caused him to be at a different place at a different time, and he might never have gotten to meet Tammy. NO! I am not saying he and I would have ended up together. I know it wouldn't have happened. However, just a tiny tweak in time would have wiped Bruce's other three children from the record as well.

It kind of makes one believe in the possibility of "fate".

In one sense, I guess I did, in fact, tell Bruce we'd be in touch in 26 years.

In our case, it just happens to be that it's 26 years of looking back.