Dottye's voice?????

I had met Karen and two of her daughters once. She was flying through Houston to go visit her grandparents. I had such a fear of never meeting her that I took a flight to Houston to walk her to her connecting flight. It was awkward. We no longer spoke on the phone much and really spent our time getting to know each other via email. It was also amazing. I got to hug her. I listened as two of her daughters walked behind us giggling. They told Karen what was so funny and she then shared it with me.

It's interesting really how young adults can take notice to things that adults might not notice.

I was wearing Converse, I mean after all is there another shoe to wear?

Karen had several pairs of Converse and was always buying them for the girls.

I was chewing the inside of my mouth. This is something I have always done. I can't remember when I started doing it or why, it just happens.

That was what made the girls laugh so much. Karen does the same thing and it drives them nuts. How lucky I felt to hear those simple things. Those things that made me not so different, but made us unique together.

It was three months after our first phone call that Shannon and I were taking a trip to Columbus to Karen's home. We stayed at a hotel. We spent the weekend and Monday in Columbus then drove to Cleveland to visit my parents. We then drove back to head out from Columbus.

It's too much to write, at least that's how it feels. There were so many ups and downs and I got my first migraine on that trip.

 

Friday night we all went out to dinner. After we ate I stepped outside to smoke in hopes of getting my tears to subside. Shannon came out and asked me what was going on, if I was ok? All I could say was I just didn't understand.........

We then went to Karen's office which is a huge old building with so much character.She wanted me to see where she worked, where she so often emailed me from and to meet one of her bosses. David came up and greeted us. He knew I had been raised Jewish as was he and he asked me who my parents were. He didn't know their names so I began to list the names of their close friends. When I came to "S" he asked me what their first names were. For the life of me I could not think of their names! I went on to tell them what business they owned and that was when he said their names.

"Yes! That's them! They're my parents closest friends!" I said.

He laughed and told me that they were his wife's Aunt and Uncle.

I felt the butterflies begin to swarm as my world began to get so small. My new reality was surfacing, there was just no way to stop any of it now, and I wasn't yet sure if I wanted it to stop at all.

I began to feel like Alice in Wonderland. What was my reality?

Saturday was a full day. I think we all wondered at one point or another if we would survive. We started out by meeting Sue for breakfast. She had made this all happen after all and I wanted her to meet us as well as my sister. She did pull me aside after breakfast and asked how I was holding up. I tried to lie and say fine, but she saw the look in my eyes and gave me a hug. She assured me she would always be there for me and that she understood. I knew what she said was true, it all just felt too real and too confusing, even with her understanding.

We went back to Karen's house to try and view some slides that she had brought home from her grandpa's. We were able to see some, then the projector died and we were just done trying. At the end of the weekend we took the slides to a photo lab and they transferred them to cd for us.They were photos of Dottye and her sister growing up, and gave us so many more questions..........those questions would have to wait.

Karen and I then went to the grocery store. I felt awkward. I stood so much taller then her and felt so insecure in public with her. I just knew that people would look at us and wonder what a snazzy and smart lady like Karen would be doing with a lurk like me. I was so happy to get back to her house and back to my safety of Shannon.

After dinner was when the storm erupted.I knew it might come, I just didn't know to what degree. I had never had an attack of panic like this, and I had no place to run to, no way to free the feelings that were brewing.

Karen had pretty much all of her childhood papers and memories in a small suitcase. It mostly had photos of Dottye, papers from when Karen was in school, the funeral book from Dottye's funeral........you get the idea. We looked through the photos. Somehow it felt different seeing them in print, in original form. Not a copy that I had printed from the computer. They were old, their texture was thicker then the prints made today. Some of them had that while border with the date.

We looked in awe at most of them, laughed at the one of  Dottye when she was pregnant with me. It was dated April 1972, 2 months before my birth. There was a photo of Karen that same day and we laughed that they two of them must have sat on the couch eating ice cream a lot! They both looked large, but the truth is it was just the way the photo was shot. We needed to laugh, because the moment was coming where we wouldn't be able to.

Karen pulled out a cassette tape. Then she went upstairs and got an old boom box. She told me this should have mom's voice on it, it was a recording that Dottye had made to send to a relative who was over in Vietnam.

I sat at the table as she put it in and heard the voice.

A woman was talking childlike to a toddler. I looked at my feet, then up to Karen. We were confused. The voice was clearly Karen's. Karen fast forwarded it then re-winded it. She said "I wonder if I accidentally taped over it when Katy or Alix were young?"

She seemed panicked, I felt disappointment.

We decided to listen to it again, this time the full few minutes that were there.

That's when we heard the little girl saying that the little dog was trying to eat her. When I looked up I saw the sadness in Karen's eyes.

And then she said it. The woman on the tape speaking in baby talk said "Karen......"

And so there it was. We thought it was Karen speaking on the tape because indeed she is a carbon copy in voice of Dottye. 

I heard my mothers voice 32 years after she went to the grave.

When the tape ended I got up and headed outside. Shanon sat next to me as I rocked myself back and forth almost uncontrollably.

"Why? Why now? What does this all mean? Why now?" was all I could manage to say as I tried with little success to hold back my tears. 

I told him I would be in after a minute and he went inside to assure them that I was fine. 

Next my sister came out to check on me. Her presence made me snap out of my current state, I didn't want her to think that I was unstable. I smiled a half ass grin and just said how wild this all was.

It was a long night and the Bailey's and coffee was not doing a thing to help. We made plans to meet in the morning. At the hotel Shannon and I didn't say much. It was hard for both of us to find the words. I could only tell him how grateful I was to have him in my life, there with me, on what was our wedding Anniversary.

Sunday we got to Karen's house and I could tell it had already been a tough morning for her. I'd entered her life and made her speak of the person she had needed. She thought of her often I am sure, how could she not. But I felt like here I was to bring it all to surface, weather she wanted it to surface or not. I was beginning to feel like a horrible person.

We looked through photos of her daughters. I couldn't help but to think they were beyond cute, and they were so good and free and enjoying just the childhood things in life. I only wished that I could have been a part of it all. 

Karen had spent the morning crying, and one of her daughter spent the morning sitting with her. By the time we were finished looking through, far the lack of a better word "happier" photos, Karen was feeling better. 

We headed out to grab coffee and to see where Karen had gone to school and grown up. My migraine, though I didn't know at the time that was what it was, was setting in.

Our first stop was to where Dottye died. There was a new several lane road built, but the patch of two lane road where Dottye died was still there on the side, with a gate that closed it off. Shannon and two of Karen's daughters were with us.It could have been awkward but for some reason it wasn't. Shannon had the camera and took some photos.

I stood in many places, wondering, is this where she hit the pavement when she flew out of the car?

Did she die before she hit the road?

Is she here?

Does she see that I finally found her?

Will my sister someday hate me for making all of this surface again?

The final stop of the day that I can remember, was the house that Karen lived in when Dottye died. We got out of the car and headed to the door. Karen asked if we should see if anyone was home, if we should see if we could go inside. My response was why the heck not? Worse they could do was say no.

But no one answered the door that day.

We sat on the front steps for a photo.

My sissy and I at the house that had so much history, and so much of that history we were just now understanding.

It was the house where Karen woke one night to find her mom slumped in a chair after trying to take her own life with an overdose of pills.

It was the house where Karen played with her mom.

It was the house where Dottye was pregnant with me, and began calling Karen Sissy.

It was the house that Karen never got to go back to after the death of her mom.

In my mind, it was the house where my sister lost her childhood.

My sister hates that photo, of us sitting on that step. It happens to be my favorite.

We're not smiling. We're tired and the feelings have surfaced to a point where they began to turn into anger at the world. 

But when I look at it I see us. The two of us who have the same mouth and same lines along the side of our nose. I see two sisters who had lost so much, but who were working on getting through it as a team.......though like all teams, the members have to learn what shots are best to take on their own, and which shots should be left to the other team member. And finally, which shots need to be worked at together?