You and No Other Read online

  You and No Other

  A Memoir

  Jane Weiss and Bonnie Zahn

  Copyright © 2010 Bonnie Marsh and Jane Morgan

  This work is a memoir. It reflects the authors’ experiences over a period of years. Certain names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed.

  ISBN 978-0-87839-370-1

  All rights reserved.

  “The Journey” from Dream Work by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1986 by Mary Oliver. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  First Edition, July 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  P.O. Box 451

  St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302

  www.northstarpress.com

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  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to our incredible and cherished eight children, known in this book as: Andrew, David, Edward, Erin, Lynn, Marie, Michael, and Moira.

  Table of Contents

  Part I - Innocent Beginnings (1980-1982)

  Chapter 1–Who is That Woman? (Bonnie)

  Chapter 2 –Watch Out For That One! (Jane)

  Chapter 3–Who Could Have Known? (Bonnie

  Chapter 4–No Going Back (Jane

  Chapter 5–Loss of Innocence (Bonnie

  Chapter 6–A House Divided (Jane)

  Part II - The Unforgiving Years (1982-1985)

  Chapter 7–Together at What Cost? (Jane)

  Chapter –8 A Time For Tears (Bonnie)

  Chapter–9 Fear For the Future (Jane)

  Chapter 10–What Did You Expect? (Bonnie)

  Chapter 11–Life Unraveled (Jane)

  Chapter 12–“Our” Son (Bonnie)

  Chapter 13–Reckoning Relationships (Jane)

  Part III - Finding Our Stride (1985-1999)

  Chapter 14–Another New Beginning (Jane)

  Chapter 15–The Good and the Sad (Bonnie)

  Chapter 16–MidLife Courage, Compasssion and Character (Jane)

  Chapter 17–What Really Matters (Bonnie)

  Chapter 18–Joy and Celebration (Bonnie & Jane)

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Part I - Innocent Beginnings (1980-82)

  Chapter 1 - Who is That Woman?

  Bonnie

  1981

  Mineapolis, Minnesota

  President of the United States: Ronald Reagan

  Vice President of the United States: George Bush, Sr.

  I was thirty-eight years old, had been married almost thirteen years, and my husband and I had four children. Then I met the love of my life.

  I entered the hospital cafeteria somewhat later than usual for our group’s morning coffee. There was the routine assortment of hospital breakfast fare: scrambled powdered eggs, blackened bacon, unbuttered spongy toast, pancakes with fake maple syrup, bagels, fresh fruit, juices, coffee, and tea. Anxious patients’ families quietly made their food selections and congregated around isolated tables, speaking in hushed tones. Hospital staff wearing street clothes or uniforms of white, green, burgundy, brown, or blue carried on spirited conversations with cafeteria workers before making their way to tables, where others in like-colored attire were already gathered. Light banter provided welcome relief from the serious work of patient care, and occasional, spontaneous laughter echoed from table to table.

  Seated around our table was the usual gang from Education Services and Public Relations. We were the folks who gathered for coffee while direct caregivers were getting reports, serving breakfasts, starting morning treatments, and, therefore, unavailable for non-patient purposes, such as socializing. After toasting a bagel, grabbing packets of cream cheese and orange marmalade, filling a cup with coffee, and adding a dollop of skim milk, I headed for my familiar group at our usual table.

  Pulling out a chair at one end, I noticed a newcomer seated midway down the table. She appeared fortyish, wearing a sparkling-white silk blouse, navy linen skirt, and a snappy navy blazer with gold buttons. Her ready smile was the stuff of toothpaste commercials. Soft brunette curls fell across her forehead, and along her cheeks and neck. She was soft-spoken when answering questions, but mostly, she simply smiled or laughed at the group’s verbal antics.

  “Who is that woman?” I whispered to Pam, seated next to me. I already had a healthy respect for my intuition, and something inside me was saying, “Notice, notice.”

  “Her name is Jane Weiss,” Pam said quietly. “She’s the new gal in Public Relations. She was hired to create a weekly staff newsletter, marketing brochures—that kind of stuff. She must be pretty savvy, ’cause Robin said she was picked out of a whole slug of applicants. Today’s her first day.” Catching Jane’s attention, Pam announced, “Jane Weiss, meet Bonnie Zahn, director of Education Services.”

  “Welcome to Methodist Hospital,” I said, leaning around the three or four folks between us. “Good to meet you.”

  Jane Weiss, I said to myself. Then again, Jane Weiss. After more than two decades, I can still replay the scene in my mind as if it just occurred.

  Let’s Do Lunch

  Over the next several weeks, I only saw or talked with Jane at morning coffee. Nonetheless, I soon began looking forward to seeing her each workday and, if for some reason she wasn’t there, I was disappointed. When the Education Department needed her help to announce ideas submitted for a cost-reduction campaign in the hospital weekly, I grabbed the chance to meet with her on a routine basis. Still, at times other than our formal meetings, I simply found myself headed for her office with hastily made-up reasons to consult with her. I hadn’t done something like that since I was a teen attempting to covertly flirt with my current crush. And after several months of group conversations or business talk, I knew I wanted to know more about her personally.

  “Would you ever be interested in having lunch one day?” I impulsively asked at the end of one of our weekly meetings. Good grief. I couldn’t believe my underarms were sweaty just getting up courage to ask the question.

  “Sure, I’d enjoy that. What day would work for you?”

  I was amazed at my own delight and relief. From those first moments in one another’s company, we delved instantly into deep conversation about husbands, children, past experiences, and other things that mattered to us.

  “So …” I launched right in at our first lunch. “How long have you and Charles been married, and what does he do?”

  “About eighteen years now—I was such a child bride, don’t you know?” she chuckled. “And we have four kids—the boys, Michael and Andrew, are sixteen and fourteen; and the girls, Lynn and Marie, are fifteen and ten. Charles is marketing director for a division of Western Banks, but he’s not very satisfied there—or maybe with his lot in life in general, for all I know. How about you and Brian? What’s his work?”

  “Let’s see—we’ve been married thirteen years, and we have four children, too. Our first son, Edward, was two and a half when we adopted David, then eight years old, and Moria, sixteen months. Our little surprise daughter, Erin, came along six years later. Now the kids are two and a half to sixteen years old. Brian’s a coordinator of Special Education at a Minneapolis high school, but at this point, I know he’d rather be doing anything else.” An hour’s lunch was quickly consumed in story moments about our spouses.

  On another occasion, as we walked outside around the hospital property, Jane asked, “Are you doing your heart’s work here, or will there be something else in your future?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way, I guess. I’m thirty-eight, and right now, this education director job seems like a perfect fit for me.
I have a master’s in nursing, and my minor is in educational psychology. This position uses all that expertise, so it just feels right. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in it. I do need to do new things regularly, though. So who knows? How about you? What’s it been like to start back to work full time with four kids at home?”

  “Well, I broke into it gradually, what with being back in college the last two years, finishing my bachelor’s degree—I’d only had a nursing diploma, not a BSN. And I had done nursing part time in physicians’ offices and long-term care facilities before that. But, yes, this has been a big adjustment for all of us. Charles isn’t really home all that much and, frankly, I don’t know that at some point I won’t need to support the kids and myself. So I’ve got to figure out a way to make all this work.”

  Red flags shot up in my mind with her last statements, but I tucked them away for a later conversation. And so, another hour took wings as we spoke of our futures and fears as working women, wives, and mothers. The ease of being with her and the utter fascination with her stories compelled me to ensure subsequent—preferably weekly—scheduled social times.

  I arose the morning of our next lunch meeting feeling warm all over—until the thought struck me that Jane never initiated setting the next lunch dates. Was I overly preoccupied with her? Should I test whether my interest in her was reciprocated?

  “Why don’t you let me know when you want to do this again?” I finally said, carefully and clearly, at the end of one of our lunches, just as I had silently practiced many times.

  “I will,” she answered, and I was convinced my worries were silly.

  The next week, Jane was absent from work on Monday and Tuesday, reportedly due to a mild flu. I saw her briefly at coffee on Thursday, but otherwise we had no conversation. I missed her but thought the week had simply been an aberration, and soon we’d get back into our old pattern. The following week repeated the prior—except this time, I was out of work for two days at an educational conference, and only saw Jane once in passing. She said she was facing deadlines, and did not have time for coffee.

  Then it was three weeks, and four, and still no invitation from Jane. I was chagrined and somewhat embarrassed that I had invested far more into our relationship than Jane had. I figured she must have felt liberated at not being asked to spend that kind of time with me. Though disappointed and hurt, I pretended nothing was wrong and appeared nonchalant when meeting with her around business or seeing her in the group at coffee.

  One day, as she and I were the last stragglers out of the cafeteria, I mustered my courage and said. “I’ve missed our lunches and walks.”

  “Oh, so have I! How long has it been? Did I say something that upset you?”

  “Heavens, no! I asked you to let me know when you wanted to have lunch again, and you never did.”

  “But I thought that was just your way of saying you weren’t particularly interested in continuing. Besides, as a staff person, I really didn’t feel comfortable asking a department director to lunch.”

  “You can’t be serious. I’ve worried that our conversations were too intense, or that I was monopolizing your time or something …”

  Smiling, we scheduled our next lunch date, and I floated through the rest of the day, elated that I hadn’t alienated Jane. I’d be careful going forward, and bridle my intensity—just in case.

  For Better, Or Not?

  By midwinter, I had known Jane about eight months, and being with her was natural and effortless, especially when talking about personal issues and concerns. I was used to such ease with friends, since over the years, I generally had one or two “best” friends (female), and then a larger ring of “next best” friends (male and female). From my earliest memory, relationships were incredibly important to me. But my friendship with Jane seemed deeper than any of those others. I was struck by the contrast between this friendship and my relationship with my husband, Brian. Shouldn’t marriage be the place where two individuals could most easily and authentically be themselves? Where each could be vulnerable without fear of reprisal? Where deep fears could surface and be safely explored? All this was taken for granted in Jane’s and my relationship. My marriage felt entirely different.

  Brian and I said our “I do’s” in August 1967, following my first year of graduate school at the University of Minnesota. I was convinced, after extensive dating, that he was the one I wanted to spend my life with and create a family. I loved him deeply, if not passionately. Seven years earlier, he and I were voted male and female “Best Leaders” by our high school graduating class, and as we stood shoulder to shoulder for yearbook picture-taking, there were wagers among classmates that we would end up together as a couple. Following somewhat circuitous routes to that destination, we finally fulfilled the prophecy. We had been married thirteen and a half years.

  But, of late, there had been something between us. Finally, I confronted him as we got ready for bed. I just had to know where his head was. “Brian, when are we going to talk through what’s been going on the last couple of weeks?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, since the evening we were at Lori and Bob’s, you’ve barely spoken to me, let alone touched me. What did I do?”

  He didn’t meet my eyes. “Who said you did anything?”

  “Well, there must be some reason you’re not talking to me.” I didn’t learn anything more, at least not at that point.

  Within our first year of marriage, I knew that Brian’s and my styles of communication and managing differences of opinion were polar opposites. I needed to talk through problems to some decent resolution, while Brian withdrew into silence and distanced himself from me, sometimes for days. When I tired of having to be the peacemaker and likewise withdrew from him, the silence often extended for two or three weeks. That also meant no physical intimacy. Many times, I had no idea why he was angry or upset. Periodically, we also shared warm, intimate times, but our differences became more pronounced as our lives grew more complex.

  “Brian, I think I’m going to approach my boss about doing leadership development classes for department heads. Of course, that means the administrators would have to come to them, too; otherwise, the department heads won’t take them seriously. But I’m not sure how to get the president’s commitment that he’ll require the administrators’ participation.”

  I was thinking and talking out loud, just to hear my own logic.

  Surprisingly, Brian was listening, and answered, “Aren’t you ever content in your job? Why do you always have to be starting something new and creating more challenges for yourself?”

  “Because I need to keep growing. I get bored doing the same old things. You haven’t been very fulfilled in your teaching job lately, either. Maybe if you made some changes, you’d feel better, too.”

  “We’ve been over this before. There’s nothing more for me to do when I only have a bachelor’s degree.”

  “Then why don’t you finish your dissertation? Then you could put the Ph.D. behind your name and pursue any job you’d want.”

  Brian had gone straight from his bachelor’s degree to Ph.D. study, without formally completing a master’s degree, though he had finished all required coursework for his Ph.D.

  While this was very logical in my mind, it didn’t sit well with Brian at all. “Don’t start that again, Bonnie. I’m not up to it.”

  And so most of our conversations went. At regular intervals, I asked if we could see a counselor together, but he refused.

  After children came along, Brian and I spent precious little time alone together, except for an occasional evening when we could afford a babysitter. Years passed, and we seemed to grow farther apart.

  “The annual department head Christmas dinner is next Thursday, Brian. Don’t forget.”

  “Why do you want to drag me to those things? I’m a teacher. You know I’m not comfortable around all those medical people.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why not? You have more years of e
ducation than most of them.”

  “I just feel second class around all of you, and when you start talking about the work you do, I don’t even understand what you’re saying.”

  “How about just asking us?”

  “Because then someone will ask what I do, and ‘I’m a teacher’ sounds so trite.”

  Brian had been a well-liked and highly respected high school social studies teacher in Missouri before we married. From the time we first met in second grade, he had grown from an adorable, curly red-haired Cub Scout (and every teacher’s pet), into a handsome, trim, muscular man (and many a young female student’s heartthrob). Except for the hiatus of his Ph.D. study in Special Education, he had taught high school from his college graduation in 1964. After graduate study, he had become the Special Education coordinator for his school, and implemented several successful innovative programs for getting and keeping special needs kids academically engaged. By any standard, he was a capable, accomplished professional.

  Yet as time wore on, it seemed Brian felt diminished by my work accomplishments. As a result, I stopped talking about them and closed off yet another portion of myself to him.

  Though the lack of intimacy in our marriage was disturbing to me, Brian was a good father and loyal family man. Sometimes, when we were in the midst of another morbid stretch of silence, I contemplated—and even brought up—ending the marriage. But divorce was virtually nonexistent in my family, even among four grandparents, seven aunts and uncles, and twenty cousins. If we divorced, I had nowhere to go and no idea how I’d manage the kids alone. Thus divorce discussions inevitably resulted in promises to do better—which we both did, until the next episode of silence.