On the other side of the fence…

Two boys, two families, two diverging roads. Who would ever think I would thank my Mother for all those rules? Need a gift for the kid who has everything? Give the gift of love. Give them boundaries.


The voice on the phone was hauntingly familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. “Know who this is?” the voice said coyly. My mind was racing. A pause that was way too long to be comfortable passed after I had said “NO, I am sorry, I don’t.” “It’s Donald. Don O’Connor.” You could have knocked me over with a breath. This was a blast from the distant past. Don had disappeared from my life sometime in high school. He slipped away almost unnoticed and yet I had always wondered what had become of him. Now here he was, big as life on the other end of the line. But where? And why was he calling me now, after all these years?
Don and I had been close, once. We did boy stuff. We lit surreptitious firecrackers; we fished suckers in the swamp behind the school with sharpened sticks. We threw snowballs and raised harmless mischief as boys are wont to do. The sixties were a great time to grow up. Yet we came from very different homes. It was that difference that would ultimately drive a wedge between us. In the woods behind the school we were equals. We were both free; we roamed as pirates and hunters. We made believe that we were cowboys and Indians, we re-fought the battle of Normandy, we stormed the beaches and we took Pork Chop hill, just like our heroes on the big screen. Then we went home…
“Of course I remember you Don. How the heck are you?” my mind was still racing. “Well I guess that’s why I am calling. I messed up Greg, I really messed up my life.” his voice was taught and faltering. I knew the words were hard to come by so I left pauses for him to continue. “I am going through counseling and part of my therapy is to call people from my past and talk to them about what kind of person I was... Is it O.K.?” a lump swelled in my throat and now it was my turn to have a hard time speaking. “Of course it is! How can I help?” There was a choked sigh on the other end of the line. It is amazing sometimes in how much you can read in a voice. Especially if you know the voice. I knew this voice; even if it had been a quarter century. How could I forget, we had stormed the beaches together?
Going home was what separated Don and I. Two more different households you could scarcely imagine. My Mom was old school. She had been raised in a strict household, a household that knew scarcity. My Grandfather had died when my Mom was not even two. My Grandmother moved in with her sister also a widow and the two women set about raising two families in a world without much for safety nets. But they were both women of faith; they raised the kids in a house filled with love and prayer. Mom and Dad weren’t rich either and when I was young it often seemed to me that other families had more than we did. Their lives seemed better somehow. Other friends including Don had more freedom that I did. In fact in Don’s house it seemed there were no rules at all. He had no fixed bedtime, no fixed mealtimes, his hair was long, and he wore clothes my Mother would never let me wear. He never had to go to Sunday school.
“I always envied you, did you know that?” I truly did not. “Me?” I said incredulously. “Yes, I always thought of your family as the Cleavers from Leave It to Beaver.” The Cleavers? That was certainly a thought that had never occurred to me. “You guys had it all, regular meals, regular bedtimes and a Father that worked and a Mom that stayed at home. You had structure and faith and direction. I had none of that. Because of that I wandered into a life of drinking and drug abuse. I was messed up for a very long time. Only now in middle age am I starting to put my life together.”
I thought back to the time when we had drifted apart. Don was already on his way to a life of dependency. He was drinking in High School. He smoked he did drugs. We had less and less in common and one day he just wasn’t there anymore. He slipped from my radar. I heard rumors of him overdosing. It was a world I couldn’t relate to. He was right I had a very good childhood. When you are in the middle of it; on the inside looking out it didn’t seem so hot. Rules seemed like chains. I saw others doing things I wasn’t allowed to do and I was envious. I hadn’t given it much thought since; but a seed had just been planted. I had just experienced an epiphany that would change my view of my childhood. What had once seemed boring and limiting now seemed stable and enabling.
“I went off the tracks.” Don continued. My life became a train wreck; no a series of train wrecks. One after the other. Booze, drugs and failed relationships. I didn’t like what I became. Do you remember me as being a violent person?” The question stopped me in my tracks. We had a nickname for Don. We called him the Marquis de Sade. He was always doing things to others, hurtful things, physically or otherwise. That was not the Don that I knew and it was one of the things that pulled us apart. I waited longer than most to break the ties, but eventually even I drifted away. I wanted better from life. “I needed to talk to someone from my past. Someone I admired.” Don said. “Admired?” I repeated dumbly. “Yes, I admired your family. You were what I needed.”
I thought of the image of a train wreck. I thought again of the rules my Mother had laid down. They didn’t seem so bad anymore. The rules were the rails that my train ran on. They hadn’t carried me to a train wreck. They had kept me out of the danger that Don had been mired in. He suddenly didn’t seem so free to me anymore.
“I called you because you were easy to find. Your Mom and Dad still live in the same house; so I called your Mom. I hope that’s O.K.?” I was smiling as I thought about what that meant. I had grown up in that house. Don and I had played in that yard. “Of course it is.” I replied. “Are you going to be alright?’ I asked. I was starting to see a glimpse of the little boy that I had been friends with. “Yeah, I think so. I mean it’s day to day; but I’ve got someone special now and I’ve got something to live for.” He said with confidence. “I’m glad, thanks for calling.” This stunned Don. “Thanks, I should be thanking you.” He added. “God works in funny ways. You seldom do anything good that it does not bring some good back to you. Talking to you has shown me just how special my boring little life was. “I said. “I’d take boring any day, Greg. Thanks for being there for me.” “Thank my Mom. If she hadn’t been the person she was you probably never would have even found me.”
Life is about changing perspectives. If the view doesn’t change you are going around in circles. Life is also about rules. Boundaries can be very important to a kid. They can make all the difference in your life. I may have been on rails but I was going somewhere; college, a career and a life that could make a difference to my community. Don would have to endure a pile of pain before he would get his life back on the rails. The next time I got back to that little two story house I am going to take a walk in that yard. Maybe the grass is greener on this side of the fence.