Life's Passages

Sit down, Kiddies, this is going to be a long post. It was rolling around my head for an hour while I laid on the massage table tonight.

Twenty years ago in August. Oh my God, I cannot believe it's been twenty years. Twenty years ago in August I went to my law school orientation. I was in my standard IBM skirted suit, with my badge hanging from the jacket pocket. A woman sat down next to me. She introduced herself and observed that we looked like we were from the same generation. When we compared notes, she was three months older than I and had been married twice — once annulled and once divorced. I was on my second difficult marriage.

Her name was Tracy Nadel. We became close friends. We spoke on the phone daily. She formed a study group and I was invited to join. We studied together, ate together, shared milestones together. After my second marriage fell apart, after I got custody of Tyler and was working a full-time and two part-time jobs while going to law school at night, it was Tracy I would call and ask, "can I please quit?" And she would answer "no," and I would dig deep inside and find the strength to endure another day, another week, another semester.

She passed the Pennsylvania bar on her first try and went to work as a resource analyst for the Joint Committee on Taxation on the Hill. I didn't pass the Pennsylvania bar, then I didn't pass the Virginia bar four times. Tracy was always there encouraging me. She stood by me through my ill-advised third marriage, and rejoiced with me when John and I found each other again.

She had a limited variety of male friends, but no one she deemed good enough. And she was sad, as her biological clock kept ticking, that she had not had children and probably never would. She started thinking about adoption.

Tracy was one of about thirty guests at John's and my wedding on March 16, 1996. She had just started the paperwork to be approved as an adoptive parent for a Chinese adoption. Unbeknownst to her, her daughter had been born a month earlier. In February of 1997, Tracy and her sister flew to Beijing and went out in the country to the orphanage where her daughter, Jennie Rebecca, was waiting for her.

Shortly after Jennie arrived, Tracy was diagnosed with a malignant tumor on her kidney. The surgeon said he got it all and she'd be fine. A year later, John died. His death changed my life. Motherhood and her health scare changed Tracy's life. I moved to Tucson with Steve and all contact between Tracy and me ceased.

A year ago I Googled her to see what was happening with her these days, whether she was still on the Hill, whether I could find photos of her and Jennie. To my horror I found her obituary. Renal cell carcinoma. And a seven-year-old adopted Chinese daughter. Her sister and brother-in-law adopted Jennie, who became a little Manhattan Jewish-Chinese Princess.

Today I Googled Jennie to see if I could see a photo, could see how she was growing up. To my astonishment, I found an article telling how Tracy's sister had inadvertently discovered that Jennie was a twin and had been able to find her fraternal twin sister and reunite them.

All of this thrust me into a river of melancholy. I remembered Tracy's impeccable townhouse in Georgetown, original works of art on the wall, an interior designer's touch on every room. It made me wonder why we, certain single women of a certain age, put so much effort and attention into our homes, when all we want is to make a home with someone else, some right man who will help us find the center of our lives. We tread water and jog in place while we try to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to find him.

I remembered how many hours Tracy and I talked about finding the right man, and how thrilled for me she was when John and I reunited. I remembered how discouraged she was that she could never find her ultimate partner. I remembered how she sat next to me, emotionally holding me up, through John's memorial services.

I felt part of the reason our friendship fell apart was because she was jealous of my having found Steve, someone (the token Jewish man?) who appeared to love me and bought me the big diamond and the big house. She said I wasn't being a good friend. Was I not a good friend because I found my man before she found hers, which she never did? She would have said a loud but loving "I told you so" had she known how miserable I was with Steve. But she didn't get that chance. I tried a couple of times to reestablish contact, but she would have no part of it. And then she was gone.

I've said a number of times here that I would love to have a crystal ball to see where I'm going to be six months from now, or a magic wand to make the housing and job situations straighten themselves out. But those don't work.

Would Tracy have adopted Jennie had she known she wouldn't live to see her past first grade? I like to think so.

Should I open my heart to someone when I don't know if he'll want to see me again in a week or six weeks or six months? I like to think so.

I've often said that, as hard as my life has been (in my opinion), it has all worked together the way it should. I wish I hadn't married Terry, but that marriage got me my boys. My moving to Washington to marry Dick and my job at IBM got me my B.S. My finding myself in therapy gave me the courage to attempt and accomplish law school. My volunteerism with The Washington Chorus got me John, once and again. John gave me happiness.

Brick upon brick, life is built and we move from room to room in that life. Right now I feel like I'm in a keeping room and I'd like to move out, but evidently the time isn't right. Maybe it's a time for remembering how to open my heart, how to trust someone, however tentatively, with my heart.