Letter To One Who Left
Where to begin? Shall I write of the times we drank, laughed and drove miles as the moon coated your skin with its silver light? Shall I share about our tumbling into bed, ripping off our clothes to taste and feel each other, mad with desire for the sensation of flesh on flesh; thrusting and heaving until we collapsed in each other's arms - our sweat coating us and leaving the bed damp? Can you still remember the thrust of me within you? The ecstasy of the release? The feeling of calm that came over us after we lay spent in each others arms?
Or, should I share of less happy times? Like when I stood on your doorstep in the dark? Banging on the screen for hours, as I heard you move about inside? Shall I help you remember how we lay silently, hoping that JL's jeep would drive away, taking the sound of it's country music and leave us to the whisper of your beloved Commodores? Can you possibly remember, how many days I drove past your house and looked for his car in your drive on my way to work? Can you feel the pain of my heart, as I saw it there? Can I possibly know the pain I left in your heart by being so fickle and irresponsible, a large man-child, misanthrope trying to fake being human in a land of suits, silk ties and wingtips? For me it was a time of innocent love cast against my greed for money and power. It felt like the money and power won. Was it the same for you?
Often, I felt like a stalker, a thief, trying to take love from you, even though you did or would not give it. Perhaps I was both thief and stalker. I do not know the story from your point of view. Only we two are able to make a true judgment of those times. All others views are simply hearsay, reflections of their own fear and judgment.
Shall I ask the dreaded question, the one that haunts me with untold guilt to this day. Did I father a child by you? Did my insistence that we make unprotected love lead to a pregnancy you were afraid to tell me about? Are you the mother of a child unknown to me, a child whom I never knew, that I never had the opportunity to love?
I can understand your reluctance of telling me about any child, all those years ago. We were both children in many ways, I certainly must not have seemed like a good candidate for a father – an irresponsible, power hungry druggie, and alcoholic. I spend a lot of time worrying about money, and still do at times. I yelled and became distant as I sensed that I was failing at providing the lifestyle you had with JL. He made 5 or 6 times as much as me. I had no way to compete. I became more and more of a workaholic in a vain attempt to achieve in years what JL had built through decades of hard labor.
After you left me for JL that last time, I went to the UK to lead the largest change management project the Firm had ever done – transitioning the DHSS from “quill and pen” technology to full automation. I was promised a shot at partner when I returned. This did not happen. Disheartened, and like a pitiful child, I asked for a leave of absence, to go and get my PhD at the University of Texas in Austin. JC, my supervising partner begged me to stay, but I was too selfish and filled with rage to listen. I blurted out something like, “Screw this. I don't want to be partner with someone like JL, a man who came into my home and destroyed my marriage. Who would want to be a partner with someone like that?” How could I trust someone who was willing to help destroy my marriage? I don't know how things looked from your or JL's side of things. Perhaps you were just protecting yourself from my craziness.
After failing to make partner, I once again fell into a deep well of self-pity and I left the Firm. Life no longer seemed to make any sense. What purpose was there to pursing a career in a Firm that promoted people like JL to positions of great power? I was no prize either. Both of us, at least it seemed to me, played the silly game of dog eat dog. Today, I have a new friend who once said, “The problem with eating dog, is that when you come home at night, it's difficult to get the taste out of your mouth.”
Today, none of that is important. I only mentioned it to let it go, and in the hope that if you read this you will know it is me, Dale, writing to you after all these years. To paraphrase CSN, “I am stronger now than then.” I would like to think that if you read this you would feel comfortable about sharing the truth from your view. I hope someday we can meet so that I can find out your thoughts. I will hug you, if you let me.
After I left the Firm, life threw me many curves: addiction and recovery, a failed marriage in which I repeated the pattern of distancing myself once things got difficult, kidney cancer surgery on 9/11/01, ten years of surviving cancer, rediscovery of my love of writing and a potential new career – many things; some of them sweet and some of them as bitter as wormwood. Yet through it all, I find that I remember much joy between us as well as the pain.
Please call me if you read this. Let us be friends, and know that love can survive even the worst life has to offer when we remain thankful for the little things. At least that is how I see it.
Love,
Dale
Dale S. Hankins
308 E Burlington St. #104
Iowa City, Iowa 52240
319-325-6374
FIRST TYPED DRAFT, OLD CAPITOL MALL, IOWA CITY, IOWA 9-13-11, 10:23 AM
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Keith
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