Page 68 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

Thirty-eight years later, I had a successful and inspiring career helping others. As part of

my ongoing healing I had started to write about some of my history. I found myself

increasingly thinking of Dale, longing to find the woman who had made such a difference

in my life. After months of searching, I found her living in a small blue-collar town south

of Chicago. I dialed the number, shaking with excitement and also worry that she might

have forgotten. She picked up on the third ring. I recognized her voice immediately and

told her who I was. She didn’t seem surprised. She said that I had always been her

“heart child” and “of course I never forgot you.”

Two weeks later, I flew to see her. I had carried her image, her voice, her words and

touch for thirty-eight years. Her striking, simple beauty and sense of presence again

moved me. It was as though all those years of longing and separation fell away. I was

no longer a child wearing a face immobilized by fear but she recognized me. And I

recognized the directness of her gaze, and the love that poured forth from her. Once

again, her presence enveloped me. We cried off and on in each other’s arms over the

next several days.

After Dale moved away, I imagined her living in a big house, surrounded by loving

children of her own. Over the years, I fantasized I would drop in and visit. But Dale had

suffered through abuse and a divorce. She had given birth to one child, a troubled

alcoholic son. She told me she had barely graduated from eighth grade and had always

had difficulty learning. She was very poor; she lived in an economically depressed

neighborhood, hardly making ends meet on a maid’s salary. In spite of all this, she had

a deep serenity. Our first visit turned into another and another, along with weekly phone

calls. It became increasingly clear that Dale needed me in her life as much as I had

once needed her.

About six months after our first visit, it became apparent that Dale was sick. She had a

racking cough that didn’t stop. When I asked her about seeing a doctor, she confessed

that she didn’t have any insurance or money for medical care. After seeing to it that

Dale got to a doctor, I was heartsick to receive the news that she had metastasized lung

cancer and only a short time to live. I knew from years of professional experience and

from my mother’s and friends’ deaths that Dale was in the early stages of dying. I was