Right Turn in Life

This is not the usual story that I place on my blog, but please don’t stop reading because the story will follow.

Yesterday morning at 8 AM my heart was broken and my life was shattered. I leaned over my beautiful wife and said, “I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you.” Thirty-seconds later her heart stopped beating. 

I have written so much about her that I wonder, what can my broken heart and feeble mind write today. How can I possibly express who she was and what she meant to so many people? I do not know, but with shaking fingers, through the tears and in the waves of pain, I will do my best.

Pamela Joy Hartman Baker

Every husband has a pet name for his wife, I hope. I did. When I felt more love than I could stand for this beautiful girl who married me, I called her Pamela Joy. I realize that may not be much of a pet name because it was her first and middle name, but it was elegantly expressive. The elegance of “Pamela” reminded me of the first night I met her. She was wearing a shining blue dress that dropped below her knees with a matching belt at her waist. Her hair was deep brown and flowing. The pet name also expressed what she brought to everyone she spent time with. It was pure Joy.

It was her genuine love shining through her beautiful smile that drew people to her. I often said, “Everyone loves Pam. I am just along for the ride.” She would scold me, and I would laugh. But there was some truth in it. Pam lit up the room with her smile. The love she shared with others would bring warmth to their hearts. It was that love that she graciously lavished on me.

Where did such love in this lady come from? Listening to her talk, I know her mom, dad, sisters and brother gave her love unconditionally. She loved God and going to church with her family. Then, in her first year of college she heard about having a personal relationship with Jesus and followed that path. She read in the Bible that “God is Love”. As her husband of twenty-seven years, I can say that the love in Pam was birthed by her family and perfected by God as she walked with him. 

Yesterday, she walked into heaven and into perfect love. 

I wrote a new story last week titled “Right Turn in Life” and read it to her during our last conversation. Pam loved it. She asked me to publish it. Then she told me to put it in the book I am writing about her and love. I agreed. She said, “You have to finish that book.” So I will. 

Yesterday, life took the hardest right turn ever. It hurt. I am still reeling from the loss of Pamela Joy, but let’s remember the Joy of our previous Right Turn in Life.

Right Turn in Life

In the wide open hallway that led to the church gymnasium on February 2, 1994 at 9:21PM, my life turned a fast and hard ninety degrees. Life was never the same again. 

Three weeks later, Pam looked at me with a such a sweet and serious look. She had just absorbed the secret that I had held back from her for a few months. Actually only half of what I said to her that night was a secret. And, it really was not a secret. It was just something that I  had no reason to tell a friend……before now.

We met the previous September at a banquet and I was instantly captivated by her beauty. Quickly, I reminded myself that I was a single dad, had no money and no time for dating. She was pushed out of my mind by the time I went to bed that night. The next time I met her was in October. I almost did not connect the blue jean and t-shirt girl with the elegant lady who had beautiful brown hair and the shimmering blue dress that I met in September. Yet it was her.

Pam was the new child care person who worked with our kids during the church choir practice. She seemed so different, but it was definitely her. This version of the lady was always laughing and having fun with the children. My “stick in the mud” self was drawn to her, but this time it was just friendship. Over the next four months we became very good friends. Still, we both had our secrets.

She asked me out by accident while trying to recover from verbal mistake. I was stunned by the invitation. Within three weeks, we were both falling in love. Now it was time to tell each other the things that needed to be known, IF we were to continue this relationship. 

Pam loved children. It was obvious. I had to tell her that not only did I have three kids (which she obviously knew), but that nine years earlier, I had surgery preventing me from fathering again. I was sure this would end the romantic relationship, but hoped for continued friendship. Instead that sweet and serious face looked at me with a slight smile. I could see her mind working through the words she knew that she must say. As she did, I watched the smile fade away. There in its place was a resolute and ominous look and then her words began.

“I never planned to have children because” (there was a pause and a cleansing breath), “I have MS. Multiple Sclerosis.” she clarified. The words were clear but guarded and her eyes darted up from the table to mine then back down to the table in something that looked like shame. I had no idea what MS was, but I did know that I could not let this woman feel what she was feeling in that moment. I asked her about MS and drew out the stories of her experience since being diagnosed. 

It is strange how we both thought our “secret” was a deal breaker for our relationship, but both secrets actually fit together and brought us closer. We trusted each other allowing ourselves to fall in love. 

Love can be blind, but a divorced man with three children cannot allow himself that luxury. He must be at least informed about the challenges ahead. “Andy, would you tell me the everything I need to know about MS?,” I asked my friend whose wife had MS. “Are you going to ask Pam to marry you,” he inquired without answering? My face blushed as I thought for a second. “I am in love with her. Yes”, I admitted,. “But I need to know what I am walking into. Tell me the worst possible scenario for having a wife with MS.” Between Andy and another friend, I took in all I could comprehend about loving and living with someone who has MS. Then on July eleventh, I could not wait another second. I asked Pam to marry me. Two weeks less than one year after she first ask me out, we were married. We were one.

I chose to become as involved as possible in Pam’s fight with MS. “If we were to be one in love and marriage, we needed to be one in the struggle with MS”, I reasoned. (I love the old song from the 1960’s “United we stand, Divided we fall”) Falling divided from Pam was not an option for me; or Pam. So we have taken on MS for the last twenty-seven years together.

Is Pam disabled? The obvious answer is yes. She retired a few years ago due to disability. She cannot use her legs to walk or stand. Sometimes her hands do not work. Various body parts sometimes take a break from working. There have been times when she was unable to communicate and times when I could not wake her up at all. But, for a lot of people, the term disabled conjures up the idea that the person referred to as disabled is just sitting or laying around. That is not my wife.

There are many factors as to how a person who is disabled acts. If it were me in Pam’s place and circumstances, I wonder if I might not give up and sit around, but this is not the way Pam reacts to anything. As long as I have known her, one phrase continues to come out of her mouth. “I am not going to let this thing beat me.”

The only thing she was missing when I met her was a sense of humor about the whole thing. She was very serious about it and hid it from everyone. As we talked over what it meant in her body and life before we married, one day I suggested that she find parts of the situation that she could laugh about and allow herself to laugh at it and herself sometimes. She took to the idea like a “duck to water”. She started laughing about as much of it as she could. Maybe she found a release from the bondage she had placed herself in for years.

Then her symptoms began to stay and became worse so that hiding it from others was no longer possible. Again she was released from the prison of shame she had built for herself. Pam was now free to be who she was and live in all of the freedom and laughter she could find in life.

This is where we have lived together for over twenty-five years now. Is Pam, or our marriage – our life – different from others? Yes, but everyone and their marriages are unique and different. It is with this uniqueness that we have become normal. To us, our life is normal. 

Oh yes, we drive a handicap van with a ramp so Pam can drive into the van and lock her chair in the floor locking system. We cannot visit in the homes of our family and friends unless the house has been built for Pam’s unique handicap requirements. She must have solid door thresholds that will hold up to the weight of her power chair. All doors must be thirty-two inches wide, including bathroom doors. In some cases, we need thirty-six inch doors depending on surrounding furniture or construction elements. She needs ramps for any step of more than 3/4 inches high. She also needs bathrooms with enough open room to turn her chair around, which requires at least 4-5 feet in diameter, higher pedestal toilets, and enough open space in the rest of the house for her to navigate. Getting anywhere that does not have the aforementioned upgrades depends on available handicap restrooms nearby that I can go in with her to assist.

These things that most people would say make an abnormal life, to us are normal. Where someone may find defeat, we find challenge. Where some may find depression, we find humor. Where some may blame, we apologize; even if it is not our fault. Where some may choose to lash out, we choose to hold each other. 

Is it always fun and games? Obviously, No. Pam is tough and resilient, but sometimes even Pam gets down. Once or twice a year, I will find her crying quietly by herself.

In the early days of our marriage, I responded as all men do. “What can I do to fix it for you Darling?” It did not take long for me to learn that she just needed a kiss, or my arms wrapped around her while she cried. She never stays in that place more than ten minutes. She just needs to let it out and I need to understand that valve must release sometimes. Then we can return to enjoying our lives in a day or two.

In the wide open hallway there in front of the church gymnasium on February 2, 1994 at 9:21PM, Pam asked that now fateful question. “Do you want to go get pizza?” My mind was screaming “She just asked you out” and failed to transmit words I could say out loud to my mouth. Without directions, all my mouth could push out was, “I like pizza”. Right there, with those pitiful words, my life – Our Life – turned a fast, hard ninety degree right into love. Life has never been the same since. It is so much better. It is just as good as we choose to make it.

We have come to understand that we can choose the life we want within the circumstances we find ourselves in everyday. We choose love and laughter as often as possible.

In Love,

Pam and Brad