Suzanne Wooldridge
It’s beautiful here in East Texas, in a green, wet, and sweltering kind of way. The returning wild flowers are in full bloom adding a splash of color to the lush landscape; dewberry vines run everywhere, and the grass grows so quickly you can almost mow it daily. The dogwood and myrtle trees flourish in the sun providing safe respite for birds and cool shade for all while providing flowers for the honey bees who are busily collecting pollen for their hives. All around my yard woody poison sumac and lush green poison ivy spread across the weathered fences. In the evenings nature makes so much racket with the frogs croaking, crickets chirping, owls hooting and screeching you can hardly hear yourself think. I moved to Texas knowing life would be different, life would move slower and love would flourish - all of which was very appealing to me. Reality has set in with my first taste of a hot, sweltering summer and I must say this reality is very uncomfortable.
The journey to Texas actually started in October, 1977 when my father accepted a job at a machine shop in Los Angeles which resulted in moving our family from a small, slow-moving, quiet, and extremely rural Illinois town to Lawndale, California. I was 14 years old, slightly shy, very naive but a happy, uncomplicated teenager. My step into the California lifestyle was a huge culture shock to me and my family. I soon met the love of my life, and a very long journey to Texas began.
As children will do, I made friends; and as teenagers typically do, we hung out in the parking lot at school, very busily doing nothing. One of my friends had a secret crush on a tall, handsome, red-headed boy and almost daily she would ask me to sit with her in her baby blue, dented up Volvo to watch him work on his car. He was refurbishing a 1967 Ford Cougar and without fail at 6:30 AM every school day he would be working on that car in one of the mechanic’s bays. I felt silly watching him from the parking lot (really we were stalking him), but Wendy was infatuated with this boy and she wanted desperately to meet him. Being her friend, I dutifully sat there with her even though I did feel a bit silly! At the time, I had no way of knowing that this high school silliness would turn into a lifelong friendship.
Eventually, we were noticed, and the object of our attention, that gorgeous red-headed boy, strolled over in a long-legged, slow but ground-eating stride to Wendy’s car. He was very tall and lean, and those sparkling blue eyes looked through the passenger window over the top of his sunglasses at me. Wendy froze and was unable to speak when he got to the car. “Hi, I’ve noticed you two sitting here for a few days. So what’s going on? You got a cigarette I can bum? By the way, I’m David.” I looked at Wendy waiting for her to respond; for crying out loud she had been stalking this boy for weeks. I thought “Come on! Here’s your chance!” Nothing! She simply sat there - wide eyed and silent. She did have cigarettes because she smoked, so she jerked a cigarette out of the pack and handed one to him.
I could no longer stand the silence so I said “Hi, I’m Suzanne and this is Wendy,” pointing to my still silent friend. At the time I did not know his car was a Cougar and blunderingly said “I think your Mustang will be really cool when it’s done”. He said with just a little attitude, “Well, it’s a Cougar, but thanks. As you know, I’ve been working on it pretty steady.” I did not know what to say next, so I just awkwardly stared at my lap. Finally, Wendy came alive and asked David what his lunch period was and would he like to eat lunch with us. He said, “Sure”, and that he would meet us here in the parking lot at noon. Luckily David had the nerve to come talk with us, because I think we would have sat there all year not sure how to make the next move.
The weeks passed; we would meet David daily for lunch and sometimes again after school. I liked David, but Wendy was my friend and she saw him first, so I stayed in the background. One day, everything changed. Wendy and I were in her car getting ready to leave for home, saying goodbye to David when he leaned in the passenger window and planted a kiss on me – ME! I was secretly pleased, but outwardly I was shocked, and Wendy was upset. David smiled and winked at me then sauntered off. Thankfully, she had seen the attraction before I did, and had come to the conclusion that David was not for her and forgave me for unknowingly stealing that confident, incredibly handsome, red- headed, blue eyed boy from her. What once appeared to be a clear path for my friend took a sharp ninety degree turn that forever changed MY life.
David asked me to marry him in 1979 right after he graduated from high school, and I said wholeheartedly, YES! My family moved to Orange County that summer and I, teary-eyed, horribly distraught, and very unhappy went with my family. David spent a lot of time driving his now refurbished, sweet green Cougar back and forth from Los Angeles to Garden Grove. We were madly in love, and we were together every available moment. He often stayed at the house with me (with my parent’s approval) all weekend. I looked forward to those weekends so much. It felt like we were already married. My parents were happy for us, we were madly in love, and we all assumed there would be a wedding once I graduated from high school in 1981.
When children take on adult behaviors, above their emotional maturity level, they can get into trouble, and we were no exception. Unsure of what to do and a little afraid, but hopeful that all would work out, we had an abortion in 1980. We struggled with our emotions and tried to act normal, but intense stress was being put on David by his parents to stop wasting his time and money on me. When he was home they would interrogate him, telling him he needed to get serious about his career opportunity with the Los Angeles Police Department. My parents found out about the abortion and were angry and hurt that I had not confided in them. At the same time my family was going through a really hard time financially and unbeknownst to me, my parents were also having marital issues. Just before I was to graduate from high school, David ended our relationship. Our breakup felt so incredibly wrong, I was hurt beyond words, but simply did not know what to do. I confided in a friend who was of no help, instead of the person I should have entrusted - that being David. I should have discussed with David how hurt I was, but I simply did not know how to communicate my feelings to him. I was a silly, stubborn, young girl - he was also stubborn and young – we simply did not have enough life experience to know how to handle the situation. In the end, not knowing what else to do, we let each other go. Two teenagers, in an adult world, without adult guidance were displaced and destroyed.
I had a girlfriend who had an older brother named Tom that would flirt with me, and would ask me out knowing full well I was already dating someone else. Tom and I knew the same group of friends, and I was often at his home visiting his younger sister. He was a drummer in the high school band, and I was in tall flags and pep squad. We saw a lot of each other, but I was with David, so Tom and I were just friends. After I graduated from high school in Orange County, I got a job in Los Angeles as a pool secretary and moved back to Lawndale. Tom and I started dating, and we married in October 1983. Twenty eight years and three children later, Tom decided he was no longer happy and we suddenly divorced in 2010.
I floated around in a haze of anger and disbelief for several months. I went through the many stages of grief, and eventually came to the conclusion that I had to move on with life. Just when I needed a good friend, Wendy came back into my life. She had heard that Tom and I had divorced, and wanted me to know how sorry she was for our loss. She suggested, perhaps jokingly, that I try and find David again. I declined, not really believing that after all these years he would want to see me, let alone even remember me. After Wendy and I talked, my curiosity about David got the better of me. I knew his birthday, his age, and that he had family in Bakersfield, California. Just like that, yesterday was behind me, and I started a new journey, looking for David.
My search led to a few dead ends, but eventually I found his name with a birth date that looked promising, in Texas. I sent a post card posing as a member of the Leuzinger High School alumni inquiring about the possibility of him attending the upcoming high school reunion. When I got that call and heard his voice it was like being transported back to that blue Volvo, except this time I was the speechless, awestruck one. When the shock wore off and my brain engaged, I whooped and hollered and he laughed. We talked for hours catching up on where our lives had taken us. I admitted to him that I often thought of him over the years and had hoped we would bump into each other. He told me he never forgot me, nor did he fully understand the demise of our relationship. He explained his thoughts and his struggle to make sense of what had happened. A supposed good friend told him that she was certain, but had no proof that I had been seeing other boys behind his back. Add that to the miles driven, working nights and then driving to see me without sleep, the constant stress his parents put on him to stop seeing me - he just snapped. This was the girl he was going to marry? He was heart broke, but instead of discussing it with me, he believed the lie. When we were younger, neither of us knew how to say what was in our hearts. He let me go and got on with his life, just as I had.
During one of our conversations, we talked about his work in construction, how it boomed then puttered out. He had lived for a while in Bakersfield managing properties which is where he met his wife, Jacqueline. Work, or lack thereof of work, led them to Texas where she had family and that is where they settled. He also told me that his wife was very ill, and the doctors did not have any good news. She did not have much time left, and explained how upsetting to her our phone conversations had become. He said he did not want to upset her further. I was happy that I had found him, and sad that he was not available. I wished him well and let him go, again.
As part of my plan to get my life on track, in January 2012 I enrolled in medical school to become a nurse. I was a little more than a year into the program when I got a mysterious email stating only “I need to talk to you” from an email address that I presumed was David’s. Sadly, Jacqueline had passed away. David wanted to see me. We talked for a few months on Skype and emailed often, planning a day when we would visit each other in person. I was in school and he was working wherever his company sent him, so our window of opportunity was small. I was excited, yet apprehensive about seeing him. I told him numerous times that I was not the same young, thin, demure girl he remembered - I had of course aged and was a bit bolder than he remembered. Suddenly, my plan seemed to be changing with an attraction that was luring me away from nursing school towards an unknown future in Texas.
On a beautiful spring day in April, I flew to East Texas to explore the area and reconnect with David. There were a few gentle sprinkles now and then but the humidity was comfortable, the grass was green, the sky a beautiful blue, just like those mesmerizing eyes that I remembered so well. We spent a week together at his home, drove around looking at properties for sale and getting a feel for the area and each other. The attraction was undeniable - we quickly and deeply fell back in love.
Our renewed relationship was facing its first hurdle – geography. David would not leave Texas to move to California, and I hated the idea of leaving my children and grandchildren in California. We knew we would not let go of each other yet again, so I decided to make the move to Texas. It did not take me long to sell my home in San Bernardino, and to give notice at school that I was exiting the nursing program. Other than leaving my children, I did not give leaving California another thought. I had the car checked out, packed the moving truck and off I went. We were given this blessed opportunity to love each other again. No hurdle would be too great for us to overcome when we were both determined to be together.
If you laid out your life’s time line on a road map, it would probably look like a bunch of dead- ends, U-turns, merges and the occasional round-about, but eventually, hopefully, it straightens out and you find your way onto the path for which you were destined. While both David had I had our share of misadventures, broken and un-even roads; our journey finally brought us back together. We arrived at the same place at the same time - We were married April 12, 2014.
You may wonder have I questioned my quick decision to leave California, my children, my grandchildren and nursing school to go to East Texas. I have moments when I miss my babies so much that I weep, the feeling of separation so acute. I know I’m missing some important moments with my grandchildren, but thankfully smart-phones and the internet keep me pretty up to date. I have flown back to California for my second grandson’s birth, and I’ll go again in November for my third grandchild to make an appearance. Currently, I have no plans to return to nursing school, but I am enrolled in school to earn my BA in Business Administration; a small trade off. I have been blessed with work that allows me the flexibility to attend school.
I am learning to adapt to East Texas - My smart-phone has an app that helps me identify plants to avoid, like poison sumac and poison ivy, and what dangerous plants to uproot, like Carolina Nightshade. The bugs, well those still really freak me out, but I am learning to coexist with creepy-crawlies. The heat and humidity can be unbearable, but then I just go back inside and turn up the A/C, and drink more sweet tea. All I need do is look at that tall red headed boy, now a 6’4 man with a bit more silver than red hair, and see those sparkling blue eyes smile at me, and there is no doubt. The long and sometimes painful road trip is over and there is no doubt, I will never let him go again.
The journey to Texas actually started in October, 1977 when my father accepted a job at a machine shop in Los Angeles which resulted in moving our family from a small, slow-moving, quiet, and extremely rural Illinois town to Lawndale, California. I was 14 years old, slightly shy, very naive but a happy, uncomplicated teenager. My step into the California lifestyle was a huge culture shock to me and my family. I soon met the love of my life, and a very long journey to Texas began.
As children will do, I made friends; and as teenagers typically do, we hung out in the parking lot at school, very busily doing nothing. One of my friends had a secret crush on a tall, handsome, red-headed boy and almost daily she would ask me to sit with her in her baby blue, dented up Volvo to watch him work on his car. He was refurbishing a 1967 Ford Cougar and without fail at 6:30 AM every school day he would be working on that car in one of the mechanic’s bays. I felt silly watching him from the parking lot (really we were stalking him), but Wendy was infatuated with this boy and she wanted desperately to meet him. Being her friend, I dutifully sat there with her even though I did feel a bit silly! At the time, I had no way of knowing that this high school silliness would turn into a lifelong friendship.
Eventually, we were noticed, and the object of our attention, that gorgeous red-headed boy, strolled over in a long-legged, slow but ground-eating stride to Wendy’s car. He was very tall and lean, and those sparkling blue eyes looked through the passenger window over the top of his sunglasses at me. Wendy froze and was unable to speak when he got to the car. “Hi, I’ve noticed you two sitting here for a few days. So what’s going on? You got a cigarette I can bum? By the way, I’m David.” I looked at Wendy waiting for her to respond; for crying out loud she had been stalking this boy for weeks. I thought “Come on! Here’s your chance!” Nothing! She simply sat there - wide eyed and silent. She did have cigarettes because she smoked, so she jerked a cigarette out of the pack and handed one to him.
I could no longer stand the silence so I said “Hi, I’m Suzanne and this is Wendy,” pointing to my still silent friend. At the time I did not know his car was a Cougar and blunderingly said “I think your Mustang will be really cool when it’s done”. He said with just a little attitude, “Well, it’s a Cougar, but thanks. As you know, I’ve been working on it pretty steady.” I did not know what to say next, so I just awkwardly stared at my lap. Finally, Wendy came alive and asked David what his lunch period was and would he like to eat lunch with us. He said, “Sure”, and that he would meet us here in the parking lot at noon. Luckily David had the nerve to come talk with us, because I think we would have sat there all year not sure how to make the next move.
The weeks passed; we would meet David daily for lunch and sometimes again after school. I liked David, but Wendy was my friend and she saw him first, so I stayed in the background. One day, everything changed. Wendy and I were in her car getting ready to leave for home, saying goodbye to David when he leaned in the passenger window and planted a kiss on me – ME! I was secretly pleased, but outwardly I was shocked, and Wendy was upset. David smiled and winked at me then sauntered off. Thankfully, she had seen the attraction before I did, and had come to the conclusion that David was not for her and forgave me for unknowingly stealing that confident, incredibly handsome, red- headed, blue eyed boy from her. What once appeared to be a clear path for my friend took a sharp ninety degree turn that forever changed MY life.
David asked me to marry him in 1979 right after he graduated from high school, and I said wholeheartedly, YES! My family moved to Orange County that summer and I, teary-eyed, horribly distraught, and very unhappy went with my family. David spent a lot of time driving his now refurbished, sweet green Cougar back and forth from Los Angeles to Garden Grove. We were madly in love, and we were together every available moment. He often stayed at the house with me (with my parent’s approval) all weekend. I looked forward to those weekends so much. It felt like we were already married. My parents were happy for us, we were madly in love, and we all assumed there would be a wedding once I graduated from high school in 1981.
When children take on adult behaviors, above their emotional maturity level, they can get into trouble, and we were no exception. Unsure of what to do and a little afraid, but hopeful that all would work out, we had an abortion in 1980. We struggled with our emotions and tried to act normal, but intense stress was being put on David by his parents to stop wasting his time and money on me. When he was home they would interrogate him, telling him he needed to get serious about his career opportunity with the Los Angeles Police Department. My parents found out about the abortion and were angry and hurt that I had not confided in them. At the same time my family was going through a really hard time financially and unbeknownst to me, my parents were also having marital issues. Just before I was to graduate from high school, David ended our relationship. Our breakup felt so incredibly wrong, I was hurt beyond words, but simply did not know what to do. I confided in a friend who was of no help, instead of the person I should have entrusted - that being David. I should have discussed with David how hurt I was, but I simply did not know how to communicate my feelings to him. I was a silly, stubborn, young girl - he was also stubborn and young – we simply did not have enough life experience to know how to handle the situation. In the end, not knowing what else to do, we let each other go. Two teenagers, in an adult world, without adult guidance were displaced and destroyed.
I had a girlfriend who had an older brother named Tom that would flirt with me, and would ask me out knowing full well I was already dating someone else. Tom and I knew the same group of friends, and I was often at his home visiting his younger sister. He was a drummer in the high school band, and I was in tall flags and pep squad. We saw a lot of each other, but I was with David, so Tom and I were just friends. After I graduated from high school in Orange County, I got a job in Los Angeles as a pool secretary and moved back to Lawndale. Tom and I started dating, and we married in October 1983. Twenty eight years and three children later, Tom decided he was no longer happy and we suddenly divorced in 2010.
I floated around in a haze of anger and disbelief for several months. I went through the many stages of grief, and eventually came to the conclusion that I had to move on with life. Just when I needed a good friend, Wendy came back into my life. She had heard that Tom and I had divorced, and wanted me to know how sorry she was for our loss. She suggested, perhaps jokingly, that I try and find David again. I declined, not really believing that after all these years he would want to see me, let alone even remember me. After Wendy and I talked, my curiosity about David got the better of me. I knew his birthday, his age, and that he had family in Bakersfield, California. Just like that, yesterday was behind me, and I started a new journey, looking for David.
My search led to a few dead ends, but eventually I found his name with a birth date that looked promising, in Texas. I sent a post card posing as a member of the Leuzinger High School alumni inquiring about the possibility of him attending the upcoming high school reunion. When I got that call and heard his voice it was like being transported back to that blue Volvo, except this time I was the speechless, awestruck one. When the shock wore off and my brain engaged, I whooped and hollered and he laughed. We talked for hours catching up on where our lives had taken us. I admitted to him that I often thought of him over the years and had hoped we would bump into each other. He told me he never forgot me, nor did he fully understand the demise of our relationship. He explained his thoughts and his struggle to make sense of what had happened. A supposed good friend told him that she was certain, but had no proof that I had been seeing other boys behind his back. Add that to the miles driven, working nights and then driving to see me without sleep, the constant stress his parents put on him to stop seeing me - he just snapped. This was the girl he was going to marry? He was heart broke, but instead of discussing it with me, he believed the lie. When we were younger, neither of us knew how to say what was in our hearts. He let me go and got on with his life, just as I had.
During one of our conversations, we talked about his work in construction, how it boomed then puttered out. He had lived for a while in Bakersfield managing properties which is where he met his wife, Jacqueline. Work, or lack thereof of work, led them to Texas where she had family and that is where they settled. He also told me that his wife was very ill, and the doctors did not have any good news. She did not have much time left, and explained how upsetting to her our phone conversations had become. He said he did not want to upset her further. I was happy that I had found him, and sad that he was not available. I wished him well and let him go, again.
As part of my plan to get my life on track, in January 2012 I enrolled in medical school to become a nurse. I was a little more than a year into the program when I got a mysterious email stating only “I need to talk to you” from an email address that I presumed was David’s. Sadly, Jacqueline had passed away. David wanted to see me. We talked for a few months on Skype and emailed often, planning a day when we would visit each other in person. I was in school and he was working wherever his company sent him, so our window of opportunity was small. I was excited, yet apprehensive about seeing him. I told him numerous times that I was not the same young, thin, demure girl he remembered - I had of course aged and was a bit bolder than he remembered. Suddenly, my plan seemed to be changing with an attraction that was luring me away from nursing school towards an unknown future in Texas.
On a beautiful spring day in April, I flew to East Texas to explore the area and reconnect with David. There were a few gentle sprinkles now and then but the humidity was comfortable, the grass was green, the sky a beautiful blue, just like those mesmerizing eyes that I remembered so well. We spent a week together at his home, drove around looking at properties for sale and getting a feel for the area and each other. The attraction was undeniable - we quickly and deeply fell back in love.
Our renewed relationship was facing its first hurdle – geography. David would not leave Texas to move to California, and I hated the idea of leaving my children and grandchildren in California. We knew we would not let go of each other yet again, so I decided to make the move to Texas. It did not take me long to sell my home in San Bernardino, and to give notice at school that I was exiting the nursing program. Other than leaving my children, I did not give leaving California another thought. I had the car checked out, packed the moving truck and off I went. We were given this blessed opportunity to love each other again. No hurdle would be too great for us to overcome when we were both determined to be together.
If you laid out your life’s time line on a road map, it would probably look like a bunch of dead- ends, U-turns, merges and the occasional round-about, but eventually, hopefully, it straightens out and you find your way onto the path for which you were destined. While both David had I had our share of misadventures, broken and un-even roads; our journey finally brought us back together. We arrived at the same place at the same time - We were married April 12, 2014.
You may wonder have I questioned my quick decision to leave California, my children, my grandchildren and nursing school to go to East Texas. I have moments when I miss my babies so much that I weep, the feeling of separation so acute. I know I’m missing some important moments with my grandchildren, but thankfully smart-phones and the internet keep me pretty up to date. I have flown back to California for my second grandson’s birth, and I’ll go again in November for my third grandchild to make an appearance. Currently, I have no plans to return to nursing school, but I am enrolled in school to earn my BA in Business Administration; a small trade off. I have been blessed with work that allows me the flexibility to attend school.
I am learning to adapt to East Texas - My smart-phone has an app that helps me identify plants to avoid, like poison sumac and poison ivy, and what dangerous plants to uproot, like Carolina Nightshade. The bugs, well those still really freak me out, but I am learning to coexist with creepy-crawlies. The heat and humidity can be unbearable, but then I just go back inside and turn up the A/C, and drink more sweet tea. All I need do is look at that tall red headed boy, now a 6’4 man with a bit more silver than red hair, and see those sparkling blue eyes smile at me, and there is no doubt. The long and sometimes painful road trip is over and there is no doubt, I will never let him go again.
