Rescue Me

Hello Naked Man Readers! I am Joan’s husband Alan and for some time she has asked me to “drop by” and bang out a few words so that you would all know I actually existed. The problem with that, of course, is that I am no writer, and the dilemma of subject always poked me in the eye. Isn’t it funny that you can live for four decades and still pause and stare at a blank piece of paper?

But today as Joan and I ran on a nearby trail I watched her cute butt for about 25 minutes and realized that there have been times in my life I have turned to her to rescue me. I was running very close behind her because I needed her to pull me through the 5K we were running. For those of you who know us personally you know that despite spending years in the Marine Corps and working on my feet my entire working life, I have never been able to outrun Joan. I finally realized that a couple of years ago when she beat me by several minutes in a half marathon despite my longer legs and months of training for that specific race.

But so what? I needed Joan to pull me around the track this morning just like I needed her to pull me out of a very dark time in my life almost exactly 20 years ago. So really this morning was nothing new for me.

Twenty years ago this summer I was in a very dark place. My first marriage had been crumbling and most of the crisis in the relationship was my fault. Laurel and I had been married for seven years during which time I completed my service in the Corps and both of us had worked our way through college without ever getting a hand out, a loan or a grant of any kind. We just worked our butts off to finish school, and we did. But the time of mission and purpose came to and end, and so did our relationship. We spent time apart and I began to drink. When Laurel was nervous about how much I was drinking I started putting vodka in my coffee so she could not smell it on my breath. I drank every day and eventually we split. But I was still in a terrible place. I continued to drink and did terrible things that summer 20 years ago. I hurt a lot of people and drank to hide from the damage I was causing. Like the character William Munny in the brilliant Eastwood movie “Unforgiven,” it wasn’t that I didn’t care about the pain I was causing. I did care. I cared so much I was drinking a half a bottle of Stoli everyday.

Thanksgiving of that year my mother and father came to my apartment in Atlanta to visit me. During the conversation my mom began reminiscing about my high school sweet heart, Joan. Mom had stayed in touch with Joan and wondered aloud if I had.

“No” I said. But I felt a warm spot in my heart when I started thinking of her. We had split up amicably shortly before I met Laurel as Joan worked on her degree at Syracuse. Eventually Joan fell in love with a classmate there and they married. I had not seen Joan in over eight years.

But I had never forgotten Joan. If a 16 year old boy can truly be in love, then I had been with her in 1980. She was spectacular. Joan was beautiful, talented and a great kisser. Who doesn’t remember how wonderful your first was – in memory?

But I needed something to pull me out of the terrible hole I was falling into. Something tangible. Not a faded memory of someone likely to have gone through as many changes as I had since then. I needed someone to rescue me. What could be left of the Joan that I knew so long before?

I learned that Joan was in Syracuse, NY again and I called information (that is the way it worked back then, my younger readers) and got every derivative of J. Donnelly in the book and left them all the same penned message. “My name is Alan Emery; I went to high school with a Joan Donnelly. If she is at this number I would love to get caught up.”

Man did we get caught up… We spent weeks talking on the phone and for the first time in what seemed like ten years, I felt happy. I felt a sense of optimism and fun. And I quit drinking. When I came to visit her a month later I was already madly in love with her again. I walked up the stairs to knock on her door and paused for a second before knocking. I had never felt the butterflies so significantly before. And after knocking I heard Joan ask “Are you ready?”

How could she possibly know how ready I was?

Now twenty full years after our reintroduction she has continued to rescue me. Just like Claudia rescued Will Munny from his dark days. "She cured me of my wickedness” Munny would say. After losing my job on my 15th anniversary, and the phone call from her doctor telling us that Joan had an incurable form of Lymphoma, times for us were pretty tough. I had never gone without a job and I could not ask Joan to be the strong one. She was dealing with enough already. So I found a job quickly and soon knew that I was in a much better position with this new company than I ever had with my old company.

But soon after taking the job an amazing opportunity came my way to accept a promotion that would move us far away from everything Joan loved about Orlando – near her mother, a job she had loved for 15 years, a cancer doctor that always told her it was going to be OK and some wonderful friends. But Joan gave up all of that to let me have what I wanted out of my work experience. And remarkably, she is doing it again just one year later as we prepare to move again.

I often wonder if I deserve the things I have in my life. Quickly I realize that I do not. But like Will Munny says: "Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it." Clearly for me it does not. But in my moments that I mourn the man I used to be, I am reminded by Joan of whom I have become. And when reminded of that, I know it is Joan who tossed me the rope and rescued me to become who I am.