As it turned out, our last week in California was filled with more heartache and challenges than we originally thought it would. I lost a good friend and a fantastic colleague, and John's parents received a very startling letter.
On Tuesday morning, we (the ASRS team) learned that a beloved colleague, Donna Fife, was senselessly killed on Monday night. A 19-year-old terror of a neighbor ran her over while she was on a neighbor's lawn writing down his license plate number. Previously to him running her over, he had hit a different neighbor's fence with a different car that he ditched. Donna was copying down the license number of the second car the man was getting into. She died there, on the lawn, in her husband's arms. Tuesday was a blur of shock, tears, and helplessness. Our management team acted quickly by getting a grief counselor in our office for Wednesday. We had a group session where we learned about the grief process and prepared us for the days, weeks, and possible months of emotions ahead. Then, we had a counselor that saw people one-by-one. This was extremely helpful. We saw from police reports and the newspaper articles that the man could be charged with something as small as vehicular manslaughter or as big as murder. We all believe it was murder - he knew what he was doing when he drove up on the lawn and ran over our Donna. Only time will tell.
The movers did come and pick up our stuff on Wednesday. They were at the apartment from 8am until just about 5:30pm. We had a car full of stuff left after they were gone (specifically, a Ford Focus 2-door hatchback car full of stuff).
On Thursday the second blow hit. I received a call from John telling me that his parents received an anonymous letter about me. The same letter was sent to both their print shop address and their home address. The envelope was addressed to John's mom, specifically, but the letter was addressed as "To the Parents of John Fields". It was one-page, single-spaced, type-written, and signed "A Concerned Citizen". The post-mark was from Stockton, CA. The content was about what a horrible person their son is marrying. That I was married to Steven and that I had mistreated him so badly. It warned them that I was now moving to Alabama to "run-away" and I was taking my next victim with me. It was a horrible letter. The worst part of it was that John's mom is VERY religious (Catholic) and didn't know I was married before. Keeping in mind that this letter was received and read on Thursday-two days before we were heading to Alabama-the timing of this letter was devistating. John's mom and I were just developing a relationship and it was going rather well. This was a total embarrassment.
John handled it like an adult. His dad told him about the letter and gave him the shop's copy. That was when John called me. After I got home, John called his mom and told her what was true in the letter (and what was not mentioned), as well as told her why he had decided against telling her that I was married before. It was his decision. He talked to her for about an hour or maybe more before getting off the phone. John and I were physically and emotionally exhausted and actually went to sleep at about 8pm. John's mom called him at about 9:30pm and told him to not worry about the letter and that everything will work out. She told him that she would like us to come over on Friday for another visit before we left town. About 5 minutes after he hung up, she called my cell phone and told me not to worry about the letter and that she believed I was a special person. She wanted to be sure I joined John for the last visit on the next day. It ended well, but left some hurt in me.
Putting it lightly, it was an emotional last week in California.
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