By the Grace of God: Chapter 12

Vietnam broke me and I would have taken my life another day just to escape the pain of my memories

She was sitting at the kitchen table still, a picture of the two of them sitting on the grass in a park. It was summer, they were in shorts and laughing, carefree and in love.

We need to remind her of that love, Chappy.

Yes, she needs to remember how beautiful and liberating love can be. So she can find it again. His smile, loving and sad, showed his love for her.

She rubbed her finger across his face and, in a voice little louder than a whisper, she told me about that day in 1974.

“The closer I got to Reg’s place, the more nervous I was. There was no turning back. I loved him. I missed him. He needed to hear that. I didn’t think I would miss him as much as I did.

It was an easy decision when he proposed. My heart screamed yes, but my brain told him something different. If I had listened to my heart, my head wouldn’t have killed the man I loved.”

The line went quiet as she reflected, the wound as raw as it was that day forty-five years before. I waited for her to gather her courage to face what she found at Chappy’s house for the first time in years.

“The thought of Reg’s arms wrapped around me thrilled me, although I was expecting a fight first. It was the making up afterward that made me smile as the cab wound its way through Everett. Being strong, independent people, we challenged one another to be the best that we could be, which often meant we argued, or sounded like we were. We also made up, which was the best part. Reg made my life worth living. It took me a long time to love someone else the way I loved Reg, but it wasn’t the same. I always felt like I cheated my husband because I never loved him as much as I loved Reg. He never replaced Reg in my heart. “

She hiccoughed to a stop and tried to catch her breath. I could feel how difficult this process was for her.

“Debbie, I thank you for speaking with me tonight. I can hear how difficult this has been for you, but I know how healing it will be, too.”

Lines around her mouth showed the life she led, but her memories told the tale of a young woman who stopped living far too young.

“Thank you, Sarah. That means a lot. It has been difficult, but I have loved talking of him and our relationship. When the cab dropped me off at Reg’s house, the cheerful pinks, jaunty purples and bright yellows of the garden we planted together rebuked me for staying away so long. It was just past 6pm on Tuesday, August 6, 1974. To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was a day that will live in infamy. I will never forget that day, how my life blew to pieces in a heartbeat.”

Debbie’s voice broke. Still sitting at her kitchen table, her memories took both of us back to stand in front of Reg’s little bungalow. I saw the pain in her words reflected to me from Chappy’s eyes.

“That day is a nightmare for me every year and I spend it in solitude, grieving his loss in my life. I still wonder about the life we missed out on living together.”

“This year may be different for you.” Hope blossomed as we talked, each of them one step closer to true healing with every word.

“Maybe it will.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe it’ll just be a different difficult.” She chuckled to herself. “Reg didn’t give himself enough credit. He did an apprenticeship with a local mechanic, which is why he applied to Boeing as an aircraft mechanic’s apprentice. He knew the pay wasn’t great, but he had customers he could do repairs for on the side. It was a good opportunity. Then they blew him out. I studied electrical engineering at Everett. Their engineering department was a well-known and reputable one and I was among the first women to attend, and graduate, from their engineering program. Reg was so proud of me for getting into that field, and he was a big help, too. He was brilliant, far more intelligent than anyone ever gave him credit for, and should have enrolled along with me. He could do my work better than I could and had never attended a lecture. I encouraged him to enrol, and I think he would have. If I hadn’t left him the way I did, he would have gotten his engineering papers, too. The outcome of that fateful summer would have been far different, if only I never left.”

Oh, Chappy, her guilt and regret have been holding her back all these years. Her poor heart, your poor heart, I wish things turned out happier.

They didn’t, now we need to show her she can still turn them around for her and her family.

A slight pause turned into my wondering if she was still on the line. She spoke as I took a breath to confirm she was still with me.

“I knocked on the front door of his bungalow. His car was in the driveway so I figured he was home. I worried when he didn’t come to the door. There was no movement in the house. After waiting for what seemed like forever, but was less than five minutes, I dug out the house key I didn’t give back when I left and let myself in. The smell was overwhelming. It hit me as soon as I opened the door that something was wrong.”

Debbie’s sobs caught in her throat. I couldn’t comfort her because my own emotions were overwhelming me as I listened to her story.

She could have saved you if she had come home three days earlier.

The sadness in Chappy’s eyes, the reality of his fate, gave me a moment’s pause. It was the break she needed to keep going.

“The worst part of it all, Sarah, is that I thought about going home, to Everett, the previous week. My heart told me to go home and be with Reg, my mind, and mother, persuaded me to wait until I was sure. Had I gone home then, he would have been alive when I got there. I killed the man I loved because I was too damn scared to follow my heart.”

A flash of anger replaced the sadness in Chappy’s eyes, then resignation and then defeat.

No! You have to tell her she did not kill me. Her leaving influenced my decision to take my life, but it wasn’t the only factor. If she had come back earlier. If she had never left. I’m not sure it would have mattered. Vietnam broke me and I would have taken my life another day just to escape the pain of my memories. Memories I would never have shared with her and she would never have understood. I would have taken my life and she would have had to rely on the memories we made together to carry her through after my death, in 1974 or 1984. My death is on me. It was not her fault I killed myself that day. It was mine. The choice to commit suicide, the decision to die, the actions that ended my life, they were all up to me.

A physical change came over Chappy as he spoke. The realization that he, and he alone, shouldered the blame for his death was a pivotal step in his healing.

It may change nothing Chappy. She has been carrying that guilt for over forty years, it will take more than words from a medium to convince her she is not to blame.

We both knew I was right, but his love for her prevailed.

Try to convince her, Sarah. I need you to make her see sense. She needs to live her life. She is choosing to not live her life, as I chose not to live mine, but she is still alive.

Nodding, I composed a reply to Debbie.

Continue reading Debbie and Chappy’s inspiring story with By the Grace of God: Chapter 13 here:

To start at the beginning, see By the Grace of God: Chapter 1 here: