Looking up my Past

 Lena and Dan Barron were friends of my father’s from Levi’s.  They got along well.  They were from Virginia, so They knew each other’s territory.  Dan had been a football coach at William and Mary, but he slept with a friend’s wife, one who had two little children, so he messed up his career, and ruined the wife’s.  Lena was cast out and not allowed any visitation.  When Lena and Dan married, they moved across the country, and Dan became a part of Levi’s.  We knew none of this for years, only that they had two boys, the older of whom was a type one diabetic.  My mother and Lena worked in a shop in San Francisco one day a week, selling things for diabetic camp.  My mother, as usual, was very interested in kids.  She adored both boys, and as they were a bit younger, she made the most of it.  It was after both boys had grown up that Lena confided that she’s been married before, and had not seen her older two children, a girl and a boy, for many years, but now that they were older, she shared her heartbreak, and tried to make sense of her great loss.  This was after the older boy died at 21, having had a diabetic stroke that claimed his life, as he slumped behind the wheel, unnoticed.  It was heartbreaking, and the younger boy was left without a sibling.  My mother was distraught.  But eventually, the grown kids wanted to see their mother, and she was able to reconnect with both.  My mother was a magnet for women with sad stories.  

When they both died, my parents were no longer alive.  I was glad to hear it.  But their story was part of a tale that my mother had to bear.

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