eBook DAY THE LOVING STOPPED ePub

Your Book Revisited

(A "letter to the author" in reference to

"The Day the Loving Stopped" by Julie Autumn List)

Your book, which I originally discovered as an eighteen-year old in the fall of 1981, remains indelibly etched in my memory as the first book I read after going off to college. What a joy it was for me to discover the book and read about someone whom I could relate to. While reading your book this year at the age of thirty-nine, other poignant passages in your story caught my attention.

Enrolled at a school in the South as a college freshman, (I had moved from the D.C. area at the age of fifteen), I met very few people with divorced parents who understood my family dynamics. In my household, similar to yours, the child support/alimony check was always late. Like you at sixteen, I also had a difficult time with one of my father's girlfriends (who later became his second wife). One thing I learned from that experience was how not to act around the children of men whom I have spent time with. I do not try to force them talk to me if they do not want to, and make sure I am not taking any valuable time with their father away from them. My father also tried to back out on paying my college tuition. Our family dog, like yours, also passed away soon after I began college. You have cried at scenes of young girls with their fathers; I cried at the age of fourteen during a movie about William Allen White's daughter, Mary, entitled Mary White, knowing that I would never have much of a life with my father as a teenager. For many years my parents were also quite critical of each other.

As an older person, I have a greater appreciation for the act of forgiveness, and better understanding of the perceptions I held while growing up, which enable me to relate to excerpts from your book even more than I did as an eighteen year old. The way you forgave your father and came to the realization that you could not blame your parents for your well being as an adult, I highly commend. My father, I forgave also; age has done him wonders, and he has developed an amazing level of inner peace. Your experiences of being serious and shy when you were growing up, I relate to well. As a child and teenager, I was also extremely sad when people walked out of my life, and cried the last time I saw my best friend from junior high. She was moving to Brazil at the time and did not seem upset about it. Instead, she appeared accustomed to moving, having been a daughter of a diplomat, who relocated to different parts of the world with his family every four to five years. She told me to please not cry and promised to write (we maintained correspondence with each other until we were seniors in high school, in the good old "snail mail" days). Not too long ago I was touched by a scene from the movie Jerry Maguire. In the scene a boyfriend is preparing to leave a woman who is the mother of a little boy. As the boyfriend is about to announce his farewell, the little boy repeatedly says to him, "just go ahead and say goodbye." While watching the scene, I had the feeling that many father figures had walked out of the young boy's life. For the boy, farewells most likely had become too painful for him to handle, and he wanted to get the "good-byes" over with as quickly as possible.

What I noticed especially in your story this time, was the remarkable role your mother played. I am sure her role must have tremendously influenced the character development of you and your sister. Even though her marriage failed, she did not allow herself to fail as a parent.

I also understand your mother's idiosyncrasies when it comes to coping with the demands of everyday life. Like your mother, I am not much of a cook and must be extremely careful in order to avoid scorching anything I leave in the oven. The apartment I inhabit often resembles the possible effects of an interior tornado. My couch, which is meant to seat three people, often remains a "one-seater," as I save and stack back issues of newspapers and magazines on it along with piles of clothes needing to be put away in closets or drawers. I am also notorious for losing things. Such items include pens, pencils, scissors, nail clippers, and address books that somehow end up under couch cushions or lodged between them. I cannot allow myself to store anything in my car. Attempting to leave just one thing in the car, for me, simply verifies the slippery slope theory; sooner or later the color of the seats and floorboard will become completely concealed. Operating mechanical equipment remains an obstacle for me. Once I was trying to transcribe a taped interview for a class in ethnography. Instead of hitting the pause button so I could write down what the interviewee was saying, I occasionally hit the record button. Recently, I tried to program my VCR to record a television show from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. while I was at work, and came home at lunch time to discover that my VCR was still recording, because I had inadvertently set it to stop recording at 9 p.m. I try not to own too many white or light colored shirts since I am doomed to spill either coffee or Tabasco sauce on them. People have also criticized my mannerisms. My hands and arms frequently move when I am speaking, sometimes accompanied by a proliferation of decibels from my vocal chords. Similar to your mother appearing tense at times, I have been perceived as nervous. I like how you described your mother as "vivacious"; I explain to people that I am not nervous, just high energy. Like your mother not always finishing sentences, I often jump from subject to subject, not completing all the stories.

Your mother has an amazing level of unconditional love, which she was able to convey to people in spite of the emotional hardships she endured. I was touched by how she loved your older brothers and treated them as if they were her own children. By not hiding her crying from you, she showed you what is means to be human and have feelings. Her abundance of emotional availability allowed her to give you a tremendous amount of affection even when she was very sad. You mentioned the times she would let you come in her room, even though she had been crying, and affectionately hold you, and the time she held your hand after you found her behind the house, where you lived with your family, crying on her birthday. I also admire another time, when she was able to talk to you when you were crying and console you, even though at the time, she was very depressed herself. Her unconditional love shined through even when she was disappointed in you. In your teen years, she may have strongly disapproved of some of your behavior and stated it in writing, but she also let you know during those times in her letters that she loved you.

While you and your sister were growing up, your mother was a great role model, presenting you both with wonderful morals to live by. Her unconditional love taught you what true friendship is all about. I love that line in one of her letters to you as a young teenager where she said that she "will always be your friend when others change and withdraw." She was able to communicate with you as an equal while still guiding you as a parent. As an insightful person, she encouraged getting in touch and dealing with feelings by writing about them. I support her belief in the importance of having enough time alone, and have traveled by myself since the age of twenty-six. I traveled alone to New York City and explored it for the first time this year. Your mother taught you the importance of being part of a whole (with the family as an example), encouraging the values of loyalty and interdependence. Her beliefs in the significance of volunteer work and helping other people are quite admirable. I like how she believed in writing and sending financial support to underprivileged children, and had you and your sister support a child in the Philippines. I enjoyed baby sitting as a teenager and probably would have felt very rewarded by volunteering at a childcare center like you did as a young teen. The letter that your mother wrote to you while you were away at college, describing the abundance of your soul and how much she loves you is one of the most touching letters I have ever read.

Today, my parents are more civil toward another. They began communicating back in 1994 when my father split up with his second wife. Two years ago, my father, mother and brother were present at my Master of Liberal Studies graduation ceremony. It was the first time all four of us had been in one place in fifteen years. In the picture of the four of us together, I am the only one really smiling, everyone else looks a bit uncomfortable. The only other picture I have of the four of us is from 1966 and I had wanted a more up-to-date photograph. I remember the one from '66 being taken (I was three, my brother was an infant). For some reason I did not want to be in the picture, so my dad grabbed me, pulled me toward him and held on to me as my mother held my brother on her lap. I remember not wanting to be in the picture, I just do not remember why. When the shot was taken, my dress was hiked up with my underwear in full view as my father was pulling me toward him.

I fully enjoyed re-reading your book and being able to view it with a much wiser perspective than I had twenty years ago. I hope that you and your family are all doing well.

I new Julie as a teenager, when she was going through this period. Having gone through similer experiences myself, her beautiful and heartwrenching story touched me more than she will ever know. I have read this book so many times over the years the cover has long ago fallen off. I am ordering my second copy today!

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