WhatGoesAroundComesAround_DavisRob

R.D. Story Number Two (Failure)
If I had to choose a personal example of failure or disappointment in
myself, I’d have to say it was the way I handled my first marriage and
the subsequent effect on my first child, Nan. I am very grateful that in
spite of all that transpired over the years, she remains an important
presence in my life. Moreover, her two sons Bryan and Joshua and
Bryan’s son, Jameson are absolute treasures!
This is not to say that the marriage should have or could have lasted any
longer than the six years it did. Had I been more mature, however. Had
I been less selfish. Might I have been able to do a better job of
protecting her from the ravages of the war that her mother and I
engaged in? Wudda, cudda, shudda. Well, I wasn’t and didn’t. As a
result, all the participants suffered, but none so more than Nan.
She was born on March 8, 1965, three months before my twentieth
birthday. My mother drove to our upstate college town apartment from
Long Island, where I had grown up. She came to be present at the
hospital and to help out for a few days, as I was taking six courses that
semester and had four exams the day Nan was born.
Nan’s mother and I had discovered that she was pregnant during the
summer after my freshman year. We were gripped by panic initially, but
ultimately decided to get married, stick together and have our child. At
the time, there was really not all that much in the way of choice. Though
the world would change dramatically in the next ten years, 1965 was
still much the way it had always been. And unlike today, appearances
mattered a lot. Unless you were really “far out,” you just did not live
together unless you were married. Having a baby absolutely required
getting married and at our socio-economic level, getting an abortion