Regarding Beauregard

Psst… Yeah, you! Remember me? Your blog?

I'm the blog that you vowed you'd write and post to every week. Or at the very least, every month? Doesn't ring a bell, huh?

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My blog reminds me of my garden, which I am looking at right now from my window. Life happens, I become busy or otherwise preoccupied and it shows signs that it will shrivel and die without my immediate attention.

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I have an hour or so before I pack up and travel to Chicago for a three-day visit. Hmm, what should I write about? Let's see, it's Father's Day. Personally, I have nothing to draw from there, as my own father left my life when I was but a tot. I don't feel scarred from the event as I was too young to remember much. Mom remarried a few years later and my step-father was a nice man.

Borrringgg...

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As I sit gazing at weeds that I'm just itching to pluck, I remember Beauregard...

But, that's the way Beau is. I won't see nor hear from or about him in years when suddenly he'll pop up either in person or in my thoughts. Most recently I saw him a year ago last November when he came to my older sister's funeral...

A group of us were standing amongst the timber on the woodsy side of the graveyard, waiting for the arrival of the guy who was going to preside over the burial service, when Beau pulled up in a beat up minivan. Out piled five adults and a little kid, about four years old. Beau and his entourage ambled up the slight incline, greeting folks as they made their way toward me.

Beau is much taller than me, so when he approached, he had to stoop down to kiss my cheek, where he said softly near my ear, "Hey, it's good to see you." Then aloud, "You remember my daughter, T*****? This is her husband, A****** and their son, W******. And you know the boys," as he gestured to his two, now grown, sons.

Over the years I'd seen Beau's children only periodically, like when they were just babies, then when they were toddlers, next when they were preteens. Here they were standing before me as adults.

I swallowed, smiled at Beau and said, "Congratulations, Grandpa!" and turned to chat a bit with his offspring when the presider arrived and herded us together to begin the service.

"Aren't you freezing?" I asked him after the ceremony, as he stood in the cold November Wisconsin air, hatless and wearing a only a shirt, sweater, slacks and, of course socks and shoes. He laughed, "You forget I work in a meat cooler all day long. I'm impervious to cold." The service ended, but he couldn't stay for the meal afterward, "Gotta get the kids back to their homes."

Beauregard is a dozen years younger than me. His mother and my mother were as "thick as thieves" as children and remained friends as adults as they both happened to relocate in Chicago. Beau grew up in a slightly seedier side of the Uptown neighborhood where we both lived. He attended a nearby public school, while I went to a Catholic school in the nicer adjoining neighborhood of Edgewater.

I saw him a lot when he was in grammar school, but not much in his high school years, as I had married by then and moved away from the old neighborhood. Every now and then I'd ask my mom how he was doing. He was a good kid and I don't remember him ever being a bit of trouble for his mother. When Beau was a junior in high school he met a girl and they began to keep regular company. By his senior year she was pregnant. After graduation they married and took a small, one-bedroom apartment not too far from his mother's place. Beau began working for a painting contractor and his wife stayed home to raise their daughter, and soon-to-come son. She was pregnant with a third child when Beau came home one day to find his wife doing drugs with Beau's then friend, Larry.

I heard most of this second-hand through my mom, apparently they tried to work on the health of their relationship and family, but after some attempts to get her act together and stay clean, Beau realized his wife was pretty much a hopeless case. So one day, with no protest from their mother, he packed up the two preschoolers and the infant son, who, as it turned out, was Larry's child. He moved them lock, stock and barrel to a small midwestern town just over 300 miles away, population 100,000. He didn't know anyone in the new town, but had visited there once as a child and he remembered thinking then that it seemed like "a wholesome place to grow up." My mother saw him before he moved and he told her, "As far as I can see, there is nothing good that can come from keeping these kids in Chicago."

In the new town he rented a house, got a job at a local meat packing plant and enrolled the kids in preschool/daycare. After they moved, I didn't see Beau again until he brought his now preteen children to my mother's funeral. But God, they were beautiful, well dressed, well-mannered, gorgeous little angels!

He told me then, that on occasion, he'd brought the kids to the city to visit their mother, but that she continued to struggle with substance abuse issues. The children were doing well in their small town school, and at the time, his daughter was soon to begin high school. We asked him if there were any of my mother's personal effects that would be of use to him or the kids.

"Well, the kids could use a computer for their school work."
"Done! It's theirs. Say, do you need any dishes or kitchen equipment?"
"I don't know, let's ask the kids, they're the ones that have to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen. Hey, guys, do you want anymore pots and pans to clean?"
The children laughed and, in unison, shook their heads.

At that moment I realized that he was one of the greatest men and fathers that I would ever know.

When my older sister was diagnosed with stage-four cancer, Beau called to ask about her. Again it had been years since I'd heard from or about him. As we chatted he updated me on his now grown children. I started to cry. 

He reassured me that there was still hope for my sister. "I'm not crying about her," I said, "I'm crying tears of joy for what you did for those kids of yours. You are amazing. I have the greatest respect for you and I want you to know that I am proud to know you."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Now where did that come from? I'm quite taken aback. But, thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me."

Happy Fathers Day, Beauregard!!!