Eric Holen

Today, Yvette, her mom and I spent the day hunting down and buying school supplies for one of Yvette’s co-workers. It was interesting for me on two levels. First, last year I spent a day with two young girls getting them school supplies while their mom was away on a trip and their dad was laid up at home due to a cardiac condition. Second, it reminded me of the financial struggles I went through during my first marriage.

Yvette had found out that one of her co-workers, a mother of two, was depressed because she didn’t know how she could afford school supplies for her two children. Yvette took it upon herself that she and I would purchase most of the school supplies for the two children. I didn’t have any augments since we do not have children of our own and after having bought (and reimbursed for) school supplies the previous year, I know how quickly they could add up.

I remember the financial struggles I went through during my first marriage. At that time, our local supermarket would not run your credit card unless you charged more than $25. So my then wife and I would make several passes through the supermarket charging just under the limit to ensure that we had food to feed ourselves and our daughter Megan.

While I have some of the worst buyer’s remorse, I did not have any problems spending money on school supplies. Even Yvette’s mom jumped in and bought some supplies on her limited budget. It was nice to be able to give back and give thanks for what we have been blessed with.

On Monday, we sold Megan’s bedroom furniture to a family with a little girl.  Megan is my daughter, who I haven’t seen in almost 14 years except for her pictures on MySpace.

Yvette and I originally bought the furniture in early 1996 when Megan was 4 years old, anticipating that she would visit us occasionally when her and her mother moved back into town with her new dad.  Unfortunately, while I got to see Megan twice that year, I didn’t bring her to our home and she never used the furniture.

Over the years, the furniture provided for a little used guest room and then an even less used backup guest room.  Yvette had taken to storing her collection of Precious Moments figurines and collectables on the hutch and dressers.

The decision to sell it has been a few months coming.  After Christmas, Yvette and I started our annual cleanup and finalized our decision to sell the furniture.  We listed the furniture on Craig’s List and after several inquiries and two viewings, it’s gone.

Yvette was concerned that my selling the furniture would bring up some issues for me, but it didn’t.  What surprised me were my remembrances, not of Megan, but how the furniture had been a staple of Yvette’s and my relationship over the years.

As I mentioned, we bought the furniture in 1996.  Yvette and I were living together, but I had not yet proposed to her.  At the time, we were living in a two bedroom apartment.  I had to move my computer desk out of the second bedroom and into ours to make room for Megan’s bedroom set.  The bedroom set followed us from the two bedroom apartment, to our mobile home.  Then we moved to Austin and the bedroom set followed us to another two bedroom apartment, then our mobile home, which we had relocated from El Paso, and finally into our home that Yvette and I share today.

When the furniture walked out the door on Monday and the bedroom stood empty, a couple of things occurred to me.

• The bedroom set was our first furniture and big purchase together.  Even though we were not married, Yvette and I discussed the decision before I made the purchase.  Since then, we have always discussed and gotten consensus before moving forward on a big purchases.
• It was the third oldest piece of furniture or set in our home.  The only pieces that are older are my heavy duty television stand, which I bought in 1989 and my dining room set, which I bought in 1990.
• In all that time, I don’t think that I ever slept in the bed for even one night.  However, our moms, a couple of Yvette’s cousins, a couple of my sisters, and a niece have used the bed.
• Selling the children’s bedroom set reinforced that Yvette and I are not having children, although we had known this for a long time.  We used to call the room “the nursery”, but over the years we began calling it “The Precious Moments” room.  Since we love babysitting, we will need to come up with a temporary bed for those times when we get to keep “our kids” overnight.
• Finally, it’s the first time that we have had an empty room in 14 years and we are not quite sure what we’re going to do with it.

Yvette and I will always have a place in our minds and hearts for Megan; however, if she visits us someday, we may just not have a place for her to lay her head.

Tonight, I created a MySpace page in large part so that I could reach out to Megan.  For those of you that have been following my posts, I found Megan and her mom, my ex-wife, on MySpace in April.  After looking for Megan for the last several years, it took me a few weeks after finding her to build up the courage to contact her.

After creating the webpage, I added a couple of friends as a test.  MySpace only gives you 150 characters to introduce yourself.  How do you tell your daughter, who you haven’t seen in 11 years, who you are, and that you love and miss her?

I took a chance that she would know my name and wrote simply that I loved her and that I had been looking for her.

A very nervous hour went by.  I had no idea when or even if she would respond.  Then . . .  

hi..
thank you for finding me.♥

how have you been?

I responded back in a long rambling email sharing some remembrances from when she was a child and why I started looking for her.  Then I cried.

This past Wednesday, Yvette and I attended our weekly “Connection” church group. It had been at least a month since I last attended and I was excited to be there. It was a full house; however, I was the only male present other than some kids. The topic for the meeting was “vision” and God’s vision for us and our vision of ourselves and our life. After the meeting, I got to thinking about the topic. My life is going very well, maybe too well and I realized that because of that, I lacked vision in several areas. Without a vision, I might overlook and fail to grow certain areas of my life.

For example, Yvette and I just celebrated 11 wonderful years of marriage, yet I do not have a vision of what the next few years will bring in our relationship. One of the discussion topics was that a vision cannot be general. For example, I cannot just see myself being married to Yvette in 5 or 10 years. I need to see how we will continue to grow our marriage and lives together. I do have a vision that Yvette and I will be debt free, except for the house and car, by June 2011. That came from a sermon last June when they handed out paper credit cards and challenged everyone to set a goal. I have carried mine, tattered and all, with “Debt Free June 2011” written on the back since that day. Every time Yvette and I make a purchase, I try to keep that vision in mind.

I reached out to Megan, my daughter, yet I do not have a vision for what I our relationship to be like. This scares me because I love and miss her, but I know that time and distance will have a bearing on what happens.

I see myself going back to school, Texas State specifically, in September to begin my Master’s degree. That vision drives me to study for my GRE. Now, this leads to the problem where I need to translate my vision into action. I have the drive to study, yet I do not do it as often as I should.

I enjoy and am very comfortable in my current job. The problem is that I see myself in the same position 5 years from now. On the other hand, I do have a vision for my staff and where I would like to see them grow in the next five year. Here is the conflicting problem. I am growing them to fill my position, the one I still see myself in.

I do see myself responding more with the Kyle Volunteer Fire Department, but I do not see an operational officer position in my future. Yvette asks me about it sometimes. My response to her is that there is a difference running into a fire versus sending someone else into a fire or another dangerous situation.

Finally, I have a vision that God wants me to do more with the church. My hesitation is that I don’t have a direction. I also can’t see myself being able to stand side-by-side with the other men, non-pastors, that I have been looking up to in the church; Raul and Alex. My pastors have talked about not having to be a perfect person, but I sure would like to do better.

Two days ago, I wrote about Megan, my daughter who I has last seen more than 12 years ago.  Today, after even more digging I finally found a picture on one of her mom’s webpages with Megan’s name.  Then, using the picture as a guide, I was able to pull up three more pictures of her.

Of the four pictures that I found, this one is my favorite because of her smile.  According to the original caption, she is in school. 

Below, I included a picture that I took for her second birthday.  The other picture is of her asleep on my couch on the night before she and her mom left for Germany.

The sleeping picture brings back memories.  It was probably the second most difficult day of my life as it related to Megan.  The most difficult day was the morning after our marriage ended and Dawn and Megan were gone.  That was the first day that I had to go to work without holding and kissing my daughter goodbye.  That morning, and the next, I got sick before leaving the house just by looking at her empty crib.

During our separation and after the divorce, we shared Megan quite a bit.  I use to correct Dawn when she would call me on one of her days and ask me if I could “babysit”.  I  would remind her that dads do not babysit, they watch over and care for their child.  Megan would sometimes cry when I would drop her off or Dawn picked her up, because I could be the pushover dad while Dawn had to the mom. 

Seeing her picture today helps confirm that Megan really is out there.  It is a little bittersweat though.  While I knew she had grown up, I always remembered her as my little Megan.  The picture, although beautiful, confirms how much time has past.  I will always love Megan though and would be there if she ever needed me.