| Biographical Non-Fiction posted November 18, 2021 | Chapters: |
...140 141 -142- 144... 
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Tensions are too high and among family members.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Something's Got to Give
by BethShelby
| Background This book begins in 1954 when Beth meets Evan and began to date. It is now 1994 and deals with all members of the Shelby family. |
For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.
The months following Connie’s return from being a rock-climbing instructor and girl’s counselor at a Christian summer camp turned out to be a stressful time for our entire family. Both Christi and Connie were living at home again. Both girls were past the age of having their parents control their actions, and despite the fact that neither of them were contributing financially, they felt we shouldn’t interfere with their lives. However, they were living under our roof, and their actions impacted our peace of mind. Connie was not happy to be home. If she could have afforded it, she would have preferred her own apartment. Christi liked the fact that she was saving on rent. She also expected us to continue allowing her to do massages in one of our spare rooms.
During the time Don and I spent at Mom and Dad’s place, and while Connie was visiting Charlie's family, I learned some disturbing things about our children I’d not known before. I imagine most siblings share things that their parents may never be privy to. However, Don and I had always had a good relationship and had shared many deep conversations over the years. Since he was married now and had lived away from home a few years, our chances to talk had been limited. One night he couldn’t sleep and came into my room to talk. It was true confession time. He not only shared everything he’d ever done behind our backs, but also everything he knew about, which his sisters had kept from us as well. Before revealing all this, he'd gotten my promise to listen without being judgmental and to keep it just between us. It was both enlightening and disturbing to find our children had more secrets than we could have imagined. I knew our child rearing skills were imperfect, but I had assumed we had done a passable job of raising them to be good people.
I didn’t tell you when I got back home, because I had to honor my promise to Don. Besides, I didn’t know how you might react to learning that on one of Connie’s many trips to Georgia with friends, she’d had to rouse Don at two in the morning to bail her out of jail. She and the young man she was traveling with were drinking and driving. She was a minor at the time, so hopefully her record was expunged when she turned eighteen. She’d also helped a friend pay for an abortion. We had allowed Connie much more freedom than we had the older children. Because of her volatile nature, we'd been afraid if we were too strict, we might lose her. As a result, Connie had gotten away with more than the others. He questioned her morals as well as Christi’s. He admitted that he and Kimberly had gotten involved with drugs and drinking too. Carol was the only one of the four who still remained a saint. I'm finally sharing things which might have raised your blood pressure earlier. Be thankful, you didn't have to hear about them back then.
*****
On returning to Chattanooga, Connie was at loose ends. J.P., who had suffered through her time at camp and had been so anxious for her return, found her changed. She constantly picked fights with him and attempted to break off their friendship. She went out with other male and female friends, but avoided doing things with him. At night, she ran our phone bill into the triple digits, talking to Charlie for hours. She begged him to move to Chattanooga, but he was attending Mississippi Southern in Hattiesburg. He didn’t mind a long-distance relationship, but Connie didn’t feel she could handle one. Charlie wrote her interesting letters which she let me read. I was surprised that he seemed deep and philosophical.
Connie searched for work and was eventually offered a job at a local climbing wall in Chattanooga. Her first day on the job, she learned what had been easy with children, was a whole different story when it came to holding the ropes for a large man, climbing the high concrete wall on one of the city's bridges. She dropped a very heavy man. He wasn’t badly injured, but she was terrified he might sue. The man who hired her still wanted her back, but Connie was embarrassed and refused to return. She went out of town and avoided his phone calls.
Carol was also having a bad time, because although she loved the garage apartment she was living in with her friend, Pam decided she’d made a mistake by having Carol move in. She wanted the apartment just to herself. Her estranged husband was keeping her upset by seeing another woman, and Pam was giving Carol the cold shoulder. They were barely speaking. Carol had paid for four months, and she hoped to be able to stay that long. She was still seeing her friend, Neil, and had made a second trip to Chicago with him. Glen called her several times and wanted to remain friends. He wanted to talk about his upcoming wedding, but Carol didn’t want to hear about it. She still loved Glen’s family and was continuing to have a good relationship with her former in-laws.
Don had made a mistake by giving up the construction job he had while waiting to pass the boards. Kimberly resented that she was pregnant and had to pull most of the financial weight while Don remodeled their house and worked odd jobs. They finally realized they had gotten themselves into a horrible financial crisis, and it was causing a lot of verbal fights. Kimberly’s mother, Jane, got involved and said some hurtful things to me about Don. She tried to cause problems between Kimberly and me, by telling her I said she was fat. I had said nothing remotely like that, but I’d learned Jane could be a troublemaker, and I suspected she had some severe emotional problems of her own she was dealing with. Don was depressed and needed money fast. You had to get into our savings and give them $3,000, which past experience told us was a loan they would never repay.
Christi was still dating many different men. One of them, named Matt, was a member of our church and a decent person. He was divorced and had custody of his two small children. I often kept the children while they were out. She was still finding fault with all her guys. Christi was doing quite a bit of singing. She sang at several weddings and went to places with karaoke. She and her friend, Jack, also sang at a restaurant sometimes for tips. She still had her receptionist job, but after staying out late most nights, she wasn’t getting enough sleep to function. At one point, she fell asleep on the toilet and banged her head against the wall, which caused a huge bruise.
I was working temp jobs. Most lasted a few days to a week. At one point, I contracted a severe cold and was sick a few days. You had been keeping busy outside, pouring a concrete slab and moving dirt from the storm shelter you had dug. Also, you had a bumper crop of vegetables ready to harvest in your garden. Unfortunately, you got my cold, and it turned into bronchitis. The medicine you took to clear it up caused an infection in your intestinal tract. You were seriously ill for the entire month of August. You kept trying to go outside and work, but every time you did you got worse. Fever and night sweats were so bad, you often had to change clothes in the middle of the night, and your blood pressure was out of sight as well. It was early September when we changed doctors and he put you on some medicine that helped.
Things going on in all of our lives had left us all on edge, and tempers flared. We were at a loss to know how to deal with the
tension, but we were aware that something had to give.
Evan is 65 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 56 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working temporary jobs.
Carol is 32, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.
Don is a twin. He is 30, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College, waiting to pass the boards.
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly Dye is Don’s wife. She is a nurse working in Atlanta. She is pregnant with their first child.
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-one. She will be a junior in college.
J.P. is Connie's current boyfriend. Charlie is a new boy Connie's met at camp.
Matt, among others, is someone Christi is dating. Jack is a friend and singing partner.
Jane is Kimberly's mother.
The months following Connie’s return from being a rock-climbing instructor and girl’s counselor at a Christian summer camp turned out to be a stressful time for our entire family. Both Christi and Connie were living at home again. Both girls were past the age of having their parents control their actions, and despite the fact that neither of them were contributing financially, they felt we shouldn’t interfere with their lives. However, they were living under our roof, and their actions impacted our peace of mind. Connie was not happy to be home. If she could have afforded it, she would have preferred her own apartment. Christi liked the fact that she was saving on rent. She also expected us to continue allowing her to do massages in one of our spare rooms.
During the time Don and I spent at Mom and Dad’s place, and while Connie was visiting Charlie's family, I learned some disturbing things about our children I’d not known before. I imagine most siblings share things that their parents may never be privy to. However, Don and I had always had a good relationship and had shared many deep conversations over the years. Since he was married now and had lived away from home a few years, our chances to talk had been limited. One night he couldn’t sleep and came into my room to talk. It was true confession time. He not only shared everything he’d ever done behind our backs, but also everything he knew about, which his sisters had kept from us as well. Before revealing all this, he'd gotten my promise to listen without being judgmental and to keep it just between us. It was both enlightening and disturbing to find our children had more secrets than we could have imagined. I knew our child rearing skills were imperfect, but I had assumed we had done a passable job of raising them to be good people.
I didn’t tell you when I got back home, because I had to honor my promise to Don. Besides, I didn’t know how you might react to learning that on one of Connie’s many trips to Georgia with friends, she’d had to rouse Don at two in the morning to bail her out of jail. She and the young man she was traveling with were drinking and driving. She was a minor at the time, so hopefully her record was expunged when she turned eighteen. She’d also helped a friend pay for an abortion. We had allowed Connie much more freedom than we had the older children. Because of her volatile nature, we'd been afraid if we were too strict, we might lose her. As a result, Connie had gotten away with more than the others. He questioned her morals as well as Christi’s. He admitted that he and Kimberly had gotten involved with drugs and drinking too. Carol was the only one of the four who still remained a saint. I'm finally sharing things which might have raised your blood pressure earlier. Be thankful, you didn't have to hear about them back then.
*****
On returning to Chattanooga, Connie was at loose ends. J.P., who had suffered through her time at camp and had been so anxious for her return, found her changed. She constantly picked fights with him and attempted to break off their friendship. She went out with other male and female friends, but avoided doing things with him. At night, she ran our phone bill into the triple digits, talking to Charlie for hours. She begged him to move to Chattanooga, but he was attending Mississippi Southern in Hattiesburg. He didn’t mind a long-distance relationship, but Connie didn’t feel she could handle one. Charlie wrote her interesting letters which she let me read. I was surprised that he seemed deep and philosophical.
Connie searched for work and was eventually offered a job at a local climbing wall in Chattanooga. Her first day on the job, she learned what had been easy with children, was a whole different story when it came to holding the ropes for a large man, climbing the high concrete wall on one of the city's bridges. She dropped a very heavy man. He wasn’t badly injured, but she was terrified he might sue. The man who hired her still wanted her back, but Connie was embarrassed and refused to return. She went out of town and avoided his phone calls.
Carol was also having a bad time, because although she loved the garage apartment she was living in with her friend, Pam decided she’d made a mistake by having Carol move in. She wanted the apartment just to herself. Her estranged husband was keeping her upset by seeing another woman, and Pam was giving Carol the cold shoulder. They were barely speaking. Carol had paid for four months, and she hoped to be able to stay that long. She was still seeing her friend, Neil, and had made a second trip to Chicago with him. Glen called her several times and wanted to remain friends. He wanted to talk about his upcoming wedding, but Carol didn’t want to hear about it. She still loved Glen’s family and was continuing to have a good relationship with her former in-laws.
Don had made a mistake by giving up the construction job he had while waiting to pass the boards. Kimberly resented that she was pregnant and had to pull most of the financial weight while Don remodeled their house and worked odd jobs. They finally realized they had gotten themselves into a horrible financial crisis, and it was causing a lot of verbal fights. Kimberly’s mother, Jane, got involved and said some hurtful things to me about Don. She tried to cause problems between Kimberly and me, by telling her I said she was fat. I had said nothing remotely like that, but I’d learned Jane could be a troublemaker, and I suspected she had some severe emotional problems of her own she was dealing with. Don was depressed and needed money fast. You had to get into our savings and give them $3,000, which past experience told us was a loan they would never repay.
Christi was still dating many different men. One of them, named Matt, was a member of our church and a decent person. He was divorced and had custody of his two small children. I often kept the children while they were out. She was still finding fault with all her guys. Christi was doing quite a bit of singing. She sang at several weddings and went to places with karaoke. She and her friend, Jack, also sang at a restaurant sometimes for tips. She still had her receptionist job, but after staying out late most nights, she wasn’t getting enough sleep to function. At one point, she fell asleep on the toilet and banged her head against the wall, which caused a huge bruise.
I was working temp jobs. Most lasted a few days to a week. At one point, I contracted a severe cold and was sick a few days. You had been keeping busy outside, pouring a concrete slab and moving dirt from the storm shelter you had dug. Also, you had a bumper crop of vegetables ready to harvest in your garden. Unfortunately, you got my cold, and it turned into bronchitis. The medicine you took to clear it up caused an infection in your intestinal tract. You were seriously ill for the entire month of August. You kept trying to go outside and work, but every time you did you got worse. Fever and night sweats were so bad, you often had to change clothes in the middle of the night, and your blood pressure was out of sight as well. It was early September when we changed doctors and he put you on some medicine that helped.
Things going on in all of our lives had left us all on edge, and tempers flared. We were at a loss to know how to deal with the
tension, but we were aware that something had to give.
Evan is 65 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
Beth is 56 and has had a variety of jobs. She is presently working temporary jobs.
Carol is 32, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.
Don is a twin. He is 30, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College, waiting to pass the boards.
Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
Kimberly Dye is Don’s wife. She is a nurse working in Atlanta. She is pregnant with their first child.
Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-one. She will be a junior in college.
J.P. is Connie's current boyfriend. Charlie is a new boy Connie's met at camp.
Matt, among others, is someone Christi is dating. Jack is a friend and singing partner.
Jane is Kimberly's mother.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband, Evan, as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents.
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