An Incredible Journey: Chapter 10

A Memoir of Healing and Redemption

By Michael Quinn (National Park Service) - Flickr, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22818673

This chapter takes us back to early days, when I was 19 and a brand new Christian. It is interwoven with the timeline of my life that you have already read, because hey! life doesn’t occur in neat episodes. I have also included another person’s commentary, who plays a significant role, for purposes of depth and truth.

When I was 19, I told God what I would like in a husband. I shot him a prayer request that might as well have been a memorandum spelling out all the actionable items. He should be taller than me, have dark hair, be intelligent, have integrity, share my faith, and not be intimidated by my intelligence. I then graciously added a final clause to my audacious prayer, “And please, work on my faults while I am waiting so that I will be ready for him.”

God heard me. Too bad I didn’t add a timetable.

Years passed. I finished college and taught high school. I was then in California and feeling depressed because I still had no boyfriend, no prospects. I realized I was 26. I said, “Why is this taking so long? It has been 7 years!”

I distinctly heard “And it will be another 7 years.”

What?! I was not happy, to put it mildly!

Time passed. My father was diagnosed with cancer. I returned from a trip to visit him, and I was at home sitting on my bed, crying. Graduate school was a struggle, I had no friends, aaaaaand… suddenly I remembered my prayer, which of course I have forgotten until now. How long has it been? I was 26 years old. I was now 33. It had been 7 years!

I said, "All right God. Time’s up. It has been 7 plus 7 years since the last time and if you don’t do something RIGHT NOW, I will become a nun!”

Two or three seconds later the phone rang, and on the other end was Pat. We had met once at a social event sponsored by a singles group. We didn’t know each other. He was calling to see if I wanted to go on a ski trip with the singles group. He had no idea what he had triggered and I didn’t tell him (Are you kidding? It would have freaked out any normal man. It freaked me out!) We talked for hours. This was December 1986.

We went on our first date that next weekend. He fit all my criteria to a T. He was Catholic. I was a Catholic –I had converted three years before. This was the reason we met in the first place. It was a Catholic singles group. God took me up on my final clause in the “My future husband” memorandum of 14 years ago and prepared me. But I did not jump to conclusions. He must check out in general–he must be of sound mind, good character, good family, and good teeth. He should be tall, have dark hair, and be able to respect me and I, him. Well, five out of seven. Not bad! Most essentially–I had to love him and he had to love me. 

We dated for two years. Most of our dates involved food. I gained twenty pounds. We had so much in common, I thought, and we never ceased to have things to talk about. There was a strong physical attraction also. But I kept having to push Pat into the next step. I asked to meet his parents after we had been dating for one and a half years. It had not occurred to him as something that should be done.

I was about one year from finishing my Ph.D. It was time for me to begin looking for a postdoctoral position somewhere. (This is the third intertwined story I have not yet told.) There were three possibilities: Fred Hutchinson Research Institute in Seattle, Yale University, or Harvard. I asked Pat if he had anything to say about where I went. He said to do whatever was best for me. So I chose Harvard.

The summer of 1988 we struggled with the Question: Do we want to get married? Rephrase that: Did Pat want to get married? I knew I wanted Pat. Pat was slow to commit.

 In late August in 1988, he went on a three-week trip to Germany. He told me before he left that he would decide while he was gone.

While Pat was away, my father died. I flew down to help my mother with arrangements. Pat returned on September 9th and I was in Florida. What was to be three weeks waiting for his decision was stretched to five when my mother got sick with an illness brought on by my father’s death. I remained with her until she was better. I then had to drive my father’s car, which he left to me, up to Washington D.C. for his interment.  I had not seen Pat for five weeks, and he wouldn’t tell me his decision over the phone. 

I met Pat at Washington National Airport. He didn’t say anything about his decision. This was highly unfair! I was deep in grief and this on top of everything else was driving me crazy. He said he wanted to tell me in person. Well, here I was, and nothing! Nada! Nichts! I didn’t need whatever game Pat was playing. But he agreed to drive the car across the country with me, which kept us in contact, and allowed him to think at the same time. I also plotted what I would do if he ever did propose.

[Pat: I didn’t want to interfere with the family’s time of grief, either in time or in space, with a marriage proposal. The family needed to focus on the loss of Ann’s father and on each other. So I waited. I didn’t tell Ann my reasoning because that would have given away the game.]

My father was interred at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. It was a beautiful ceremony. The next day we began our trip back to Seattle.

We traveled through Tennessee to Little Rock, Arkansas. From Arkansas we drove west to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Mexican food was amazing, but I was still brooding over my many wrongs. Was he going to make me wait all the way to Seattle before he told me what he had decided? I felt like a fool for not telling him to get lost. But I didn’t want to do that.

Next was the Grand Canyon. I always wanted to see it, so Pat incorporated a stop into our plans. The driving went on for hours. Pat asked me questions about how many kids I wanted, and we talked a little about our Myers-Briggs personality results. At the time I was INTJ, which described my major personality traits (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging). Pat was INTJ also. Imagine that! 

We turned north at Flagstaff, Arizona, and got lunch in Tuba City.  Pat planned to stay on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, which he knew was gorgeous. We didn’t talk much after lunch. I suspected something was in the works. Pat drove like a man on a mission, totally focused, almost grim. We approached the canyon just as the sun was beginning to set. He swept me out to Bright Angel Point, which proved to be occupied by campers talking about how they had to pack their poop out of the canyon.

Pat said, “Let’s go somewhere else.” We walked back up Bright Angel Canyon, found a bench, and sat down. I goggled at the amazing beauty. It was nearly sunset. The view swept everything else out of my mind.

Then I heard Pat say, “Ann?”

“Yes,” I replied, still staring at the canyon in awe.

“Will you marry me?”

I was so surprised I said, “Yes!” without thinking. As he likes to say, he had achieved tactical surprise. It was VERY romantic.

[Pat: This was the pinnacle of a very eventful week, for both of us. I couldn’t imagine proposing anywhere close to the funeral, in time or place. That would have been putting my desires ahead of the needs of Ann’s family. I already knew that Ann had inherited a car, so I/we would not need to rent one. So I made reservations at the North Rim, called my friends in Little Rock, and left the other items TBD.  But I needed to arrive before sunset at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, and I wasn’t sure about the drive times. I had been there several years before and knew where to go, etc. It is the most spectacular place I have seen on Earth. I thought I was going to be too late. When we parked, Ann mistook a side canyon for the main one. I wanted us to be at Bright Angel Point for my proposal, but that detail did not work out. We got engaged, which was the whole point…… But the delay in my asking was hard on Ann. My backup, if it came to her calling me out, was to say that I was going to propose to her, but not now. I hoped that she had figured it out, since we’re talking about the Grand Canyon here. But she didn’t, and the rest is our life together.]

So that’s how it happened. We were married on July 1, 1989, 17 years after the original prayer in college. We began our adventure together. 

Early Marriage: Heavy Weather

We just saw God's delay of 14 years in introducing me to Pat. The prayer was fulfilled, but not on my timetable. After my marriage to Pat, I found out again that God takes me seriously at every word I pray.

We wanted to have children as soon as possible because I was already 36. In fact it was not at all sure that we would be able to have children. I had two miscarriages already. My spirits were low, afraid it was too late. But we were preparing to move to Harvard for my postdoctoral fellowship, so I set those worries aside.

Two days later we flew into Boston. We took a cab to our hotel and I went to soak in the tub, but my nausea wouldn't go away.

"Pat, would you please go to the drugstore for me? I need something."

"Oh? What?" 

"A pregnancy test."

"Wh....? Really? That's a hard thing for a guy to buy at a drugstore." He was half-joking.

"It's not any easier for a woman," I said, my voice cool.

"OK. Sorry."

Half an hour later, Pat returned with the test. It was positive. I was pregnant. This was great news, but I was worried. I had already miscarried twice. It was a rough time to get pregnant, at the start of my post-doc.

10 weeks later I found blood on my underwear. Frantically I combed through the yellow pages to find an obstetrician who would take on high-risk pregnancies. He saw me two days later. After taking my history, he said, "Any time a woman is over 35 we consider her pregnancy to be high-risk. That doesn't mean terrible things will happen, just that she needs extra attention, and perhaps--I say perhaps--additional care. I am going to give you an injection of progesterone. In older women sometimes that hormone is low and can cause miscarriage. We'll also draw some blood to check other things."

The pregnancy went well, except for gaining too much weight. The baby was born at 37 weeks and weighs only 5.4 pounds. I was ecstatic, full of joy, but she was small.  I spent all my time snuggling with her on my chest or nursing her. I didn't want her out of my sight.

By twelve months I knew something was wrong. At two years it was confirmed. She was developmentally delayed. I remembered my promise to God, that I would accept whomever he sent. I quit science to stay home with her and my six-month-old son at the end of my three-year postdoctoral fellowship. It was the end of science for me, I thought.

Not so.