“There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” — Washington Irving
When I went back to work on Monday I was completely surprised to learn that Gord Scott had left the company. I called Lynda to tell her the news and she was surprised too. I asked her to call Margret and ask her if it’s okay for me to visit them this evening just for a few minutes. Lynda called back after a couple of hours to let me know that she had a nice chat with Margret and she said Gord and Margret will love to see you this evening.
In the meanwhile, I found out in the office that Gord was having problems with his boss for a while as his boss wasn’t computer literate enough to appreciate what Gord was trying to accomplish. He was concerned about the amount of money being spent on the computers. The worse news was that George was coming back from Winnipeg to take over Gord’s job. This is the same guy who used to have my job and now along with other managers, I was supposed to report to George. What a shame, it was.
Margret and Gord invited us over on a Sunday. As usual, we had a wonderful time and a nice meal. Adam, Melody, and Stephany played together nicely. They told us that Gord had accepted an offer from the Government of New Brunswick to be in charge of everything related to computers in the province and they were moving to Fredericton soon. It was indeed good news. Gord was also helping his mother to move to Fredericton. Margret invited us to visit them in Fredericton which Lynda accepted wholeheartedly.
Lynda only met George a couple of times but she never liked him. She thought he looked like a mouse. I tried to maintain a reasonable business relationship with George. I was focussed on the fact that I was a professional and I should be able to work with anybody. However, I was worried about my staff’s morale. Gord Scott was a very popular boss and it didn’t matter how many times I told them that I was not going anywhere in a hurry, they kept asking me how long do you think you are going to last with these clowns. I had worked very hard to find good competent people to hire and train and we just started reaping the benefits of our training. Therefore I didn’t want them to go anywhere.
I was aware of the fact that Lynda was constantly missing Maxine. To her as a mother, Maxine had her faults but she didn’t necessarily deserve what she was going through and I had nothing to convince her otherwise. Maxine must have mentioned to her mom on the phone something about suicide and it was the panic button for Lynda. I did some digging to find out about “Teen Suicide” and found out that teens are at risk of suicide, if they suffered from:
- Conflict with close friends or family members;
- Having a psychological disorder, such as depression, an anxiety disorder, bipolar or oppositional defiant disorder; and
- Trouble coping with the stress of being a teen, such as dealing with rejection, failure, breakups, school difficulties and family turmoil.
Albeit the symptoms of suicide listed above had some similarities with what Maxine was going through, I was convinced that Maxine was too smart to think about suicide. Nevertheless, Maxine knew how to manipulate her mom. My problem was I had no way to convince Lynda. I was thinking all the time about the potential impact of what we were going through on Adam. Adam was my top priority and I am sure Lynda was worried about him, too.
The other obvious alternative for Maxine was to go live with her father and sister. But her father was not interested simply because he was living with somebody else and he knew Maxine better. Besides, he was already having enough problems with Ruth.
It was killing me to watch Lynda suffering from instability. What Maxine had been dreaming about was that her mother and father were getting back to living together and they were going to be a big happy family. Of course, it was a fantasy but in the meanwhile she was determined to do whatever it takes to destroy my family. It was impossible for Lynda to comprehend that kind of cruelty from her own daughter.
One night I decided that I was not going to run away from the problem like I did before. I knew that it all would come down to atoning for making the former decision but I wanted Lynda to be happy. So, I woke Lynda up in the middle of the night and asked her if we could talk. She reluctantly adjusted herself to sit up on her side of the bed before she said what’s on your mind? I said do you want Maxine to come and live with us. She said but I don’t want to lose you and end up living on welfare with two kids. I said why don’t you get in touch with that nasty piece of work (Social Worker) and find out what’s going on. So far we have heard only Maxine’s side. She said are you sure? I said absolutely. She said she will give her a call first thing in the morning.
I went to work in the morning and tried to concentrate upon my schedule but it was very hard. Lynda called me around 9:30 AM to let me know that the social worker would like to talk to me. I closed my office door and told my secretary not to disturb me and called the social worker. She answered the phone right away and I was surprised that she tried to be nice to me. I was on the phone with her for a while and if my memory serves me correctly, essentially we discussed the following points:
- She wanted to make sure that Lynda and I were on the same page;
- She said she had been in this business for a while and had placed dozens of kids in foster homes successfully. She had only a couple of troubled kids to deal with during that period of time but Maxine was something else. She didn’t apologize but said she regretted the way she treated us before and that was the result of believing that Maxine was abused in our home;
- She explained to me that the process that she had to follow required her to recommend to Court that in the best interest of Maxine, she needed to go back to living with her family. Then Court will schedule a hearing in an open Court where you have to answer to the judge in order to convince her/him that you are committed to make it work this time. If the judge is satisfied, Maxine will be released under your custody, not under Lynda’s; and
- She also said. Hope you know what you are getting into. Probably I am going to get fired for saying this but I want you to know that a bunch of folks with tons of experience in the field who work for me tried very hard to manage but they had no luck with Maxine.
It took several weeks to follow through the process and finally we appeared in the Jewish Family Court one day. Initially, the social worker described the case briefly and I was asked to make a statement to confirm that I clearly comprehended the essence of the case. The judge asked me a bunch of questions and I answered them to the best of my ability and in the end he released Maxine into my custody.
Lynda was very happy.
The 1979 Canadian federal election was held on May 22, to elect members of the House of Commons to the 31st Parliament. It resulted in the defeat of the Liberal Party after 11 years in power under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Joe Clark led the Progressive Conservative Party to power but with only a minority of seats in the House of Commons.
Early in the summer of 1979, we decided to take three weeks off. This was very unusual for us. I was still in charge of around the-clock-operations in the company. Since joining the company I had taken holidays only one week at a time. Lynda thought it would be nice to drive to Fredericton via the American states and come back through Quebec so that the kids could enjoy the road trip. We decided to spend a week driving to Fredericton, stay one week there, and take a week to drive back home.
The weather was just great. We didn’t rush, just took it easy driving through Vermont and Maine to get to Fredericton. While traveling there we stayed in motels and hotels with swimming pools so that Maxine and Adam could spend time enjoying them.
When we got to Fredericton, It was Friday evening and Margret, Gord, Melody, and Stephany were waiting for us. We had a nice meal with their family and went to bed little early as we were tired. The next day, they showed us the downtown and drove us around for a while. Gord took us to see his mother, Dorothy, who was living in a nice apartment not too far from where Gord and his family were living. Lynda always liked Dorothy and she was really pleased to see her.
After supper on Saturday and after watching little bit of TV, everybody went to bed and Gord asked me if I would like to have a drink and chat. I said I would love to. We sat in his nice living room and I started telling him what was going at in Beaver Lumber. He asked if George was making any progress on the plans he left behind. I remember saying to Gord, you know George better than anybody. He’s a nice guy to talk to but he’s an incompetent twit. I wasn’t being disrespectful to George just stating the fact. He said I know that. I said in George’s defence, he didn’t ask for that job. To be totally honest with you Gord, I don’t know how long he can stick around.
When we started talking about Gord’s current job, he said the guy who was acting in his current position didn’t bother doing anything meaningful for 6 months, consequently Gord ended up with a real mess. He said I am still attempting to get it sorted out but it’s going to take some time. In the meanwhile, I am looking to hire some competent people which is not easy as we don’t offer attractive salaries or benefits. I knew what he was getting at and all I said was – If you think I can be any help, let me know.
On Sunday they took us to show us the Flea Market where we had nice pancakes for breakfast and we were told that the Premier of the province, Richard Hatfield, comes there for breakfast almost every Sunday to chit chat with the folks. Unfortunately, he was out of town on that particular Sunday.
We stayed only two days with the Scotts and another day in town to look around but there wasn’t much in Fredericton to look at. Nevertheless, it was nice to see the Saint John River running through the heart of Fredericton. Even though Fredericton was the capital of the province of New Brunswick with an interesting history and with a population of 47,000, it was known mainly as a university town. The University of New Brunswick (UNB) was the oldest public university in North America. UNB was founded by a group of seven Loyalists who left the United States after the American Revolution.
We came back home earlier than planned.
That was the year I made biggest mistake of my life. We were in bed and got used to not getting phone calls from work for trouble shooting. Our phone rang around 10:30 PM and it woke us up. Lynda said go take it in the living room. I went down very quickly to answer the phone and came back right away. She realized that it couldn’t possibly be from work. Hence she asked me if everything is alright. I said everything is fine but I don’t know how to tell you that we just bought a house. She said what did you say and she got up very quickly. I repeated myself. She said, let me understand this we, as you and me, as husband and wife, bought a house and I didn’t even know anything about it. I said I wanted to surprise you. She said you did that amazingly well. However, do you know that we live in a society where there are things husbands and wives do together. It’s a tradition of our society and buying a house is one of those things. I said unfortunately I come from a male chauvinist society and it’s in my DNA to act silly but I promise you it will never happen again.
She said come sit with me. What kind of house is it? I said it’s a back split house with 4 bedrooms and a finished basement. It’s located in Pickering which was only a few kilometres east of where we were living. The total space including all three levels was more than 1,600 SF. School for the kids was very close and the biggest mall in Pickering was located only 3 miles from the house. She said what are we going to do with our townhome? I said we can always rent it out. She said how long do we have to wait to close the deal. I said that can be done very quickly as nobody’s living in the house right now. She said when can I see it. I said tomorrow’s Saturday and I made an appointment for 9:00 in the morning. As soon as we finish looking at the house, I will take you and the kids for breakfast. She said you know how to bribe a girl, don’t you.
The kids liked the house. It had a nice sized of garden and a mature tree where they wanted to make a tree swing. But going through the house with Lynda wasn’t a very delightful experience for me. She picked on everything. I said can I have my breakfast first before you start telling me what’s wrong with the house. She said, I guess. When we were in the restaurant and finished eating, she started making a list of the things needing to be changed before moving in which included: carpet, drapes, floors in the kitchen and bathrooms, toilets in both bathrooms and powder room, colours of the walls in the bedrooms and living room. Last but not least, the outside of the house. She said we also need new furniture as the furniture we have now only suits condo-living.
I said can all these things be done after moving in? She said I have an idea. The maintenance people at our Condominium Association might be interested in making some extra dollars. I will go see them right away. She said they are very good. It so happened that we had access to the house before the closing and we did the closing and Lynda managed to get quite few things done before we moved in. We found a wooden furniture manufacturing company in Pickering and we decided to order beds, tables, chairs, etc. and they promised to deliver everything before our move which they did.
