— Russ Hostetler
“You love her, don’cha?” The boy asked, his head bobbing with each syllable since it was propped up in his palms up on his elbows while lying on the bed.
“Sure I do,” the man replied, a bit under his breath, like he was a little embarrassed by the admission. He continued folding clothes on the top of the washing machine next to the dryer he had installed in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom.
“So, what’s standin‘ in your way?”
“I don’t know. It’s like we’ve been together for three years and I don’t see a reason to change our relationship.”
After a pause during which one could almost hear the gears working inside the boy’s brain, the boy turned his attention back to his dad, raised one eyebrow, and asked, ”What’s my relationship with her?”
No response.
“I mean, she’s my dad’s…,” he paused to roll over so he could make quotation marks with his fingers as he said, “…girlfriend, but if you were married she’d be my step…” more air quotes…”mother.”
The man turned an eye toward the boy on the bed.
“Dad! I’m nine years old! Every kid I know has a mother. Some don’t have fathers, but they all have mothers.”
“So, you’re unique,” the man said. He grinned when he saw the anticipated eye roll.
“Dad, why don’cha ask her to marry you?”
The man stopped folding clothes and stood for a moment with his back to the boy. In his mind he was back in the little church in western Ohio standing next to the woman to whom he had just pledged to be married for the rest of his life. That she was dead did not diminish his pledge in his mind, but he did not think he could bring up the issue with his son. He did not want to talk about the fact that breast cancer had claimed Beth, the first love of his life and the boy’s mother. But, he realized that his son was not yet four when Beth had died and that the boy had few if any real memories of his mother. He turned, grabbed his crutches, and traversed the ten feet to the bed. He sat next to his son.
“When you ask a woman to marry you, you’re supposed to get down on one knee so you kind of beg her to be your bride,” the man said. He then looked at his mangled left leg and absent right leg before turning his gaze back to his son. “You can see the problem in that regard,” he said, grinning.
That was the end of that conversation.
Buck Tippins admonished his son, Sam, to go get ready for bed as he tucked a stack of shirts under his chin and grabbed his forearm crutches for the trip across the room to the dresser. After several more trips to deposit underwear, socks, and shorts in their respective drawers, he ambled down the hall to Sam’s bathroom. He waited for Sam to finish brushing his teeth. Then Sam jumped up onto the toilet seat to get the altitude necessary to hug his dad around the neck and utter a bear cub sort of snarl. Sam grinned, jumped down, and ran from the bathroom. When he was more than six feet from his bed, he launched himself like an outfielder after a line drive and landed in his bed. Within seconds, he had scrambled under the covers.
Sam looked up grinning. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, Sam.” Buck turned to leave, paused at the door to switch off the light, and looked back at his son.
The light in the hallway revealed that Sam’s eyes were closed. Just as Buck turned to exit, Sam said, “We’ll talk more about getting married in the morning.” Then he grinned, eyes closed.
Nancy Dillon couldn’t sleep. She had just spent the weekend at Buck Tippins’ place and just couldn’t find the sweet spot in her own bed because she had become so used to cuddling up with Buck in bed. The missing or mangled legs made no difference to her. As a physical therapist, she had worked with many disabled or “otherwise-abled” people. She knew that deformity could defeat some people, but for others, it just made them stronger. Buck was one of the latter. For Buck, just getting around was an athletic effort, but it was part of his life now and rarely held him back.
They had been introduced by a mutual friend. The friend was a part of a group of men who called themselves “The Vegilantes,” neighbors and their friends who would periodically meet for beers at a bar called “The Shed” and plan their “raid” on a local farmers market to buy vegetables in bulk at substantial savings. After shopping, they would meet back at the bar for another round or two after dividing their take. Nancy had dropped by The Shed with some of her friends. She saw her friend, Ted, sitting with seven other guys who were sharing a couple of pitchers of beer. Ted introduced her to Buck who was sitting on the far side of the table, his crutches out of sight.
“This is the guy I was telling you about,” said Ted, pointing toward Buck. Buck rolled his eyes because Ted and some of the others were always trying to “fix him up,” but he lifted his mug to Nancy and smiled. Nancy smiled back with her quiet friendliness showing. And that was it.
Both were smitten. Buck stayed behind the table as they exchanged a few pleasantries before Nancy turned to rejoin her friends. As she turned, Buck hurried to add, “I hope to see you again.” Nancy just smiled and gave a little wave as she walked away at that point. She had the distinct feeling that this was a man she wanted to get to know better. But there was much she didn’t know about him and her future with Buck Tippins was just a possibility at that point.
Buck was the kind of person who, within two minutes of meeting him, was already your friend. Nancy was an introvert, but friendly and warm once you got to know her. It was a couple of weeks later when Nancy caught up with the Vegilantes out in the parking lot dividing a bushel of green beans into gallon plastic bags. It was then that Buck had the two minutes with Nancy needed to form a friendship. It was then that Nancy decided this was a man in whom she could happily invest some of her warmth.
Over the coming months Nancy learned about the rainy afternoon in Vietnam when a booby trap cost Buck much of his right lower leg musculature and the flexibility in his ankle. She learned about Beth, the joyful birth of Sam, and the blossoming of a happy family. And she learned about that fateful day in May when Sam was 15 months old and Buck was on his way home from an optician association meeting. Buck had stopped to help a driver change a tire.
He had just thrown the flat tire into the trunk when a distracted motorist plowed his truck into Buck’s car which was parked behind the car on which he had just helped change the tire. The force of the crash crushed his left leg between the bumpers of the two cars. Buck was pinned between the cars for more than 45 minutes before rescue workers could extract him. By then, the lower leg was dead and the damage such that an above the knee amputation was necessary.
Over those same months of getting to know each other, Buck learned of Nancy’s difficult prior relationship with the bass player in a country music band, one of those opposites attract kind of relationships that ended with lasting heartache for Nancy. It took over a year of Buck’s demonstrated commitment for Nancy to allow their relationship to become intimate, but since then they were often seen and accepted as a family in their church and around the village. Still, marriage was never discussed and Nancy maintained her apartment. During the summer months they visited Nancy’s apartment more often because they had a pool there in which Sam loved to swim and play with the other children.
Sam and Nancy had a warm relationship even though Nancy was just his dad’s girlfriend. But Sam had noticed the family relationships of his friends and felt his lack of a “mom.” That prompted the bedroom exchange with his dad that temporarily ended with Sam advising, “We’ll talk about it more in the morning.”
Over breakfast the next morning, Sam asked his dad, “Since you can’t get down on one knee, can I ask Nancy to marry you? I can get down on one knee—or both of them,” he announced with some pride.
“No you may not,” said Buck in a casual matter-of-fact way as he dipped his spoon into his bowl for another mouthful of cereal.
“But, Dad,” Sam protested, “I can do it for you!”
“I know you can,” said Buck, “but you may not. Anyway, you need a ring to get engaged and I don’t have one to give to Nancy.”
“Then let’s go get one!” Sam said with all innocence.
“Do you know how much an engagement ring costs?”
“No.”
Buck thought for a few seconds.
“It costs about as much as 25 Nintendos,” Buck replied, using a currency Sam could understand. The Nintendo game system for TV was an item on Sam’s wish list for birthday and Christmas. It was something longed and hoped for but was just too expensive. Sam sighed and groaned, but he knew what his dad was trying to say.
That afternoon, Buck grabbed a fast-food sandwich and visited Leo Simmons, the jeweler. Three months later, he had a diamond solitaire engagement ring in his pocket. That evening he showed it to Sam. Sam’s jaw dropped, and then he whooped and ran around the house, bouncing off every piece of furniture and doing a cartwheel through the living room.
“When are you gonna give it to her?” Sam asked, excited.
“I dunno. I’ll have to pick the right time.”
“How about tonight!?” Sam asked, knowing that Nancy was coming for dinner.
“I dunno. Tonight might not be the right time.”
“Then why’djuh buy the ring if you aren’t going to ask her?”
“I guess I’m not sure she wants to be a wife and a mother all at the same time.”
“Well, you’ll never know unless you ask her,” exclaimed the boy using the same logic his dad had used to get him to try cranberry sauce on his sliced turkey.
That evening after dinner, Nancy came into the living room to watch TV with Buck and Sam. Since Sam was reclined on the love seat, Nancy playfully sat on Buck’s lap and hugged him around the neck. Sam noticed this and jumped up to stand in front of them, blocking their view of the TV, and with his hands on his hips, demanded of Nancy, “Do you love my dad?”
Nancy grinned, kissed Buck’s forehead, and replied, “Of course I do.”
“And do you love me?”
“Of course I do, Sweetie,” she reassured.
“And do you love being a part of this family?” Sam pressed on.
“Yes, of course, we are a family, sort of, and I love it.”
Sam took one step toward his dad and put out his hand, demanding, “Gimme!”
Buck smiled and squirmed a bit to get the little white box out of his pocket and hand it to the boy.
Sam got down on one knee, popped open the box, and held it up toward Nancy, who could not suppress a short gasp.
“Will you marry us? It’s a package deal.”
Tears of happiness welled up in Nancy’s eyes.
“Please,” added Buck.
Nancy kissed Buck and then reached out to draw Sam in for a hug and a kiss.
“Of course I will,” she said and tearfully kissed them both again.
Eighteen years later, and long after I had left the Jones County, Georgia, countryside, I sat with Nancy and Sam to have lunch at a Thai restaurant in Tampa, Florida, where Buck and Nancy had settled after Sam went off to college. The occasion was that Sam was in town to help plan a memorial service for his father. Colon cancer had claimed Buck’s life after a seven-year battle that included five surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and lots of loving care. Sam, now twenty-seven with a PhD in Literature and teaching at a college in another state, related the ‘will you marry us’ story with joy as Nancy basked in the memory. At the memorial service a few days later, Sam recalled in his eulogy the strength he had drawn from the love provided by the only dad and mother he ever knew. Sam added, “My dad was a friend to every person he ever met, and his love of beauty, of nature, of kindness, and of humanity lives on in those of us who knew him, loved him, and keep him in our hearts.” Such is the nature of family and love.
Russ Hostetler found his calling as a physician while working in Conflict Management and Crisis Intervention as a Special Police Officer in Dayton, Ohio after graduating from Ball State University with a degree in psychology. His medical career included faculty positions at two medical schools, directorships in three managed care settings and a consultative clinical practice in geriatrics. After retirement, he volunteered as a Senior Medical Officer in Marine Corp endurance events operations, is an active member of the Florida Department of Health Medical Reserve Corps, and is a Healthy Community Clinical Director for the Special Olympics. He enjoys building furniture, tennis, writing, cooking and baking, nursing his understanding of the German language, and being grandpa to several delightful children.
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