As we all come to realize, life is full of surprises and there are no guarantees, but one thing is certain: A life lived without pleasure, beauty and a sensible degree of self-indulgence is a sad and wasted one. Despite the gibbering of religious activists, over-amped life coaches and cynical psychologists, isn't it okay to have some good times during our brief moment here on earth? Who was it that said, "This is no dress rehearsal, you know. This is it." I've always found some kind of solace in that maxim that was worth remembering.
To wit, Jesse, age forty-one. He reached the high point of his career as a software salesman for Tower Gaming five years ago. Since then life has only been challenging and gut-retching for that's when his wife, and the mother of their young daughter Sarah Kay, died of leukemia. The untimely death could not have been more damaging to their little family. Sarah Kay, now eighteen, shared the family home in Berkeley until after her mother's death when she began acting-out, first by endlessly running away from home and reckless experimenting with drugs. But in due course it was her numerous shenanigans with shop-lifting and petty theft that got her sentenced to a long-run in a state operated, residential treatment center for girls.
Neither could stop crying with sadness and guilt on the day that Jesse assisted Sarah Kay with the packing of her bags and was to deliver her to the treatment center at 6 o'clock in the morning. It was then that he became her hero again for the first time since she was in elementary school. You see, instead of heading for the treatment center, he drove directly to the airport and put his troubled thirteen year old on a plane for Switzerland that had been prearranged by his over-paid attorney. And so for the next five years she lived and worked, quite earnestly I might add, at a strictly run Benedictine convent/hospital high in the Alps. For his blatant contempt-of-court, Jesse was sentenced to six-months in jail and was happy to accept the guilt for his daughter's sins. Only Jesse's unscrupulous attorney benefited from their time apart. Today, as a hard working, dependable software salesman again, Jesse manages to present a happy, though inauthentic, face to the world around him. However, beneath his thin, jovial facade is very cheerless and miserable man.
But eureka - as this story begins both father and daughter are euphoric in anticipation of their upcoming reunion. She is no longer considered a minor by the state of California and can return home. Both pray for change in their lives for during their time apart both denied themselves any pleasure at all.
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
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