The Last Time I Saw Donna

 

The Last Time I Saw Donna

It was spring in Eugene in 1977 when I got a surprising phone call. It was from my ex-wife Donna. It caught me completely off guard. I had tried to find her a time or two but with a last name of Jones and little idea of where she might be the search was futile. Once we confirmed who each of us was we settled into a comfortable conversation. Donna had ended up moving back to the Reno area and was living in Sparks, Nevada. We talked for a bit. Donna gave me her address and phone number and we made plans for me to drive down and visit her.

It was late in the day when I arrived at Donna's place. I was nervous. I wasn't sure how I would feel and also wasn't sure what to expect. Donna greeted me at the door. She looked good, pretty much just the way I remembered her. She now had a son (Joshua) from her second marriage but he was at a friend's house for the night. We sat across from each other, chatted, and had a little something to drink. After a little preliminary catching up we began conversing more like we used to. She was divorced from her husband. She got a job in Reno or maybe it was Sparks. That was the reason she had returned to the area. Donna had to take a restraining order out against her now ex-husband. He'd been physically abusive multiple times in their marriage and continued after the divorce even forcibly breaking into her place to get at her.

We were sitting on the floor facing each other and the old feelings started coming back. I looked at her and I wanted to reach out and grab her. I wanted to hold her and tell her how much I still loved her. I wanted to tell her I still wanted to be with her, but I didn't know how. I couldn't tell how she felt and I didn't want to ruin our visit. All I could tell was that there was tension in the air as we kept our distance physically and mentally too. I felt helpless like William Baxter from the book “Seventeen”. It was uncomfortable and it was only getting more so. I was so glad to see her, yet it it was so hard to be there. My emotions were running out of control all over the place and the tension seemed to be growing.

The last time I was alone with Donna I was a mess. I was withdrawn, closed up and just trying to hang on while I got through my commitment to the Air Force. She was in school in Reno working towards a pre-med degree. She was getting re-engaged in life but at the same time having to cope with me. She was on a college campus attending classes during the week and then I'd show up for the weekend only half there due to both lack of sleep and my method of coping with my life as it was. She was now on her own, a single mom trying to make ends meet while having to deal with the wrath of her ex-husband. I was the college student and I had no strings. It was a little like we'd changed places. I remember her at one point remarking “Look at you with your long hair, living free and easy and so self assured.” I guess I looked like a more mature version of the young kid she saw way back when we met in Valparaiso in 1968 rather than the serious, trapped, borderline catatonic like figure she last saw that spring of 1971. Now it was Donna who seemed a bit trapped trying to work her way out of her current situation. Inside I was thinking get Josh, pack up, and come with me to Eugene. But I didn't say anything. I was frozen. I didn't know what to do. The intensity of the feelings I had for her were all there trying to come out to the surface. It was confusing, consuming, and uncomfortable. I was seeing right in front of me everything that I'd lost and everything I still wanted. It was so near and yet too far to grab.

We smoked a joint together, but that didn't help, if anything it made things worse. I kept waiting for some sort of break through. Sitting there looking at each other was getting harder by the minute. It felt so wonderful to see her and it felt so absolutely terrible all at the same time. It was intense and finally Donna got up and went into the other room and made a phone call. When she came back she said she needed to go into work to take care of something. She told me I could stay the night and gave me some bedding for sleeping on the couch saying she might not be back until some time in the morning. At the time I figured she just went over to the guy from work's place who I gathered she was seeing, but I now think she probably went to wherever her son was for the night. I set up the couch and tried to sleep. I had a restless night and when it started to get light I got back in my car and drove back to Eugene with a gut full of mixed emotions. I tried calling her a couple of times the next week but she wasn't home. There was no communication between us for awhile. After a couple of months I tried calling her only to find the phone number was disconnected.

Flash forward a couple of years. It's now 1979 and I'm working at GBS. I get a phone call at work and it's Donna! I asked her how she found me. She said it took her awhile to track me down. She said she had called my house first and my roommate gave her my work number. We talked easily. It was great. I told her I was a computer programmer and surprisingly she was also one. She was living in Massachusetts working for Salomon, a French sports equipment company. How odd, after all this we end up doing the same kind of work on opposite coasts. We had a nice comfortable, enjoyable, stress free chat. We exchanged information and kept in contact for a few months talking every now and then long distance. On our last call Donna said she was getting a promotion which meant she'd be transferred to an office in Montreal, Canada. She didn't have any details yet but hoped to have them the next time we spoke. Shortly after that conversation I ended up getting a big promotion and transferred to Sacramento. Between those two changes we lost contact with each other and I have never heard from Donna again. Our last contact with each other was over 40 years ago and I suspect it will remain that way.

I was never very good at keeping in touch. I don't like talking on the phone and was not much for writing letters. As a consequence, I have lost contact with many friends over the years. As I've gotten older I wished I had been better for I would like to re-connect with many of those long lost friends. Most of all I lament my failure to be more diligent about keeping in contact with Donna.