missing: part five

Fact: My brother becomes a Christian in 1976--he is twenty-one years old and he is golden. Peter never does anything in a small way, so his conversion is news. He makes it this way. I am skeptical, not sure of how God is going to change my brother for the better. At the moment he says "I do" to the Lord, he becomes a saver of lost souls, particularly the souls of young women--lost, misshapen sheep who need saving by a handsome young man like my brother.

Fact: Peter meets his wife-to-be, Heather, in 1977 through the church they are attending--an evangelical "progressive" church named "People's" in Tacoma. Heather is a mousy, ordinary looking woman who has no job prospects and little to say for herself. We do not understand her. But one thing is apparent, Heather does need saving in a fundamental way, as Heather has schizophrenia and, like many schizophrenics, sees no need to take medication. She's certifiably "crazy." My brother, however, is certain he can save her.

Fact: In 1978, Peter leaves People's church with Heather and joins an extremist splinter group from the congregation at People's, an enclave led by Stu Peterson, former assistant pastor at People's. Peter see Stu as "The Way"--others see this group as a cult. Under Stu's guidance, Peter and Heather come to see my parents and my family as "The Devil," something to be reformed or shunned. He tries the first and resorts to the second. They are penniless.

Fact: Peter elopes with Heather early in 1979. My parents are not pleased. They argue so hard over Peter's defection that I'm sure they are going to be divorced. Peter's version is--"my parents are not supportive of this union blessed by God." I believe my brother for consistency reasons. There's no reason to think my mother is any different with him than she is with me. Manipulation is familial, heredity even.

Fact: Soon after their marriage, Peter and Heather pitch a tent in the atrium of my father's Lakeview Medical Dental building. They cook their meals over a camp stove. The fumes of hamburger frying and freeze-dried pasta steeping in boiling water seep under the doors and through the open windows of my father's tenants. My father is mortified. He assigns his assistant the task of "finding that pair a place to live." A place is found, just off of Bellevue Way, several miles from where my parents live. It's nothing much--just barely Motel 6 standards of accommodation--but my father foots the bill. Peter has insisted.

Fact: My father receives dozens of angry letters in 1979 from his first-born son, the son who could do no wrong. In these letters, his favorite child shouts fire and brimstone from his "pulpit," accusing my father and my mother of immorality and ungodliness. "Renounce your parents," Stu Peterson shouts. "Get away from me Satan," Peter responds in kind to my parents. My father cries. Inconsolable. Some things can break a man, even a man as vigorous as my father. My father is afraid--he doesn't want to "lose" his son.

Fact: My father dies. August 1979. It's an accident, though there's an investigation due to the circumstances of his death. My younger brother is with him and there's approximately thirty minutes between when Dad's motorcycle crushes his chest and when my father breathes his last breath. I envy Eric these thirty dying minutes, sure I've missed something essential by not being there for our father's passing. I keep looking for these minutes, even now. Soon I hope to find them. Eric, on the other hand, is cursed--he never gets beyond that death scene on the dusty back roads of Idaho's Copperbasin. Crippled for life.

Fact: Peter does not attend the memorial service for our dad nor does he show up at the interment at Wal-Sheli. Instead, he hires an attorney to investigate why he has been "disinherited" under my father's will. Actually, there are no provisions for any of Dad's children--it all goes to my mother.

Fact: Peter moves into housing my mother provides in Ketchum, Idaho. Mom pays the rent. Oddly enough, Mom has reversed her role taking on my father's fear, leaving behind her anger. It's my father's bequeath, unbeknown to him. Peter's going to start a landscaping business, a far cry from the legal education he was acquiring before he married Heather. My mother is afraid--like my father, she doesn't want to "lose" her first born son.

Fact: Peter and Heather create a "godly" world of their own, never leaving their apartment, hoarding the place with junk and debris. People in town term them "The Crazies." Ketchum is a small place. Mom pounds on the door, often, says she wants to talk. Peter and Heather hide, not wanting to pollute their soul with the sins of my family. We see them once at Christmas, when Peter is persuaded to come over to visit for several hours. Heather chooses not to come. We sit silent in my mother's house, strangers to each other. Not even the ghost of my father can loosen our tongues.

Fact: Peter and Heather leave Ketchum, no forwarding address. It's 1993. My mother is inconsolable. To have lost a son. But to my way of thinking, Peter was lost a great many years ago. It doesn't take 20/20 sight to see this.

Fact: Peter and Heather get a divorce. There are no children and no properties. We hear about this through Heather's parents. This is the last we hear.

Fact: While on vacation in Ketchum, my brother's family runs into Peter in 2001 or 2002. They spend an afternoon chatting and learn that Peter runs a mission for street people, children in particular, outside of Phoenix. He is penniless. When he demands his "share" of Dad's estate, Mom sees Peter for what he is. This miracle of sight is devastating.

Fact: Some "sins" are just too bad, too deep, can never be forgiven. And those we overlook, choose not to see, are the ones we never get over. What we carry with us. Maimed for life. No matter what anybody says, blood only goes so far.

Fact: Peter no longer lives in Phoenix. I've checked.

Fact: My favorite photo of Peter. It's 1978. We are skiing Baldy Mountain--it's a heady day of powder. This is something we do well together. He's persuaded me to begin early, despite the toe-freezing cold. Overnight the clouds lifted, leaving the morning sharp, in-focus. Camera ready. I've stopped half-way down Holiday, just below my brother, my thighs are burning. Fire against ice. At the time, I'm not as good of a skier as he. I lift my camera from it's holster, thinking I can catch my brother's lean form before he skis by me on down the hill. I point my lens into the hill, adjusting for the low light, all the while searching for his blue ski hat with it's two thin white bands. For a second there's just the snow and the frigid cold and then I see the snow shift and shimmy and my brother's gloves and hat and right pole emerge out of a mirage of white. I snap the shutter, sure I've got him, that I've memorialized what there is of him before he vanishes again into the powdered mogul troughs.

As it turns out, however, I've not captured him at all. I don't know this man. Not at all. Is love enough?

There's as much of him missing as present.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--