All about Honor - Snippets from Yellow Dollhouse Memoirs

I always secretly felt like I must be adopted. I must be the secret love child of an unknown quirky artist and a black man with albinism. Mother, my “real” mother, was some over-educated hippie freak with really bad eyes and a collection of torn bell bottoms. Father preferred spending his days spitting poetry, painting murals on the sides of youth centers as a volunteer, and pan handling for extra brushes. That’s what I told myself. How else would I be the way I am? Was it really possible for me to be the daughter of Laura Bush, Jr. and Dan Arnold? Who are these people? Was something I asked myself nearly daily as a child. But I loved them anyway. Fiercely. And they loved me back.

My family wasn’t huge on giving grandiose words of advice. In fact, on the night before my wedding, my father and Ron and I were up late in my parents’ living room. Ron asked my father if he had any great wisdom to shed on my upcoming day or new life. I don’t recall exactly how the conversation went, but what I do remember was that his response boiled down to something like, “make sure you give him enough sex.” Conversation went from straight sex to anal sex. I remember him looking me square in the eyes and saying “as long as two married adults consent to it, there’s nothing wrong with it.” I think I went to bed right after that. I wasn’t really up for a huge debate on anal sex and certainly wasn’t about to inform Dad I’d already “been there, done that” on the night before my wedding.
I have to hand it to him, though. Dad stayed up that entire night writing me a letter which I still keep in the hope chest that Matt made me as a wedding gift. In that letter is more love and advice than a girl could ever ask for. He encourages me to remember never to go to bed angry and not to try to change a man. I’ve pulled out that letter over the years, not so much for the advice within it, but for the love that Dad put into writing it. it’s the longest letter I’ve ever seen him write. Handwritten. In blue ink. He even took the time to print little pink hearts along the borders of the computer paper he wrote it on.
While not big on giving advice, my parents were huge on sending messages. They made a few things very clear to us as children. Mom spent every waking moment of our childhoods drilling it in our heads that education is a number one priority. She’d back it up with strict bed times, firm groundings, and more than a few teachers’ conferences – anything to keep us on task at school. I picked right up on her cues and became an honor roll student who would later manage to graduate from college with honors in three years time.
For Dad, it was all about honor. Once, as an alter server for Our Lady of Mercy Roman Catholic Church, I was asked to serve at someone’s wedding. I was more than honored to do this. A romantic by nature, I was excited to be a part of this stranger couple’s special day. At the end of the service the bride’s father handed an envelope to the priest, an envelope to the organ lady, and an envelope to me. I stood on the edge of the ulgy rust alter wide-eyed. I had no idea there was something “in this” for me.
Upon opening my envelope, I discovered 25 dollars. I shrieked on the inside. Twenty-five dollars is a lot of money to a twelve year old! I quickly took off my vespers and walked, robot-on-crack-style to my mother’s car. Both of my parents were there to pick me up and were thrilled to learn of my excitement at the contents of the envelope. That excitement, however, was very short lived.
No sooner had I stepped foot into the backseat of the chocolate brown Honda than I noticed the organ lady chasing me to the car. “She stole money from the church!” she was yelling, frantically trying to get my father’s attention as he began to pull out. Confusion engulfed me. I knew I had not stolen anything and was tempted to look around the parking lot to see if this crazed organ lady had mistaken me for some other alter server who must have had a death wish or something. Nope, she was after me. I was sure of it, as she banged on my father’s driver side window.
Dad rolled down the window and asked the woman what she was talking about. He was out of the car in less than twenty seconds, telling me to do the same. He walked with me, hand in hand, back to the church. My fingers clutched his firm palm as he asked me, once, “Did you steal that money?” I burst into tears at the thought of it. “No!” “Fair enough.”
Dad marched with all the conviction of a drum major in a world class marching band into that church. Right past the bride and groom, still standing on the edges of the church, hoping to get last minute pictures of light reflecting from the stain glass windows onto her snowy dress. He walked passed the alter, past the choir room, past the children’s room – reserved for the less-than-well-behaved parishioners. It wasn’t long before I found myself behind the alter, in the backroom where priests get dressed and swap jokes with deacons. There, he spotted the priest who had performed the ceremony. Ironically enough, he was just finished opening his very own envelope and seemed to be quite pleased at his “take” as well.
“That bitch is accusing MY daughter of stealing money from the church,” he said, slapping my envelope down on the cherry kneeler next to the priest. I don’t who was more shocked – me, or the priest. First off, my father is the most religious person I know. For him to swear in a church, let alone in the back of the church, on the alter, was pretty much about as expected as the sun crashing into the earth full speed at 12:38 on a Tuesday afternoon. It just doesn’t happen. But it was happening, right before my eyes.
“Slow down, Mr. Delude. Who? Who is saying what?”
“That bitch, what’s her name? Janie Blanchard’s mom? Her. She’s saying Erin stole this envelope from the church,” he insisted.
“There must be some confusion.”
“You’re dam right there’s some confusion. My daughter doesn’t steal! My daughter has honor. I taught her to have honor. And I won’t let anyone, especially that horrible woman who can’t even play the organ or sing a note, hurt her honor!”
It was less than 20 minutes before the priest and others, drawn in to solve the mystery of some missing envelope that was apparently intended for a choir member, realized that a missing check was actually stuck to the back of the organ lady’s envelope.
“I told you my daughter has honor. Don’t you ever question her integrity again,” Dad barked. “Come on, hon. Let’s go.”
With that, Dad marched me right back to the car and spent, oh, a week or more, repeating the same story over and over again to me, my mother, my brothers, and pretty much anyone willing to listen. “My daughter has honor and there is no one who is ever going to tarnish that,” he’d say, like a scuffed New Kids on the Block record of the early 90s.
Honor wasn’t just for Dad’s daughter. Honor was for Dad. The best way to piss Dad off and to ensure you’d lose an argument was to give him even the impression that you might think he was lying. I learned this early on and only reserved that button for when I was in the mood for a good fight. As the outgoing executive editor for my college newspaper, I wrote an article about the importance of having honor and all the things my father had taught me about honor.
While I honor his belief in honor, I can’t say I’ve taken that message with me everywhere in my life. In fact, Dad’s daughter doesn’t always have honor. I’ve stolen. I’ve lied. I’ve cheated on tests. I’ve cheated in much bigger ways. Honor? What a novel concept. I’m just not so sure I’m all that great at it.