The Gift of Peggy

When Dad was married to Peggy, I remember how great it was when I stayed with them. One of the best things about it was I got to see him in his pajamas in the morning and hug him. I’ll remember that forever. It was so special. I hadn’t thought about this before, but clearly, after my parents’ divorce when I was about nine, I didn’t get to experience that, and so I recognize it now as a gift from God to make up for what I missed all those years. The other thing it made up for was the fact that when he was with his girlfriend Anne, she wouldn’t let both David and me stay with them. I didn’t know why but it used to hurt me so much that we couldn’t all be together. I never heard the explanation for why that was, but it may have simply been that they just didn’t have enough bedrooms to have both of us there at the same time, but I remember resenting that a lot, just the feeling that she had that much control over him. She didn’t get him to move to Atlanta, though, that’s for sure. She tried, but I am very thankful that she was not successful with that. She died soon after she got there, and anyway, my dad loved home, and Kansas was home. He never lived anywhere else after he moved from Pretty Prairie to Topeka. I think that’s where he moved from, or maybe it was Hutchinson, I’m not sure, but one thing I know for sure, he never lived anywhere but Kansas. Peggy had worked in Dad’s office early in his law practice, when Peggy had said she was “just a kid,” but after Anne moved to Atlanta, Dad called up Peggy and the rest is history. As much as I adored my mother, Peggy was probably the best thing that ever happened to my dad. He wasn’t that much older than her either, only nine years.