To Have and To Hold, Part 3

And then ...

the third five years began.

Pregnant! Oh, so sick and thin ...

You warmed me, fed me,

drove me, led me

thru those awful months until

the winter's done and I can feel

the baby kicking, seldom still ...

'Twas Baby Jon,

born just before you're forty,

a replica of you, oh, Lordy!

Yes, just like you, my warming, feeding,

loving, leading man. ..

• Jonathan Quay Goins was born August 20, 1975 at Humana Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. Dave turned 40 three days later.

"Gotta have you, Hon," you told me, "but

if I have to be gone to the Slope I'll put

you and the kids near your folks ... Hey!

Can't work on the Slope

and be home anyway ... "

I took them home to Mama

so their Gramma could see them every day,

and letters were all I had. They'd say,

"Don't spend the money, Honey.

 Makin' it here ain't easy, ain't funny.

I got in a fight

with two of my crew, again last night..."

In a fight? Not you!

Not you, my patient, even-tempered, iron-working Pipeline man?

• We bought a 40-acre farm near Bakersfield, California where my parents lived, and I lived there with Rachel and Jon while Dave worked on the Alaska Pipeline on the North Slope.

And then ...

You left the crowded camps

and started building us a house.

Already poured a long foundation,

ditches dug with determination ...

Now, rent a backhoe, narrow shovel;

They're caving in! but keep it level.

Weld a boom on the one-ton truck.

All by yourself, need lotsa luck

to raise the trusses, keep 'em straight...

Sweat and effort! It's our fate

to live in that hole, that lowest place,

a silver barn the mud to grace ...

But the mountains rise

into the gloom

of rainy skies,

and fireweed blooms,

and raven flies,

and cow moose zooms

across our yard or,

sleeping, lies beneath the spruce.

A trillion mosquitoes won't make a truce

with you, my lonely love,

my bitten, building man ... 

• Dave left the Pipeline work and returned to build a house all by himself in South Anchorage. The only major portion of the building he obtained help was pouring a concrete slab in the garage. The lots were very low elevation and tended to flood.

You phoned, "I gotta have you,"

so we came home and I held you. Oh!

You were so thin,

and I could feel

your bones right thru your skin, and still

you're working, building, digging till

the kids would sleep at midnight…

Done! And we're alone in this lovely land

of the midnight sun.

That was when you held my hand

and heart, my man ... 

• I returned with Rachel and Jon in June 1976 and we lived in a small trailer on one of the lots while he built the house. We moved into it in March 1977.

Rach in second grade, and Jon

would taste the rocks, yes!

one by one.

"Oh, well," you laugh, "we have no lawn."

They both are growing. Soon it's snowing.

He's crawling, climbing, riding, going

everywhere with you, and she

stays close as close can be with me.

Soon he's walking, then he's talking,

(though not as many words as she) ...

One day into the creek he falls.

You're nearby; she screams and calls

and finally you hear her shout,

"Hurry, Daddy! pull him out!"

Scared to death without a doubt,

she's sobbing. He's bobbing!

You reach for his diaper, grabbing him,

nabbing him, pulling him, dragging him,

limp now, not hyper ...

When later I find you two on the couch,

you're cuddling him, holding him,

gently you're scolding him,

while round your big hand his little one's curled,

"You gotta learn, Bud, that for boys, not girls,

for boys all your life it's a tough, tough world ... "

And Rachel's brown eyes sad and peeping

up at me, and now she's weeping,

"Mom, it's not my fault. I was showing him

how to skip rocks, but he started throwing them,

and fell, and Daddy didn't hear me, so ... "

I know, Sweetheart, I know. I know.

Don't worry, Daddy loves you, too.

It wasn't your fault, and nothing you'll do

will ever make Daddy stop loving you, ..

Which was true, my man, as we both knew

that making a favorite of one of the two,

is something parents just shouldn't do ...

But that was you then, my trying and doing,

tundra subduing, teaching, rescuing,

it's-a-tough-world man.

• When Jon was five, we took in two Cuban refugees—remember when Castro emptied his prisons and mental institutions and sent them over on boats? That's another story...