At 8 years old, God sent an angel to me

Letter #8

Hello Tom,

I was eight years old when God sent an angel into Aunt Susan’s and my life.

Lynn Gilbert and her family. So, I guess I should say angels.

If there ever was a great encourager, it was her. She changed my life, gave me hope, and was hugely influential in showing me what a family was supposed to look like.

My mom met her at Girl Scouts as they were both scout leaders. Their meeting develop into a friendship between her family and ours that lasted a number of years.

She and her husband, Gord, and their two daughters were Canadian. Gord was a brilliant architect that worked for RTKL—a global architectural firm. Their daughters’ names were Tandy and Jacinta, and part of the reason he took the job here in Baltimore was because their daughter Jacinta had serious health issues. With Johns Hopkins being nearby, it was the perfect fit for their family.

As time went on, Lynn saw the environment Susan and I lived in, and she did everything she could to be a positive force of good. When there were bad arguments between my parents she would come over to the house and say, “Susan and Billy get in the car.” Then she would tell my mother “Diane let me take the kids for a while.”

We would go over there, and it was a home of joy and love. What especially was appealing to me as an 8-year-old were the displays of affection she had with Gord. It was the FIRST TIME I ever saw a husband-and-wife act that way, and I was shocked! Until that point, I never had any one really affirm me consistently. I could be a rambunctious boy and she never made me feel like I was a bad kid. One memory I have is when we were in her backyard, and she was cutting my hair.

She stopped cutting my hair momentarily and leaned down and kissed me on the back of the neck and said, “I love you, Billy.”

We have no idea the power that kind of act can have in the life of a child. For me it was finally an affirmation that I was someone worth loving. Although I forgot that memory sometimes growing up, I would recall it at times with a smile and a tear. Even if it wasn’t always in my conscious mind, I know it was in my subconscious, and I know it carried me through a lot of tough times.

CS Lewis describes what I felt perfectly when he said….

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives”.

I loved so many things you wrote in your previous letter. The root of the word encourage shed a whole new light on the power of that word. To “put into” someone’s heart is such a powerful way of illustrating that. I can honestly say that before Lynn came into our lives, we had no one to do that for our family.

That could take me in so many different directions but let me say a few more things about the trajectory of our relationship with Lynn and Gord. It wasn’t an accident that they came into our lives when they did. This was right on the heels of some of the worst trauma I ever went through. They were in Baltimore from 1972 until 1974. I even saw a change in my mother and father to some degree. Lynn was an extremely positive person in those days and her spirit was infectious.

When they moved back to Canada in 1974 it was devastating to the whole family. We never really recovered. Gord was my dad’s best friend. Lynn was the only person in my mother’s life that would be totally honest with her. When we lost them, our family truly became “lost again.” You know Tom, for years I wondered why God took them out of our lives. We really needed them. I remember telling your mother many times through the years that if I would have been in Lynn and Gords shoes, I wouldn’t have left a family that I had such a profound impact on, especially with children I knew that were in a bad situation like Aunt Susan and I were in. I really meant that. I’d like to think that I would still do that.

But…..

Maybe I was missing the point. Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way. Maybe they came into our lives at just the right time. Maybe they taught us everything we were supposed to know. After all, they couldn’t force my parents into learning the lessons themselves and becoming the healthy people they were meant to be. You can only do that on your own. I can see looking at this as an adult that we were asking them to fill a role that was never theirs in the first place. Isn’t the whole point of helping someone to get them to the point to stand on their own? In all likelihood the relationship would’ve regressed into one of co-dependency.

So, you may ask what happened to the relationship. We visited them a few times in Canada, they came down to Baltimore as a surprise one unforgettable night in 1976 a day after Christmas and stayed until New Years. I stayed very close to Mrs. Lynn (that’s what I called her in those days) until I was 15. Then Mr. Gord received an opportunity to design an airport in Nepal. It was to be a 5-year project. Being a pilot, this was a dream come true for Mr. Gord and the family went on what they thought was going to be an adventure of a lifetime.

When the project was done, they returned to Canada. They came to Baltimore in 1986 to visit. I was 22 and already married a year. I remember the excitement and anticipation of seeing them again after all those years. When your mother and I and Aunt Susan came into my parents’ house, the whole Gilbert family was sitting at my mom’s dining room table.

No one moved.

No one got up.

There was no emotion whatsoever.

It was painfully evident that they were there to see my parents and no one else. It was devastating. I spent years trying to figure it out and I got some answers but none that were really satisfying. I know they experienced some civil unrest in Nepal. I know the girls had a hard time in boarding school. That explains some things. Susan and I did try to talk to Mrs. Lynn and Mr. Gord, but it didn’t really help, and they just got defensive. I seem to recall one of them said something like “are you two the same people you were 5 years ago?” Obviously, something happened in Nepal that changed them. Whatever it was, the relationship ended for all intents and purposes.

So, what’s the takeaway? Am I supposed to say my whole experience was a fraud? I don’t think so! What I experienced with them was real. What am I to take away from that whole story?

I choose to take away the tremendous amount of good I learned from them. I choose to bask in and rest in all the joy, love and safety they provided in those years they were in our lives. I choose to allow myself to continue to be blessed by their influence.

And most of all I choose to not see this as my fault or as a statement to my value. I choose not to be hard on them either. I’ll take what they gave me and take it thankfully. So, here’s to you Gilbert family. Thank you for everything, and know I will always look back to those years knowing that I received exactly what I was supposed to receive.

Your encouragement was one layer of a story in my journey that helped me become who I am today. A man that tried to emulate your wonderful example of what a family is supposed to look like.

Thanks for listening Tom.