His mother expected him to become a priest, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the girl behind the food counter.
“A chocolate milkshake,” he said as he watched her scoop the hard ice cream into the metal canister and fill it up with malted milk.
Even though it probably wasn’t the best milkshake he’d ever had, he went to the drugstore every afternoon.
“Another chocolate,” he said.
“You must really like milkshakes,” said the girl, who was only a high school senior at the time.
Within the year they were married. By the time she was twenty-seven, they had five children—three girls and two boys—of which I was the second. My dad’s mother never quite forgave my mom for stealing her son from the priesthood. (My mom didn’t buy it. “If he actually had been called to the priesthood,” she said much later in life, “he wouldn’t have been so easily distracted by the sight of a girl with ice cream.”) Even though he never became a priest, my parents loved God and the Church and did everything they could to raise us in the fear and admonition of the Lord. We faithfully attended mass every Sunday. I attended Holy Rosary Catholic School, made my First Communion in the second grade, and was confirmed in the eighth grade.
This all happened against the backdrop of the exciting but tumultuous city of Memphis, Tennessee. While I was growing up there, a singer named Elvis transformed a Southern colonial mansion into a quirky palace called Graceland, complete with a sheet-music-themed gate of wrought iron, a swimming pool, a racquetball court, and an indoor waterfall. Also in Memphis, the civil rights movement bubbled up as five thousand black Memphians showed up to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his first speech in the city. In 1968 he was shot and killed there while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, and—less than a decade later—Elvis passed away in the upstairs bathroom of Graceland.
Our lives, however, were far removed from the turbulent things going on in the larger culture. My mother stayed home with us while my dad did various jobs, including computerizing the voting system in Memphis. Dad took us to his office, where he showed us how to use a device that precisely punched holes into stiff paper cards. (I knew all about “hanging chads,” and how to prevent them, long before the horrible Florida election recount of 2000.) He was a hard worker, but he also had an artistic side; and he made sure to include us in all of his various craft projects, including a rather complicated rooster mosaic from dried beans that we hung on the wall in our den. He also played bridge, did calligraphy, made stained glass, and performed magic tricks well enough to be invited to entertain at parties. My mother tried her best to keep our hectic household of seven in order, as she somehow coordinated all our activities. We always shared our evening meal together as a family, and with five kids, we always had enough players for any card game we could think of.
One Saturday afternoon, when I was fourteen years old, my dad was playing bridge with his friends, and my mom was downstairs. I was in my room chatting on the phone with a friend. My twelve-year-old brother Dan was somewhere playing with his ten-year-old friend Bart.
“Look what I found,” my little brother said, when he found the handgun my father kept in his bedroom closet for personal protection. My dad collected guns, which were arranged quite nicely in a large display case in the living room. Maybe my brother believed that this gun, like one of the antique ones downstairs, was just for show. For whatever reason, he didn’t think it was loaded; so he aimed the gun at Bart.
“Freeze!” he yelled.
I was upstairs when I heard the loud bang. My brother had pointed the gun at his friend and pulled the trigger. The bullet went into Bart, who stumbled down the hallway and collapsed.
My mom flew up the stairs and kneeled over Bart.
“Call for help!” she said as she began CPR.
I quickly ended the call with my friend, but after I hung up, for some reason I couldn’t get a dial tone. I ran next door, only to learn with horror that the neighbors weren’t home. Since I was the one in charge of getting help, I smashed the window to their back door, went in, and called the operator.
I was too nervous to go back into the house. Shortly after the emergency responder arrived, my younger sister came home and my mom asked me to take her for a walk. I was grateful to be away from the frenzied scene surrounding our home. On my walk I tried to make promises to God in return for Bart’s life. Bart had been shot through the heart, and nothing could be done to save him.
My father sold all his guns and never played bridge again. A couple of years later, my parents separated for a while. I always figured my dad never got over the guilt of having a loaded gun where someone could find it.
We never really talked about what happened, but it shaped my outlook on life—and on guns and tragedy—forever. My mother particularly avoided the subject. Years after the incident, she was at breakfast with her little group of church friends when someone brought it up.
“Where do you live, Teresa?” one of them asked.
“Kirby Road,” she replied.
“Wasn’t there a little boy who was shot on that road a long time ago?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”
My family kept to ourselves, except when we were surrounded by other like-minded folks at church. Occasionally, when we weren’t at church, people reminded us that the South was not typically amenable to Catholicism.
“Catholics are going to hell,” a little girl from our neighborhood said at the park.
“My dad says that priests are minions of the devil,” said another.
The more people criticized, the more it reaffirmed our differences and our need to stay connected with other Catholic families. In 1972 my family started attending St. Patrick Church in downtown Memphis, which was the first church I’d attended that had embraced the tenets of Vatican II. They encouraged Catholics to have friendships with people from non-Christian faiths, permitted Catholics to pray with other Christian denominations, and suddenly began saying mass in English rather than Latin.
It invigorated me! I loved that the church was willing to operate in the modern world, which was—and is—so desperate for faith. After the 1960s, which had given us the Vietnam War and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the 1970s were much more relaxed. St. Patrick’s mass reflected that spirit. Instead of a traditional choir, we had a bona fide Christian rock band: acoustic guitars, flutes, and tambourines. Our songs had more of a “sing around the campfire” vibe to them than traditional hymns, and the “sign of peace” was a five-minute hug-fest. Once I brought a non-Catholic friend to church, and she was so confused during the “sign of peace” because people walked from one end of the church to the other to get hugs. It seemed to go on forever.
“Is mass over?” she whispered.
The church’s charismatic feel connected with my heart.
Then, in 1981, I laid eyes on a tall, blond, and handsome Presbyterian who would also connect with my heart. He was the first man I dated who I felt treated me well. Previously, I’d dated a boy from college who was far too controlling. He would place his hand on my back at parties and guide me in the ways he wanted me to go. Once at a party, I found him making out with another girl—but he insisted that, as my boyfriend, he should take me home. Then, in a climactic end to our terrible relationship, we had a fight outside a pizza place. He angered me so much that I tried to run over him with my moped. It didn’t work. First, mopeds aren’t that fast, so he had plenty of time to get out of my way. Second, I hit a gravel patch, and the little bike slipped right out from under me.
When I met Andy, I had finally found a man who treated me with sweetness and care. He was charming and attentive, and he always seemed to be laid-back. Two years after we met, we were married in St. Peter’s Church.
St. Peter’s Catholic Church. As one of the oldest structures in Memphis, its vaulted ceilings, hollowed arches, and gorgeous stained glass fixtures made for a stunning backdrop. But the real reason we married in a Catholic church was to make a sacred pact in front of our community. Catholics, like many other Christian communities, don’t view marriage as an isolated relationship between a man and woman. Instead, they view it as a partnership that includes future children, the community, the parish, and God. As such, we vowed to raise our children as Catholics.
And we had every intention of doing just that. Once we were married, Andy continued with his college classes, and I continued to work as a records clerk at a local hospital. Though we weren’t regular church attendees, we made sure to attend at Easter and Christmas. When God gave us a beautiful baby girl just a year into our marriage, she was baptized at St. Peter’s in a private baptism ceremony in the chapel. I was amazed by this little miracle. I would cry thinking about how this person began as just two cells joined together inside of me. I could get lost for hours looking at Sarah’s little feet and hands.
After Andy graduated in 1986, we packed all our worldly belongings and drove to St. Petersburg, Florida. There, Andy began a new job as an auditor for a state agency, and Sarah began attending preschool at First United Methodist Church downtown. One day her preschool teacher pulled me aside and invited me to come to church on Sunday. Though I would’ve preferred a Catholic church, I wasn’t sure where Andy—who was still Presbyterian—would feel comfortable.
The Methodist church might be a good compromise, I thought. And for a while, it seemed to be. When we joined the church, I didn’t need to renounce any of my Catholic beliefs or be rebaptized, which was a surprise to me after all the insults I’d received in Memphis from people of other Christian faiths. By the time God gave us another daughter in 1988, I was in the handbell choir, we attended church regularly, and Sarah had made little friends. We had our new baby, Allyson, baptized during the church service. I loved the Methodist way of performing baptisms, because it involved the entire congregation. During the ceremony, the congregants renewed their own baptismal vows and promised to help in the raising of Allyson. I loved how connected everyone was, in some small way, to every baby baptized into the church.
But, in the spirit of “covering all bases,” I also took her to the chapel at St. Anthony’s hospital where I was the childbirth education coordinator and had her baptized into the Catholic Church.
I thought my love for Allyson might just consume me. I was so proud to be the mother of two lovely little girls, and I was overjoyed to discover the following year that I was pregnant again! In fact, our little growing family was preparing for many transitions. By New Year’s Eve in 1990, we were on I-75 in a gigantic Ryder truck heading to Tallahassee, where Andy had been transferred for his job.
Our new apartment was just big enough to house our two little girls and the baby on the way. Andy’s new position also brought a raise that was big enough to really affect our bottom line each month. Life was full of possibility.
One morning, about seven weeks after we arrived in Tallahassee, I was sitting in our apartment when a horrible thought seized me.
“I haven’t felt the baby kick all morning,” I told Andy over the phone. Since Andy was at work, I rushed to the doctor’s office alone to get checked out—where an ultrasound confirmed my worst fear.
My baby had died.
Unable to reach Andy at work, and knowing no one else in town, I climbed back into my car and sat there for a moment. The sun had warmed the car so that it was terribly hot.
My child had died within me.
I drove home from the doctor’s office in a state of shock. As soon as I got home, I called my mother, who flew down from Memphis to help with the girls. The next day I would have to be induced, to labor and deliver my stillborn baby.
“I don’t even know where the hospital is,” I said to Andy, who had to consult a map to get us there. We hadn’t planned on needing the hospital for another three months . . . and not under such circumstances.
My mother stayed home with Sarah and Allyson as we drove away for the procedure. Left alone with nothing but two kids and a heart full of worry, she did the only thing she knew to do. She found our phone book and looked up all the local Catholic churches.
“Hello, my daughter and her husband just moved here,” she would explain to anyone who answered the phone. “They don’t have a church home, and my daughter just lost her baby. Can you help?”
Some of the church secretaries took notes; others promised to pray. But then a young priest at St. Thomas More, Father Tom Guido, picked up the phone. After listening to my mom’s story, he said, “I’ll be right there.”
He immediately drove all the way across town to Tallahassee Community Hospital, to the bedside of a couple he had never met. Imagine our surprise when a priest showed up—someone we didn’t know—during one of the toughest moments of our lives. Though it was a little awkward, I marveled at Father Tom’s willingness to drop everything and come to the hospital to help people who didn’t even attend a Catholic church . . . all on the insistence of a worried Catholic mama. That’s a servant. He prayed with us, offered us what comfort he could, and—two days later—prayed with us again at the funeral of our infant daughter.
“Your sister’s spirit isn’t in that tiny casket,” I said to Sarah, who was six years old at the time. “She’s with Jesus in heaven.”
Saying that out loud comforted me in a way I had not expected. Until that point, I was focused on her earthly life, her physical connection to me. But really, I had the promise of a life in heaven with her forever.
Her name was Caitlin.
The next time I walked into church, I felt like a stranger. Deep loss sometimes does that. It separates. Because most of the people there had no idea of the loss we had just experienced, there was a part of me they’d never know. A support group called The Compassionate Friends helped me go through my grieving process alongside other parents who had lost children. It put me back on the path to a normal life, and soon thereafter, I saw those two blue lines once again.
“Are you ready to do this again?” I asked Andy.
It was the fifth of March when we casually strolled into the hospital for Ann’s birth. She was a week overdue, and a nonstress test just the day before had showed that I was already having minor contractions. The plan was to give me a little medicine—Pitocin—to jump-start things a little. The births of my other children weren’t easy—a C-section, followed by a VBAC with an epidural—so I had vowed to do this one as naturally as possible. A midwife, no pain medicine, and a bouncing baby.
It was a noble plan.
“Call Dr. McDavid,” I told the midwife as the contractions became too much to bear. “I want an epidural or a C-section, now!”
I’d made a big deal out of not wanting either of those for the past few months. But now, I’d had enough.
“Sure,” she said calmly. “Let me talk to him and I’ll be right back to you.”
She returned to the room a few minutes later and just as calmly said, “How about we just give you a shot for pain, and we’ll see how you do with that?”
“It won’t be enough!” I shouted. I was far beyond caring that my crazy had leaked out.
“Let’s just see what this does,” she said, injecting the cool, soothing medicine into my arm. “Then we’ll decide from there.”
It was all I needed. After the medicine took the edge off, I quickly dilated to ten centimeters and pushed out a beautiful, ten-pound baby.
“Look at that!” the midwife exclaimed. “It’s a girl!”
For some reason I felt a huge sense of accomplishment over her size and health. I held her immediately and looked at her face. We hadn’t decided on a name yet, so I was looking for inspiration.
“Who are you?” I whispered, running my finger over her lips. Sarah and Allyson, whom my mom had brought to see the baby, provided many helpful suggestions.
“We got it,” Sarah told me excitedly. “Rainbow Dolphin Star Heart!”
They had come up with a name that included four of their favorite things. Even though the girls had already settled the issue in their minds, inspiration still hadn’t struck Andy and me by the time we were leaving the hospital. In the hallway, a clerk stopped us.
“You haven’t filled out your birth certificate form yet.”
“Yes, I have,” I responded.
“But you haven’t filled in the name.”
“And?”
“You have to give her a name before we can let you take her home.”
“Really?” I asked, incredulous. Had National Geographic filmed our interaction, they could’ve made a thirty-second documentary on what happens when a hospital staffer steps between a mother and her newborn. “You’re going to take my baby away from me? Only because I haven’t decided on a name?”
I had worked before at a hospital as a birth certificate clerk. On a few occasions I’d let a baby go home without a name, so I knew she was being difficult.
“I’ll let you know when we decide,” I said as we left with our unnamed bundle of joy.
After we got home, we discussed the main contender for her name: Ann Margaret. Ann because both my middle name and my mother’s name is Ann. Margaret because both Andy and I had a grandmother named Margaret.
“Should we worry about people comparing her to the Ann-Margret?” Andy asked. We certainly didn’t want her to get teased her whole life for having the same name as a sexy starlet who appeared in Elvis flicks.
“No one ever really knows your middle name anyway,” I said. “I think it’ll be fine.” And so, the unnamed baby became Ann Margaret Grosmaire.
Ann Grosmaire, I typed.
I never thought I would be putting her carefully selected name into an Internet search to find an article about her shooting.
When the results came up, I steeled my nerves and forced my eyes to look at the screen.
TEENAGER SHOT IN NORTHERN LEON COUNTY
IN CRITICAL CONDITION AT TMH
A 19-year-old woman is listed in critical condition this evening at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, the victim of a gunshot wound.
According to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, 19-year-old Conor McBride went to the Tallahassee Police Department at about 2:15 p.m. today and announced that he had killed his girlfriend.
When officers arrived at McBride’s parents’ house . . . in northern Leon County, they discovered Ann Grosmaire, 19, alive in the house.
Grosmaire had been shot and was unresponsive, according to LCSO. She was taken to TMH.
McBride is being interviewed at the LCSO office.
Conor, I thought, what were you thinking? Why did you just drive around and leave my daughter all by herself? Was she afraid? Aware at all?
“Mr. and Mrs. Grosmaire,” a nurse said. “You can come back and see Ann now.”
We walked back to her room, where Ann was lying in a bed. Her head was still bandaged, and the machines keeping her alive whooshed rhythmically.
“Do you think I can touch her?” Andy asked. He didn’t want to hurt or further endanger her. Her condition just seemed so precarious. I could tell Andy was worried that he would make things worse, but how could that be possible?
“Be open to seeing glimpses of God,” Father Will said to Andy and me that day at the hospital. “Open your eyes and notice the divine during this trying time. God is with you. Notice it.”
Glimpses of God? Well, we definitely saw God in the way our friends and family responded when they heard the news. They kept arriving at the hospital, overflowing from the little area set aside for loved ones as the information ripped through our community like an earthquake. Some people grabbed their purses and their car keys and headed straight to the hospital. Others immediately began praying. Still others began asking around, wondering how to meet any physical needs we had. Even though they couldn’t really do much to help, they headed to the hospital with hearts full of sorrow and mouths full of petitions to God.
The hospital staff provided more room for our loved ones, and Andy left Ann’s room to thank them for coming. Suddenly he was in the position of comforting the friends who’d shown up from church and work. While he was out in the visitors’ area, one of Andy’s coworkers—Janet—quietly came up to him and motioned to a man standing near the elevator.
“Who’s that?” she whispered. Andy looked at the man. His hair was gray, almost white. Dark eyes. He slouched against the wall as if he wanted it to absorb him.
“Is that Conor’s father?” Janet asked. Conor had worked for Andy’s office, and Janet knew him. “He looks an awful lot like Conor.”
Andy walked through the sea of well wishers, deliberately making his way to the man. He wasn’t sure what he would say, but he crossed the room of people with a rare single-mindedness and purpose.
When he finally got to him, the two men looked at each other.
Frequently in times of tragedy, the community blames the parents of the perpetrator. After school shootings, for example, the media and the culture come down hard on the parents.
Why didn’t you see this coming?
What did you do so wrong to create such a monster?
Instead, Andy knew that Michael McBride, in many ways, was the only other person in the hospital who could begin to grasp what he was feeling.
They were both fathers who had lost a child. Though Ann was in a hospital room and Conor was somewhere in jail, deep down they both knew they’d irrevocably lost their children.
When Andy’s eyes met Michael’s, he didn’t punch him in the nose or start screaming obscenities. Rather, he reached his arms around him and pulled him into his chest. I’ve always compared Andy to a big teddy bear, calm and loving. Kind and compassionate.
The hug lasted for a few seconds—seconds packed full of emotion and regret.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Andy finally said. “But I may hate you by the end of the week.”
Michael simply nodded.
“Do you want to see Ann?” Andy asked.