Religion and Randy

I was a confirmed agnostic before I went through puberty. Kernie was not so lucky. Our religious traditions and upbringing were about as different as they could be.

My parents were fans of FDR and JFK. I was given great liberties at home: I had an allowance for which I had responsibilities—both earning the allowance and spending it. In middle school, I was free to read James Bond novels when most my friends had to hide such readings from their parents. I moved on to a liberal arts college that by today’s hysterical standard--but also to me-- frankly oriented to secular humanism and (yes) socialism. Nonethess, I was allowed to think freely and learn without irrevocable damage being apparent. In fact, it occurred to me then as now that young brains at college often are driven to make a distinct impression on others—some conforming to a teaching and some reacting to it. Religion was and is part of that education/equation.

Kernie grew up in a fundamentalist household. Her parents were John Birchers and there was a smug sort of celebration in that home when JFK was assassinated. They were evangelical as in Southern Baptist, and Kernie’s father was a deacon in his spare time. Good times! There was no allowance but when participating in a social event (as in birthday parties) there was no money forthcoming from either parent. Kernie’s father believed that social security was a form of socialism and he refused to get his children social security numbers.  When Kernie landed her first job as a teenager, she was asked for her social security number and out of embarrassment, and really wanting the job, not to mention the financial benefits it offered, made one up….. Kernie went to a private evangelical high school and on graduation, did not know what the Holocaust was. That changed quickly on graduation from Nursing School.

I met Kernie as a student in a hospital where she was the unofficial head of a medical floor (she was told she would never formally be a head nurse because she was not Jewish. The hospital? Cedars Sinai in Beverley Hills). We observed each others’ craft learning the ropes in a busy tertiary care hospital.  She taught me a lot about how a floor is run from a nurse’s perspective.  My medical orders improved and I was afforded opportunities by her colleagues to get practical experience. An old lady needed a urinary catheter in the middle of the night and learning that I had never done one, I was blitzed by nurses and lots of attention on the best way to accomplish this first-hand. We shared a patient with a mental disorder and she learned from me the formal mental status exam. We were in luck: the patient had waxy flexibility (fascinating and mildly amusing to observe) and happily gave the history of having grown up in Rome, Alaska. I did procedures with Kernie looking over my shoulder sometimes on desperately ill patients, and did not do procedures—a head resident called all the student’s in to practice endotracheal intubation after a patient died and while while the family was outside in mourning and wanting to see their dead relative; Kernie hid the endoscopes from the code cart and the resident gave up. I worked up with another student, a sixteen year old female with acute mononucleosis who had trouble swallowing. The work assignment for medical students in this setting included doing a pelvic exam. Kernie smiled at us and then looked this girl in the eye and said clearly and calmly, “You know, it is perfectly OK for you to refuse that part of the exam; just say, ‘no thank you.’”

I was falling in love with this nurse!

Kernie and I had a platonic relationship for months but clearly were feeling a connection as we discussed how to raise children, manage finances, and other goals in life. It was then, lying on a beach in Santa Monica that I confronted my biases regarding the role of church in a child’s upbringing. Kernie was clear that this was a must. I knew of her Southern Baptist upbringing. My thought processes accommodated her: I went to church as a child, learned a lot about our culture from having done so, had the traditional stories told and ethical challenges considered. Yes, why would I deny my kids the same upbringing I had if for no other reason than to have more in common with them as they matured? Big question though, which church would that be?  Kernie said something that stopped me in my tracks. On cue, a long lost phrase that had become a part of her, “I believe in the literal word of the Bible.”  Did she mean it? She saw the tension in my face and some clarifying questions were generated, “As in Adam and Eve were the source of all humans?”  Inherit the Wind and that stupendous cross-examination passed before me but I realized none of that sort of debate would help me here. I had seen Kernie work with sick people, dying people, and we had problem solved a number of ethical problems faced by our friends and acquaintances. I had no doubt that she was a moral woman, a good woman, a thoughtful woman, and future wife. I decided it didn’t matter if she really believed in the literal word of the Bible or not as I had seen how she lived her life..

The minister who married us did care. And what a learning that proved to be. We had pre- marital counseling with him. He started with me.

“So Randy, do you go to church?”

“Why, no, I haven’t attended church since eighth grade.”

“And what denomination did you attend then? “We were Episcopalians.”

A not so subtle look of disdain came to his face and he turned to Kernie.

Big smile.

“And Kernie, where are you going to church these days?”

There was a short pause.

“Well, I work at Cedars and my schedule has me working on Sundays. I have not been able to attend Sunday services for some time.”

I was in awe. This was a bald-faced lie to the minister who was to marry us. I already had a visceral dislike of this man—small, smug, authoritarian— so I was feeling very much aligned with Kernie’s newly revealed religious orientation.

The service as done in a Southern Baptist church requires a kneeling in front of the minister at some point. I got clarification on that point during a review and rehearsal and objected. Kernie backed me up. Our wedding, though traditional, found us standing for the ceremony, throughout.

The importance of religious tradition came to a conclusion after the wedding: Kernie’s parents would not attend a wedding celebration where alcohol was served. My mother would not attend one where alcohol wasn’t served. We used some Ben Franklin thinking and maintained great poise while having two serial celebrations of our marriage, one in Pasadena at a Baptist Church, and one in Santa Monica, at a beachside motel.

I was the bartender.

Amber, our first child proved to be a test case for our original discussion about family.. She  did see the inside of a church while we lived in Salinas. We all variably attended a Presbyterian church in our early years. The economics of our Salinas life required Kernie to return to work if we were going to keep the house…… and we delayed…. but by six months of age, Amber was being watched some twenty hours a week and Kernie was back at work.  Initially, Amber was watched by a woman I had delivered; she did not want to return to work and watched her child along with Amber. That family was soon moving to the Midwest and it was then we came to know her mother and father-in law: Rob and Debbie. They had helped with the babysitting and “fell in love” with Amber. They offered to babysit free of charge.

This couple became a part of our lives—they were de facto grandparents in the day to day. Rob, the grandfather figure ran a steam cleaning business. He grew up in Eastern Oregon.  His wife, Debbie was a local. They were quiet and conservative though sometimes they wore it on their sleeves: meals were preceded by evangelical styled prayers.  The door button was embellished by a sign noting that home security was provided by Smith and Wesson.

Kernie worked an evening shift and would breeze past Smith and Wesson when picking up Amber on nights when I was on call. She was to be found between the two adults sleeping in their bedroom and Rob proudly reminded us that he had a pistol under his pillow and would protect her with his life. Kernie was stealthy.

We had humorous disagreements: they had no discipline at the dinner table and Amber would wander from chair to chair to get a bite full of whatever was being served.  Kernie and I had a more formal approach and Kernie objected, playfully, drawing on the famous movie about Helen Keller: “She has become Helen Keller begger child roaming the dinner table. Please have her sit and eat with you.”

Grandparents being grandparents, they indulged us with smiles, nods, but no change.

One afternoon, picking Amber up, Debbie offered me what appeared to be a comic book, “…something because you love history.”  The comic book laid out the facts about Lincoln’s assassination ie the part where the Pope had secret agents who secretly manipulated the government of the United States to ends only the Catholics knew for sure.

I did not come back with a book report but did scrutinize their behaviors and opinions more carefully—this was pretty wacky stuff!  Because of my irreligiousity, by mutual agreement, certain topics were not discussed or at least were managed carefully. It was clear that Amber was to them, very much a grandchild and they did not want to stir the waters that might cause tension. My conversations with Amber did not find me thinking of Lenin ie “give me a child to raise before they are five and they are mine forever….” I learned of small town life in Oregon and the simple life, for example, one that included hunting. Rob’s love of the Northwest was clear when recounting his upbringing. When the possibility of Olympia came up, Rob beamed. “My gosh, you will love it; you can live on a lake!”

Two things occurred with them that helped make the pending move to Olympia feel like the right thing above and beyond the numerous lakes and “low” housing costs. I received the hard-bound version of the comic book, citing the Pope and his minions as the scourge of modern American life. It was thick, an Atlas Shrugged entity with clear vision and a strong message about One Way and if you were not getting that, at least, who the real enemies ,hiding in plain sight, were.

A second dramatic change of events was their church’s taking in a criminal and trying to rehabilitate him. He was a pedophile by their description. I met him before I was aware of his situation with the church and noted he did not make eye contact with me—hardly reassuring. Debbie told me that they were taking him into their home some days—some days when Amber was with them. He was supervised tightly and she was never out of their sight.

I shook my head in wonder—-at the grace of their willing to take on such a mission — and at their willingness to include my not yet five year old daughter.  This was an exercise of Faith over common sense, not to mention their lack of any expertise rehabilitating anyone.  I knew they would literally kill him if he harmed Amber and did don’t find that at all reassuring.  The time for gently separating and moving on was clearly at hand.

We would see Debbie briefly in Olympia during our first year- -a final good-bye to Amber, I think, and subsequently, nothing—no Christmas cards, birthday greetings, nothing. And we chose to leave it there. My sense is that if they are still alive, now in 2025, they are riding the wave with some satisfaction.  I think they would fear for Amber’s soul. They never knew Darby but I am pretty sure what they would think about her: she went to Seattle University (A Jesuit College) where her Freshman theology class was, “Jesus in Hollywood.”

She learned a lot: "Mom, did you know there were twelve Apostles?"