Virginia Hart Tiffan: Marriage Years (24-45)

Pre-Script:  There are many photo milestones missed in the following post due to a condo fire in 1994, when I lost almost everything I owned, including all the photo albums I took with me after our divorce.  Thankfully, loose photos were in shoe boxes in my storage unit in another building.

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Following on the heels of my last post, I really did leave Peru and my Wycliffe Bible Translators stint to come home and marry Bill Tiffan, from U. of Michigan days.  We had met each other in our Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group on campus.  I was a year ahead of him and was very aware when he joined the group.  But throughout our dating years, I was very muddled about my emotions and made the decision to pursue my Wycliffe goal...with the understanding that if I ever "changed my mind," I'd let Bill know.  It took only 6 months.

I arrived home in early July, 1969.  Our wedding day was 6 September 1969.

In those two months I made the 6 bridesmaid's dresses and got ready.
Sister Nancy begged me to wear her wedding dress, changing the accent color from pink to yellow.

We were married by my dad in his Baptist church in Grand Ledge, MI.

Sadly, no pics of the wedding party, but this is my honeymoon outfit made by sister Nancy.

We lived in Ann Arbor, MI, our first year, the city of the U. of Michigan where we were students.

I was a desk clerk and a nursing aid at the Mercywood [psychiatric] Hospital that year.
Bill worked as a civil engineer with a man from our former Inter-Varsity days.

 My family of origin now included Bill.

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A year later we moved to Columbia, SC, where Bill took a year of Theology

at Columbia Bible College (CBC), now Columbia Int'l University.

Our plan was to join Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) as a married couple.

While Bill was at CBC, I was a zip-cataloguer of rare books at the McKissick Library

(now a museum) at the University of South Carolina.

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But instead of returning to WBT, we joined Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF),

an interdenominational ministry to college/university students worldwide.

Bill began campus staff in the Fall of 1971, assigned to college campuses in San Diego, CA.

As his wife, I could choose outside employment but chose freedom to join him in special activities.

 Both of our children were born in San Diego (the La Mesa suburb, to be exact).

I was pregnant in 1972, left, with Amy, and right, with Mark, in 1975.

Amy Ruth Tiffan was born on 30 September 1972,

weighing 6lbs. 15oz, after 13 hours of false labor followed by inducement.

She was an absolute charm in every way!

Being a mother was one of the best things I ever did in those early years.

 Unbeknownst to us, this was the beginning of a million-dollar family.

And once again, my family of origin grew!

What is it about school pictures (in this case, Kindergarten to tenth grade)!

Amy's senior year at Norcross High School, 1989-90.

And Glamour Shots to boot, in 1992, 2 years after my divorce.
In 1994 she graduated from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL,
with a degree in Psychology.

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 Due on Amy's 3rd birthday, Mark Daniel Tiffan arrived 6 days later, on 6 October 1975,
weighing 8lbs. 10oz, ready to birth before I had finished signing the paperwork.

  He, too, was a charmer!
When I cut his hair after he turned one, I finally had my own hair cut, too,
in the Dorthy Hamill wedge haircut famous at that time.
From that point on, my hair got shorter and shorter.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our first of 3 marriage-counseling series.
It was becoming an issue that I kept falling in love with women.
I don't remember anything about the counseling, other than that "You can't be gay and Christian."
So what was wrong with me?

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 After seven years in San Diego, we moved to Pasadena, CA,
because Bill had become IVCF's Area Director of Southern California.

While in Pasadena, we enjoyed the company of sister Ruth's family part of the time,
while they prepared for their own ministry in Turkey.
Here Ruth's youngest, Peter, enjoyed a good joke on Mark.

Amy and Mark had so many fabulous experiences because of Bill's work in IVCF.
Every year we went to college camps as a family in Michigan's Upper Penninsula,
Colorado's Bear Trap Ranch, and/or Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island.

 How could I not love them to death!

By now, we were a real million-dollar family!
And I had started to hang wallpaper professionally on the side.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our second of 3 marriage-counseling series.
No matter where we lived, I kept falling in love with women.
The new therapist agreed with the first, that "You can't be gay and Christian."
But this time he had my mom join us from Michigan, to get more insight.
The "problem" with me was somehow connected to her, he was sure of it.

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 After 5 years in Pasadena, Bill was promoted to IVCF's Campus Director of the entire USA,
which made moving to the Madison, WI, headquarters a necessity.
I continued my side business of hanging wallpaper,
even at the IVCF headquarters.

Mark was coming into his own....

until our divorce, starting his 10th year of high school, in 1990.

Mark's senior year at Norcross High School, 1992-93.

 In 1997 he graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA,

with a degree in Computer Science.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our third of 3 marriage-counseling series.
I was still falling in love with women.
This time, however, the therapist said to Bill, in front of me:  

"Ginnie gets her warmth, fulfillment and satisfaction from women.

What are you going to go about it?"

(Interestingly, the question was never posed to me.)

 Bill made the decision that he still wanted to stay married but with the "ultimatum"

that I would never fall in love with another woman again.

It was his call.  It never occurred to me that I also had a voice.

And thus began a 9-month suicidal mission I didn't know how to shake.

Every night I'd walk Vester the dog and try to figure out how I'd "do it."

I was crying off-and-on for days at a time.

Nobody knew.

During this time Bill also made the decision to leave ministry, after 3 years in Madison.

He found a job in Atlanta, GA, through a friend.

 After finding a church in Atlanta, I immediately fell in love with our church's choir director.

But we lived together as a family for three years before we both realized "it" was never going away.

I still remember walking the neighborhood, hand-in-hand, talking about our inevitable divorce.

This time, I was not suicidal.  The handwriting was on the wall and it was finally okay.

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Now I look back on those years at all our family photos:

1977:  Amy 4, Mark 1

1979:  Amy 6, Mark 3

1980:  Amy 7, Mark 4

1981:  Amy 8, Mark 5

1985:  Amy 13, Mark 10

1988:  Amy 16, Mark 13

I look at the last 2 photos above and see the sadness, especially on Bill's face.

I cry anew as I write this, with the memories washing back over me.

Amy, too, knew.  She "knew" since she was 12 that something was different about me.

But Bill and I both decided to wait till she went to college before making our move.

I think we both would do it earlier if we had the chance again, because of her.
Mark had no clue what was going on and was totally blindsided.

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I do NOT want to end on a sad note with the above family photos.

So I leave you with the photos that are the most soulful of this "middle" stint of my life:

At the end of 1975, shortly after Mark was born.

For me, this says it all:  a tear and a smile.

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Post-Script:  While many pages are left out of this synthesis, this is the only story I can tell.  Bill, Amy and Mark are witness to the same history, but each with their separate versions.  

This is MY Story.

It's a story of tortured sorrow, guilt and shame, even though I know it's not Bill's fault or my own.  It's a cross I still bear to this day, not because of the divorce from a man I loved and respected as much as the break-up of my/our family.

Why I was born and lived in one time and place rather than another (when perhaps damage control might have been possible?), I will never know.  Was it my destiny?  It was as it was.

In the end, these 25 years later, as I turn 70, it is a Cross and a Crown.  A tear and a smile.  I don't know any other way to see it.  In spite of or because of (?) immense sorrow, the Joy overcomes it all.  And I can now say it is as it is.  I can be at peace with the pain and loss...because Love really does win in the end.

 

(to be continued....)

The 2012 Michigan Trip and Pre-Wedding Prep

So, yes, we did it!  We flew to Michigan for my nephew's wedding, then to the Atlanta area for the duration of our vacation, visiting Bob and Peggy for a week and then my kids.  Easily compartmentalized parts for posts!

First things first, let's start with what happened within the first hour of landing in Detroit, MI, on none less than sister Ruth's 56th birthday!  BIL Don picked us up at the airport and suggested, en route to the restaurant where we were to meet Ruth later, that we stop off in Ann Arbor for Astrid to see where I went to school at the University of Michigan.

OMG!  Bless the ground Don walks on because the thought never even entered my mind!  Astrid got to see my stomping grounds from 1963-67 as we drove around campus.  We even stopped at the Martha Cook Building where I lived my last 2 years:

You can imagine all the emotions that swept over me as I walked onto that beautiful piece of property

from 1915, one of UM's oldest women's residence halls.  

The statue of the woman in the back yard was unveiled while I lived there.

WOW.  Talk about memories!

Lucky for us, the student council group of women for this coming fall semester was eating inside 

and the president let us in to walk through the ground floor.

Astrid is the one who took ALL these outside and inside pics...while I went into a zone of elation.

Do you know what residents who live there are called?  Yup, Cookies.  :)

Thank you, Don, for a Gift I never expected...before we even got to the Farm!

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The whole point of arriving at the Farm 3 days before the wedding was so Astrid and I could be put to work, helping out wherever necessary.  I had done the same thing 3 years earlier when Lesley got married there, 4 months before I moved to the Netherlands to get married myself.  Now her "baby" brother was going to experience his own wedding there.

 In case you need reminding, this is the Farm!

It's one of those places on earth where you feel you've been "therapied!"

 So many nooks and crannies.  So much to see and feel.

See what I mean?  Things that are now familiar to us but not "old hat."

By noon the next day came JAMES, the newest addition to the Mowry Family,

Lesley and Brian's firstborn, making Don and Ruth g'parents:

 G'ma got him first, of course.  Talk about a 7-month cutie!

(click any collage to enlarge)

Then G'pa....

...and Peter, the groom-to-be...

...and then, finally, moi!

And yes, you do see a tinge of red hair in the right light!  HA!

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Now that all the acquantainces were made with the "main attraction," it was time to get down to brass tacks and work on the wedding!

   My main assignment before the wedding day was to do the weeding around the area of the tent reception.

Astrid did odd jobs related to cutting wood and painting letters on the Bride and Groom discs.

Once the actual wedding day came, Saturday, 25 August, other tasks awaited.

The flowers arrived bright and early and were put into the air-conditioned atelier.

The wedding ceremony was at 5:30 in the afternoon and it was a hot day!

Ruth, mother of the groom, and Kate, mother of the bride, hung the nametags.

Andrea, the bride, had made pistachio-nut shortbread cookies in the shape of Michigan,

both upper and lower peninsulas, with table assignments on each nametag.

Inside the house, bride Andrea was frosting her own wedding cake!

As she put on the ruffles, she told me she had never done that before.

She also made the cupcakes and some blueberry-pastry lollipops.

Did I tell you she's a chef?!!!!  (She's also a hair stylist.)

Outside, the huge reception tent had been set up on Thursday.

Now it was time to set everything up in and around it. 

Kate, mother of the bride, helped Don, father of the groom (upper left).

Lesley, sister of the groom, helped Aaron, brother of the bride (bottom right).

It was a huge family affair!

Peter, the groom, set up the speaker system.

Astrid and I helped set up the tables for 130 guests.

I was remembering the proper set-up from Martha Cookie days.  HA!

 Shortly after lunch the hair stylists arrived and started their thing.

First all the bridesmaids, then the mothers, then the bride herself.

This was getting serious!

Meanwhile, Lesley, sister of the groom, was painting the parking signs

for the field next to the farm.  The guests would be arriving soon.

 Then, as a teaser, was the pre-wedding photo shoot.

Lesley's best friend Michelle, from Idaho, was the official photographer.

To be continued....

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ADDENDUM:  Guess what, I found some more pics I forgot I had taken and will just add them here at the end of this post from yesterday:

Astrid and Ruth had their 58th and 56th birthdays, respectively, 2 days apart while we were there.  

The Dutch custom is to give dessert to your guests on your birthday.

Don made the cupcakes and Astrid frosted them as a compromise!

(Cupcakes are American and not Dutch.  Did you know that?!)

 Astrid did the calligraphy on the yellow squash for the wedding-cards basket.

Andrea painstakingly frosted all the cupcakes she had made.

And in between duties, Ruth attended to her darling g'son!

 In the meantime, sister Nancy altered Lesley's Best Lady dress.

Yes, Lesley was Peter's Best of the Best, as his 18-month-older sister.

 All this while the sweet birds came and watched, just feet away from the sewing machine!

To be continued....