Never Look Back

By Marilyn Parman

NEVER LOOK BACK is the author's first book. It is a fictionalized memoir, most of which is based on actual events in her life, and which has been riddled with tragedies, abuse, and crime against her family as well as extreme crime against two of her daughters and against her mother who was murdered. Her husband dies in the end -- the crowning blow to her character, Marion Whitehead; however, Marion re-structures her life and enters the music business again as a virtuoso soloist and chamber ensemble musician, primarily after thirty years in retirement due to her latent guilt relative to her daughter's being kidnapped while Marion was on her concert tour.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449062361

Marilyn Parman

Marilyn Parman is a professional musician, a virtuoso contrabass soloist, chamber, and symphony performer. She also has a history of other accomplishments in physics, competition swimming, and sailing. She also loves to ski.

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© 2010 Marilyn Parman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/30/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-6236-1 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-6235-4 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009913560

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Preface

NEVER LOOK BACK into the storm where you have been unless it helps you to envision where you are going.— Paul’s legacy to Marion. This novel is a fictionalized memoir based on real experiences. It takes the reader on several journeys of tragedies and hair-raising suspense with resolution of shaping negative events into positive structure and inner peace. There is some comedy interspersed that lightens the load.

The journey involves the parallel lives of two people, Marion Whitehead and Paul Palmer, until their paths cross. Tragedies beset both families. The worst tragedy involves the kidnapping of Marion’s child, Pamela. The hunt might have been a lot more successful with cooperation from the FBI in Colorado before her case became too cold.

The murder of Marion’s mother and the ability of professional medical caregivers to maneuver the law enforcement staff as a part of the cover-up both provoke a lot of thought, as well.

In summary, Marion began to realize the essence of what Paul meant – that looking back on life’s trials and tribulations should only be for the sake of fondness of memories and for the sake of determining direction for the future. Marion always wondered if Paul had been God’s messenger sent to soothe her soul.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

Marion’s reflections

CHAPTER 2

Fiery Beginnings

CHAPTER 3

Moving In the Fast Lane

CHAPTER 4

Onward Toward My Other Passion

CHAPTER 5

All of My Children

CHAPTER 6

Premonition

CHAPTER 7

Remembering:

Prelude to a Downward Spiral

CHAPTER 8

Kidnapped and Running Scared

CHAPTER 9

The Black Hole

CHAPTER 10

Lost and Found

CHAPTER 11

Road to Hell

CHAPTER 12

No Room for Justice

CHAPTER 13

Premonition Realized

CHAPTER 14

Exodus

CHAPTER 15

New Beginning

CHAPTER 16

Stage Two

CHAPTER 17

RX: MURDER

CHAPTER 18

Moving On

CHAPTER 19

Journey’s End

CHAPTER 1

Marion’s reflections

Never look back into the storm where you have been unless it helps you to envision where you are going. Remember, when you fixate on the obstacle rather than the objective, fear will eclipse your faith. Frequently these were Paul’s words to me. He seemed to put this belief into practice. For me, this seemed quite difficult at times. How is it that one can forgive negligence and abuse to children or clipping the wings of teenagers by devious curtailing of ambitions and vision? How does one cope with such elements and learn from them? Is it possible to bundle these things as one large storm and to not look back? Should we look back with purpose to grow in our own souls and rid ourselves of latent guilt that we have developed as our hindsight shows us how short our foresight was? I, Marion Whitehead, formerly Marion Oden prior to being married, have recently moved from a small town called Friday Harbor located on San Juan Island within a group of islands called the San Juan Islands in Washington State. Now I reside in Eastsound on Orcas Island, also in the San Juan Islands. These islands are located just off the far northwest coast of Washington State, only a short distance from British Columbia, Canada.

On a fall day in October 2006, I was waiting for the ferry to return to Eastsound after a visit to my daughter’s home. It was bright and sunny with smell of fall in the cool crisp air as people were burning leaves. The maple trees were fiery red against the backdrop of beautiful evergreens. Waiting in the ferry parking lot for the ferry to return home can be a waste of time, or it can be used for things like catching up on one’s correspondence or the latest news, reading the mail, or reading a book. I began looking in my purse for my glasses. As usual, I could not find them anywhere. Since I was not sleepy I had little to do but watch people and to reflect on my day, which evolved into years. I thought about my childhood. I am very thankful that I am in fair health now and that I am no longer having the miserable health situation of my youth. There were, of course, many pleasant parts of my early youth on which to reflect, as well.

In the past, I made a lot of mistakes and I had a miserable childhood, after moving away from my comfortable surroundings in Weimar, Texas. In addition, I also had a miserable life as a young adult much of the time. However, as I ponder my past life, I conclude that there are no real mistakes if they are utilized as learning experiences. There is always accountability for one’s own actions regardless of the past. In that sense, I feel that looking back can be advantageous. On the other hand, looking back at the negative to feed on one’s own self-pity as an excuse not to accomplish anything in life or to contribute to society is dangerous to mental and spiritual wellbeing. Looking back for the sake of judgment, be it of oneself or others, is dangerous to one’s mental stability and to one’s soul as well.

I began to try to think of the very first thing in my memory bank. Actually, I can remember some things as a baby, before my younger sister was born when I was one and a half. My memory includes my mom being pregnant and my sitting on her lap while noticing movement her stomach. I also remember having many severe stomach aches that were called colic. My wet diapers and diaper rash burned so much that I remember learning how to use my potty-chair long before I could walk, and that put an end to the wet diapers for the most part. Another memory includes my baby nightmares and having earaches. The two often went hand in hand.

For a long time, I dreamed of people without heads. When I could talk, about a year old according to my mother, I called the figures broken necks for some reason. I would be in my baby bed and start screaming at the top of my lungs, broken necks!

My father usually woke up, came into my room, and rocked me. His warm body felt very comforting and the warmth usually made my earaches go away. Then I would fall asleep only to wake up again as soon as my dad put me back down in my baby bed. I would start screaming again. My poor dad was so patient with me, as I now realize. He would rock me for a very long time, and then he put me down, and I usually woke up again quickly. Then my father would rock me once more while patting me on my back and singing to me. Eventually, I would drift off to sleep and not have any more nightmares.

Early one morning, I was picked up out of bed from a deep sleep. Everything was in an uproar. My dad was in such a hurry and seemed to be afraid of something. My mom was having a lot of pain. That, to me, was extremely frightening because I was totally dependent on my parents. I was not used to seeing my parents, who took care of me, in pain or danger. So, I began screaming and driving my poor parents crazy. Our neighbor next door, Miss Mary Blum, came rushing over to our house. She tried to calm my father.

Now everything will be okay here. Just go and take care of your wife. Marion and I will be just fine.

Miss Blum seemed nearly as nice and comfortable as my grandmother. She had white hair and had soft arms that might be called fat arms or Jewish arms today or some other uncomplimentary names. If only adults would understand that fat arms feel so good to a wee little being. But, I just found it puzzling that my parents went somewhere without me. That had never happened before. I hope that they come back. I did not want a different set of parents.

My mother was gone for a long time, I thought. Miss Mary Blum was now taking care of me instead of my mother, father, or grandmother. I did not really understand why. One day, my father pulled up in the car and Miss Blum picked me up and took me outside to our car. I guess that she thought that could not walk. Actually, I could not walk fast enough. We met my father and mother outside in the car as they drove up.

How was your stay now, Miss? Miss Blum said.

They had a very small baby — smaller than me. I was so amazed. That baby had a little squeaky cry. I wanted to touch its face, but I was not allowed to do so. Miss Blum grabbed my hand.

No child, you cannot touch the new baby’s face.

Miss Blum beat my mother in correcting me. I did not understand why I could not touch that baby’s face. However, I was allowed to touch its little hands and feet that were also so much smaller than mine. This baby was so small and so soft and I liked it, because my perception was that this baby was my live doll. I sort of felt sorry for it though, knowing my troubles in being a baby.

We all went into the house and my mother started feeding the new baby immediately. The baby had a bottle, just like I used to have. It was fun seeing the baby drink out of a bottle. At one point, I took one of its bottles and began sucking on it for old time’s sake.

Oh no, Marion, this belongs to the new baby and it is a special kind of milk.

That cold milk in the cold bottle tasted so good; but since I was scolded for that, I never did that again either. There seemed to be a lot of things that I could not do with that little baby in the house. These things were confusing to me because I was not hurting the baby. In fact, I wanted to take very good care of this little doll; although I did not really know how to say this in words.

And she is a girl, so I can have fun dressing her. I thought to myself.

Life was different and more interesting from that point on with the little baby that grew into being my little sister, Jill. There were many more great times in my very early childhood. I enjoyed lying on a blanket in the cool night in the yard and my feet in the cold grass with my dad who would explain the stars to me.

See, this is how people and big ships out at sea find their way around at night when they can not see. The stars are always in the same place at night at certain times. Also, you know what? The Wise Men found Baby Jesus using the stars too. They followed the North Star, which was very bright that time of the year.

One balmy night with the warm gulf breeze gently blowing in our faces as we lay on a blanket on the cold grass in the front yard, Dad rigged up a bunch of balls on wires and put them aside before he had me look at the sky with him. Dad pointed out Polaris, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper and other such things in the sky. He told me how some stars were planets just like the earth and some were suns just like our sun, but they were all very far away. He thought that he might have confused me somewhat, so he said that in a family of stars, called a solar system, the father is like the sun, the mother is like the earth and the child is like the moon. Then groups of solar systems were like cities and were called galaxies. Then groups of galaxies formed constellations. Finally, all of the constellations together form the universe, which is heaven. He said,

The universe or heaven is where God lives.

That did improve my conception of the heavens a lot, but not sufficiently for my father.

As he looked at the system of balls that he rigged up for me, my dad said to me,

"That is how things look from God’s point of view. Pretend like these balls on a wire are the family of stars in the solar system that we just talked about and he showed me the earth where we lived and the other planets, the moon, how the moon circled the earth, and how the earth circled the sun.

Our galaxy is called The Milky Way, said Dad.

I wondered why.

Did the air around it have a lot of milk instead of water? What if it rained milk?

When my parents would read the newspaper, I would pretend that I was reading too. I stared at the letters in an attempt to figure out what word was represented by each group of letters. Dad tried to explain how one learns to read so that I could understand it.

You have to learn the names of the letters first before you can learn to read. If you say the letters fast enough, many times you will practically say the word.

So, Mom taught me the ABC song to get me started and she would show me each letter as I sang it.

One evening I had a nightmare about broken necks again. My dad came rushing in, but this time he was dressed in his khaki pants and a shirt. Hurriedly, he explained to Mom, We have to hurry to Mother’s house.

Then he grabbed me and hurriedly put me on the toilet and then took me right out to the car. He was very upset. I was afraid, not knowing what was going on. He laid me down on the seat beside him, with lots of pillows. My mother kissed us both and said to my father,

Be careful now.

My dad told me that we were headed to Menard, Texas, because Grandma was in trouble. I was afraid, but I did not cry or say anything.

We drove fast, like a police car. It took forever to get there it seemed, although it was actually just a two and a half-hour ride.

Upon our arrival, my father stopped suddenly and bolted out of the car, leaving me behind. I heard him scream as he pushed my grandfather outside of the house.

Leave Mother alone—you son of a bitch.

Then my grandfather started running toward our car. My father ran after my grandfather and knocked him down. He ran back into the house and soon the police cars came, with sirens screeching. It scared me so that I wet my pants, but I was too scared to cry. When my dad came back out to check on me, he saw what had happened, so he took me into the house, cleaned me up and then found some other clothes for me.

The ambulance came and took my grandmother away. I wondered if she were going to be okay and what on earth had happened. I was very frightened; however I was even more scared of my grandfather. For some reason I was always scared of his red hair and penetrating green eyes. I do not know why. He never hurt me.

My father talked to the police a long time and then we went to the hospital to see my grandmother. She looked okay to me, though a bit disheveled. For that I was very glad and no longer scared. I still did not understand what had happened. Later on, when I would become an adult, I would be told that my grandfather had attempted to choke my grandmother. Shortly after that episode, my grandfather became very ill with cancer and died within a few months. I never had any more nightmares about broken necks. My mother was amazed at how my father always had premonitions about impending danger, just like my maternal grandmother who had the same ability. Maybe I also possessed that trait to a lesser degree. Perhaps that is what my nightmares were about.

Although my nightmares stopped after my paternal grandfather died, there were other scary things happening. World War II broke out. Frequently at night, we had blackout drills when we had to turn off all lights whenever we heard the siren in town blaring. Then we had to listen to the radio for instructions. I would wait to hear bomber planes thinking that the Japanese or the Germans were going to drop bombs on us at any time.

Just before my third birthday, my world came apart when my father came home with some Navy clothes and announced that he was leaving right away to war. Dad said that he was going to New Orleans to board a battleship. He told me that he was going to be their navigator at night and use the stars to guide him, just like he had been teaching me. I was afraid that torpedoes might hit his ship. I heard about torpedoes on the news while sitting on my grandfather’s lap eating apple before going to bed.

Before leaving, my dad talked about several things that he had hoped would comfort me.

Now, Marion, if you learn all of the words in this word game, and if you learn how to read and how to write, you could write letters and Mom would mail them to me. Then I could write back and you will be able to read what I write. Military planes deliver the mail several times a week.

With that in mind, I worked hard and learned every word in that game before long. Furthermore, I could read the newspaper, and I started reading signs and writing letters to my father, who would write back later. One word remained a mystery: railroad xing. I did not understand how crossing was derived from the xing. At any rate, writing to my father was a lot of fun and as he answered my letters, I felt more connected to him and that somehow, he would be safer.

As long as I could hear from my father, then I knew that he was still alive. I prayed for his safety every night. To ease my anxiety, my mother permitted me to feed Jill while I waited for her to become big enough to play with me. We went walking a lot and spent time at the park and also at my other grandmother’s home. My father’s mother was a very quiet person who moved from Menard to La Grange, Texas, and resided in an older home just a few blocks from us.

This older home definitely had its comfort zone for me, although the lace curtains had some peculiar smells that I did not particularly like. Her lamps smelled also because there were dried burned bugs in the bowl below the light bulbs, as I figured out later. My grandmother worked at the city hall and at the Methodist Church. At night, we frequently walked to her house and ate at her home. After dinner, she liked to sit at the piano and play hymns. She would sing alto and harmonize with us as we sang the soprano part. I was fascinated with her ability to simultaneously play the piano and sing. Eventually I learned to sing the alto part, also and my mother would join in and sing soprano with my sister. Grandmother’s piano was old and out of tune, which is why I could hear several pitches on one note. At the time I did not understand why I could hear several pitches. Sometimes I would try to not only mimic the piano, but I would try to make my voice produce a chord, much to the distress of my audience — my family.

On weekends, we often went to my other grandparents’ home in Weimar, Texas. My maternal grandmother was called Nonnie. I always looked forward to our visits with her because she was a fun-loving person with funny pranks to play.

Nonnie was a writer and artist. She wrote volumes of poetry about her experiences, which she often read to me. Nonnie frequently told me fascinating stories concerning my great-grandparent’s trip from their mansion in Dalton, Georgia, to the Oklahoma Indian reservation. This was a forced trip called The Trail of Tears. She said most of the people died on the way, including a great aunt, my great grandmother’s sister. She said the trip was by chuck wagon and foot. Nonnie told me that the trip was called The Trail of Tears because so many people died, that the entire trail from Georgia to Oklahoma was lined with tears from the survivors who were so sad.

Another thing that I liked about going to Nonnie’s home was that we always went to the fun club movies on Saturday mornings after we had spent the morning stuffing our faces with my grandmother’s world class donuts made by her at the crack of dawn when she baked bread. Going to the theatre for the fun club meant an hour of cartoons. You see, kids like me are generally sort of simple minded if left to do their own bidding. We were allowed to walk to town to the movie theatre, and after the movie, we could go to the drug store where there was a soda fountain. We usually bought a cherry coke or a milk shake and charged it to my grandfather’s account. In the summer evenings, my uncle and auntie would take us swimming. I established a little goal to learn to swim by the time my dad returned from the Navy to surprise him.

To my delight when I was nearly four years old, Jill had learned to walk better and faster about the time that we moved to Weimar, Texas with my grandmother. Now, Jill could run and nearly keep up with me. It was very exciting as I was getting that much closer to having a playmate. One day, I thought that I would help her grow up a little faster, (bad move). I took Jill, by the hand and her little feet were just hanging because I was walking too fast with her. I stumbled with her and fell down. My knee was scraped and my other front tooth came out. Mom scolded me a lot. I felt so bad, seeing my baby sister with a skinned knee, too. Finally, I learned that she broke easily and that I needed to be more careful with her.

Unfortunately, I came down with rheumatic fever and an enlarged heart, just before my sixth birthday; so I had to be bed-ridden for the most part, until I was seven years old. During that time, my grandmother and grandfather hired a nanny, whose name was Aunt Sani, to look after us. She became my best friend and teacher. I dearly loved her.

Aunt Sani told me about her life as a child of slave parents in Louisiana. She was my initial spark of interest in music. I would ask her,

Tell me, again the story about how the black notes on the piano composed the basis of Negro spirituals.

I loved to hear that and she would sing Amazing Grace and Sweet Chariots to me. Later on when she died at the age of 116 when I was 23 years old, I grieved my loss of her for years, although I knew she had to be in heaven. However, I felt her communication to me often.

One day when I was about four years old, I had a dream that my father was returning home with fourteen furloughs. In my childlike way of thinking, I presumed that a furlough was a furry stuffed animal of some kind, perhaps because of the first syllable – fur. Like I said, kids like me have simple minds. Somehow my dream meant that he was coming home. So I awoke the next morning cheerfully singing and dancing around.

My dad is coming to see us and has fourteen furloughs.

Those in my family who witnessed my odd behavior, sort of felt sorry for me, I believe. They probably thought that I had finally lost it, judging by the looks emanating from my mother’s countenance. The noon siren sounded, for which I was exceedingly grateful since I was very hungry. Just as we all sat down for dinner, served in our household at noon; our family, who owned and operated the local newspaper, was discussing getting the newspaper out on time that day. It was printed in both English and German because so many older people there could not read English. Weimar was a small German town, which presented a problem during the War, so the German version of the paper was sort of underground. During family discussion at the table, the phone rang and the Navy was calling asking for my mother. The rest of the family was worried that something had happened to my father. My mother anxiously went to the phone and nearly passed out when she was told that my dad was coming home on a fourteen-day furlough.

My dad arrived the next day by rail. It was wonderfully exciting for me. With him, he brought a miniature model of his tanker as well as the other tankers in his flotilla. I asked to see his fourteen furloughs. He laughed at me. I could not understand why I could not see his fourteen furloughs. Dad finally made me realize that a furlough was a day off of work.

After seeing how Dad’s ship was grouped with the others and with his on the outside of the group called a flotilla, I asked my father why he was put on the outside of the flotilla all of the time. He then told me,

Well, remember how I explained the North Star and how it was used to find out where you are going? I knew how to do that very well, so I was put on watch at night to help the captain of the ship go the right direction. My eyesight was also quite good, therefore, I could see if any enemy ships were near us.

Without considering my father’s explanation, I told my father that I did not want him to go back to the Navy because they were mean to him by making him stay on an ammunition ship outside of the flotilla. My fears became less as he told me that he used his sexton to keep the ship on course. Then he showed me how to line it up with various stars. That was a lot of fun although I did not quite understand