The Rest of Her Life

Four years before Rachel was born, we had decided on her name. We had gone to a black-and-white English movie about a little girl and boy. The girl was named Rachel. Betty said, "If we ever have a girl, I want to name her Rachel."

I thought that was fine. At the time, the idea that we would ever have a girl had not yet hit me. In my family, there were five boys and no girls. I knew nothing about girls.

Four years later, I started learning. Rachel was an easy child; she slept all night through from the start. And she was pleasant - laughing and smiling when she was six weeks old.

And she was a whizzer with words. When she was nine months old, she gained renown in the neighborhood for saying "hippopotamus" in front of witnesses. People came over just to see her do that and she always obliged them. There was a rumor that she wouldn't talk unless you gave her a quarter, but I don't believe it.

Over the years, I learned that girls are different from boys, although Rachel and I always thought the same things were funny. She has a little sense of humor that's all her own.

When she hit high school in the early eighties, the world had changed from the one we knew. Her high school generation was the first one to go public with obscenity - the autograph pages in her annuals can not be examined in mixed company, even today. On a more positive note, her generation adopted the word "heinous" as a universal adjective, indicating a general state of opprobrium.

Those were heady days. Then came graduation and, following that, the yawning maw of the rest of her life. Rachel showed no particular inclination or enthusiasm for going to college. Betty was sympathetic to her feelings, but I was adamant that she would go.

Rachel said, "What's so important about going to college?"

I said, "It's important because, if you don't go, then for the rest of your life, you'll wonder what it was all about."

"That's all?"

"That's it."

"Why can't I just get a job?"

"Do you want to work at McDonald's for the rest of your life?"

"Heinous."

So, it was settled. She went to Georgia for a year and then finished at Georgia State, magna cum laude. And she hasn't wondered about it since. But there was still the matter of the rest of her life.

The summer before her graduation, I took her to CDC and helped her get a job. On the way home, I asked her how it felt to be employed. She was reading the qualifications on her job description. She said, "I didn't need to go to college to get this job."

But she enjoyed working in an office. Still, it didn't seem like something she would want to do for the rest of her life. Then she met this guy. All during high school and college, she had not shown much interest in any particular boy. So I was surprised, when Betty told me, one evening: "Rachel has met somebody." He was Rob Merritt, a Health Scientist at CDC.

They hit it off. They were suprised to learn that, even though they grew up in different places, they thought the same things were heinous. She brought him home to meet us and he took her home to meet his parents. His father said that he never thought a son of his could ever attract the interest of a girl as fine as Rachel.

So, when everyone had been informed, they got married. Now, they have three children - William, 13, Andrew, 9, and Molly, 7. And for the rest of her life, Rachel hasn't wondered about the rest of her life.