Raising Them Alone

Chapter 1
Kate and Josh
Josh and I talked about one day getting married to someone and having a big family. But I don’t think that either one of us ever thought about or even dreamed that we would ever having to go it alone. And alone for many years I have been. But with my most precious Josh I had also been for many years. Many years that I cherish today and will cherish always. Years I want my children to cherish and their children and their children and so on. Years that I have not forgotten nor ever could. So that is why I write this now. Though I may be getting older and my memory not as clear I want to write down before I go to meet my Josh again. Granted it may be many years before that happens but I want to share this story, our story so it will live on not just in my family but in the hearts of anyone who has loved and lost.
I met Josh through his sister Emily when we were fifteen and Josh was twenty. Josh and Emily had been close growing up but then Josh went off to college and the Tyler duo (as they were often called) drifted apart. Sadly the Tyler duo never fully got back together, try as I may to get them to. They just didn’t have much of an interest to until it was almost too late.
Josh and I would hang out a lot in the summer of 1963, he was home from college and for some reason he took a liking to me. Now granted Emily and a few others were also around but Josh made it very clear, or at least to me, that he liked being around me the most.
Now Emily and Josh weren’t that close at this time, and having me around didn’t help. I constantly felt like I was in a game of tug a war and I was the rope! It was always “Kate let’s do this” from Emily or “Kate lets do that” from Josh. For a time I’d make up excuses to not hang out with either one of them. Though things started to change on August 21, 1963.
Emily had met me at my place and we were on our way to a movie when our mutral friend Sharon Dane ran up to us. Sharon and Emily lived on the same block while I was five blocks up the road.
“Emily, you’re mom just told me to come fetch you.” Sharon said while trying to catch her breath.
“Why?” Emily in all honesty didn’t act she really cared.
“To watch the twins Adriane and Duncan.”
“Again why?”
“She has to take Josh to the hospital.”
That got Emily’s attention and mine. This time Emily didn’t ask any questions. She and I headed back to her place as fast as we could.
Josh hadn’t been feeling well all day and now his fever had spiked to 103* and couldn’t keep anything down. Shirley (Josh and Emily’s mom) had always been a bit of a worry wart, but when you lose your husband to cancer and have to raise four children alone I guess you can’t blame her. But Josh was also the apple of Shirley’s eye. To her Josh could do no wrong and if Josh was sick she dropped everything to tend to his needs.
That night I stayed with Emily and watched the twins. Shirley called from the hospital saying that Josh’s appendix had burst and was in emergency surgery. Thankfully the surgery went well but Josh never had a good immune system and he developed pneumonia. Emily never liked to see anyone sick, especially Josh. She never saw him once in the hospital the week he was there. Truth I think that he was really hurt about it. I on the other hand went and saw him everyday. And that was when my relationship with Josh started to change.
After Josh was released he stayed home instead of returning to college. He said he would go back the next term in six weeks. In those six weeks Josh and I spent more one on one time together, which my parents weren’t too thrilled about since I was still just fifteen. Josh and I found out that we had a lot in common and even surprisingly had the same favorite singer which was Elvis Presley. And I mean surprisingly for him not me. I mean come on, I was fifteen and lets face it, Elvis was sexy and amazing.
Josh and I started to date until he left for school. It broke my heart when he left cause I was deeply in love with him. And all he could talk about was getting back to school and how excited he was to go. It was like it didn’t bother him at all that I was being left behind. I guess when you’re fifteen and the guy you’re in love with is five years older your feelings just don’t matter as much.
“Kate I have to go. And it’s better we start to see other people. People our own age. I mean it’s been fun and all, but let’s face it I’m a college guy and you’re in high school still.”
“But Josh I love you.”
“And I love you as a friend. That’s all you love me as. You know it and so do I. you don’t know real love yet, you’re still too young.”
“And you do?”
“Yeah, I’m five years older and Kate you’re not my first girlfriend.”
Truth was he was my first boyfriend yes. And truth what he said hurt and I was totally crushed. “Then Josh, I’m glad you’re leaving for school. If all I am is a friend then I don’t care what you do. I mean why should I? but as of right now I forever hate you!” I then ran off.
I would later learn from Emily that how Josh acted was his way of having it be easier for him. He really did love me and not just in the friendship sense of way. Josh loved me and deep down he knew that we would be together.
But as he left for college I could care less if I ever saw him again. I hoped that he would meet someone, fall in love and get married. For to me he had made it plain and clear that he did not love me. While in he was in school he would write to me and call sometimes, and it took me a while before I responded. I didn’t want him to think I was sitting at home mopping around without him. Though in truth I pretty much was. Yes I went out with friends and sometimes went on a date or two. But truth none of the guys I went out with made me feel like Josh did.
Emily came over to my house on May 12, 1964 with a pretty serious look on her face. It had been a while since I had heard from Josh and it bothered me, and Emily knew it did and how I felt about Josh. “Kate, sit down.”
“What’s the matter Emily?”
“Josh called this afternoon.”
“So?”
“He met someone.”
“Good for him.”
“Kate, he’s engaged to be married. Her name is Megan Donahue.”
With that I didn’t say anything.
“Kate, you okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I then got up and left. That night I wrote in my diary.
“This is what I wanted right? Then why do I feel cheated? Not cheated on cause I know Josh and I broke up. More like cheated out of. Cheated out of my dreams of one day being married to Josh and being Mrs. Joshua Tyler and having six or seven children. Yes, I’m sixteen and he is twenty one, but I love him. I really love him. Kate Dalen”
However that wedding was not meant to be. Three months before on September 30, 1964 Josh and Megan were in a car accident. Josh was badly banged up and Megan was pronounced dead on the scene.
Josh didn’t come home he decided to stay in school. In fact he graduated in January 1965. Then he came home and got a job in his grandfather’s family carpentry business. He would one day go on to run the business.
I would go over to the Tyler house a lot still to see Emily, but also to make sure Josh was okay. You never really saw Josh after he came home. He went to work then back home and pretty much stayed out of the way of everyone else. He wasn’t the same at all.
One day I went over and as I got to the front door I heard Josh say my name from the back. I went to the back of the house to see him sitting on the porch. “Hey Josh.”
“Hi Kate, so how have you been? I see you around a lot but we haven’t really talked.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Kate, you should know by now that you could never bother me. Come sit next to me.” He looked so different. He normal slender frame seemed even more slender and he his brown hair was longer than normal. Truth he didn’t look well. Though I knew he was looking at me it was almost like he had a far away look in his eyes like he was looking through me or past me, not really at me.