As a child, Brendan was abandoned by his parents in an orphanage. But fifty-seven years later, he was reunited with them in a nursing home and forced to make a life-changing decision.
Brendan Wallace’s earliest memories are of hunger, fear, and rejection. The hands that should have been gentle were instead brutal.
Brendan remembers getting out of his little bed and trotting toward the sound of music and laughter, his diaper dirty and heavy. Then the laughter stopped. “For God’s sake, we have to get rid of that brat!” a woman’s voice shouted. It was his mother.
Sometimes, when his mother was asleep and happy, she would let Brandan curl up against her, and he would feel safe and content. But most of the time, the sight of Brendan irritated his parents.
It would be many years before an adult Brendan would understand why he was so unhappy and unwanted as a child. His parents were both wealthy, living off of investment funds set up by Brendan’s grandfather. When the boy was born, they lived in a commune.
Bitterness is poison and forgiveness is the only antidote.
It was the sixties and the era of peace, love and flower power was in full swing. But for Brendan’s parents, the love of a child was far from what they were looking for. When Margaret Wallace discovered she was pregnant, she was horrified and angry.
Horrified because she had no intention of being a mother “ever!” … and angry because it was far too late to prevent Brendan’s birth. Luckily for Margaret and Brendan’s father, Rafe, the commune was full of motherly women who loved babies and could care for the little one.
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Actually, Brendan wasn’t supposed to be called that. They wanted something romantic like Moonchild, but the man at the checkout took one look at Margaret’s bare feet and pearls and asked her father’s name.
“Brendan,” she replied. And the man registered Brendan as the boy’s name, a sensible and useful name. Margaret and Rafe lived in the commune until Brendan was almost three, then they decided to leave.
They were considering following a new guru who was all the rage. The man, an Indian artist, had given a lecture in San Francisco and the couple had been enchanted by his philosophy of a meaningful life.
The guru was leading a religious training group in India and Margaret and Rafe immediately decided that was where they had to go. But what to do with Brendan? They couldn’t take him…
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“We’ll leave him in an orphanage,” Margaret said. “That’s where they take care of children, isn’t it?”
Rafe wasn’t entirely sold on the idea. “What if he ends up going through the same tragedy as Oliver Twist? I wouldn’t want something like that to happen to the kid.”
“That’s absurd!” cried Margaret. “I’m sure he’ll be all right! And he won’t be poor, will he? He’s had his own inheritance since he was born, and he’ll be all right when he grows up. He’ll have everything he needs!”
So three days later, Margaret and Rafe walked into a convent-run orphanage in suburban San Francisco and dropped off three-year-old Brendan in the lobby. They left behind only his birth certificate and his trust fund paperwork.
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To Brendan, the nuns with their white winged headdresses were like angels. They took him in, bathed him, treated the constant painful rashes that had afflicted him since birth, and fed him.
For the first time, Brendan was surrounded by loving, caring, and kind people. In the orphanage, he blossomed into an active, joyful little boy. But sometimes, a deep silence fell on him.
As he grew older, he understood more and more of his vague memories. He learned about his trust fund and the fortune it would give him when he was older. He knew that his parents had not abandoned him out of poverty and despair.
Most of the children in the orphanage were orphans, but a few had been left there when their parents could no longer feed them, so they wouldn’t starve. But Brendan’s parents were rich…
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When Brendan turned 18, he left the orphanage and the kind nuns to go to college. The trust fund had matured and there was plenty of money to pay for college, or even for Brendan to live the rest of his life without working.
But Brendan wanted to build bridges, like the San Francisco Bridge. He wanted to build bridges that would reach up high, and look like they could reach into the sky.
At university, he met Susan, a charming artist, and the two fell in love. They married after graduation and had two children. When he held his children in his arms for the first time, Brendan felt such a surge of love, that he couldn’t understand how his own parents could have left him.
His bitterness and anger toward them grew as did his love for his children. “They never loved me the way I love Meg and Brian,” he told Susan. “They never loved me at all!”
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Brendan was a grandfather when he finally heard from his “parents.” The law firm that administered his trust fund contacted him and told him that his parents had finally exhausted their own trust fund.
“They’re destitute, Mr. Wallace,” the lawyer said. “We made the last payment from the trust fund to the nursing home where they’re staying, but in six months they’ll be homeless.”
“Why are you calling me?” Brendan asked coldly. The man hesitated. “Well… They’re your parents,” he said. “We thought you should be informed… And maybe we thought you’d show a little compassion…”
“They are not loving parents,” Brendan replied. “I have no compassion or feeling for them, unless it is a healthy disdain.”
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But the lawyer’s call continued to tug at Brendan’s conscience. “I’m sixty years old and I don’t owe anyone anything!” he told Susan. “So why do I feel this way?”
“Because you’re a good man,” Susan replied gently. “And good men do the right thing…”
Two weeks later, Brendan and Susan went to the retirement home where Margaret and Rafe were staying. The long-haired, slim, handsome young people they had once been were long gone.
They were old and not aging gracefully. When a caregiver had told them their son was coming, they had been stunned. Then Margaret stood up and walked toward Brendan, her arms outstretched.
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“Brendan, my baby!” she said, crying, but there were no tears in her bright little eyes.
Brendan easily slipped out of her embrace. “Hello, Mom,” he said. “I’m surprised you remember me, I probably wouldn’t have recognized you at all.”
Rafe smiled, showing that most of his teeth were gone. “Now, boy, let’s not dwell on the past…” he said. “We’re so happy to see you! Life hasn’t been easy… We’re not what we used to be…”
“Please, my son,” Margaret whispered. “Don’t abandon us!”
“Abandon you?” Brendan asked. “You mean do to you what you did to me?”
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“We left you the money!” Rafe cried. “You weren’t poor like we are now!”
“You didn’t leave me any money,” Brendan said calmly. “That trust fund was set up automatically by Grandpa’s estate the moment I was born. You had nothing to do with it.
“But you know what? I won’t abandon you. I’m not doing this because you deserve better, but because I’m a better person than you. I know what love is, and what compassion is. I forgive you, even if you don’t deserve it, and I will help you. You can have money!”
Rafe looked at Brendan with tears in his eyes. “We are so alone, my son, so alone… What can money bring us now? No more lonely days? Please…”
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Brendan nodded. “So now you understand how I felt,” he said. “I was a child, and all I wanted was to be loved and cherished. You think money was a consolation? Now you’re old, and you want to be loved too, and have a family.”
“It’s okay, I’m taking you home with me, father, mother. You won’t die alone.”
Brendan took Margaret and Rafe into his home and hired a caregiver for them. Margaret loved talking to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and telling them stories of their wild days in the sixties, playing guitar with Bob Dylan at a campfire.
Rafe would sit next to Brendan whenever he could and hold his hand in his. Brendan donated the vast fortune he had accumulated in his trust fund to the orphanage that had raised him and shown him what love and kindness were.
What can we learn from this story?
- Money is no substitute for love . Brendan’s parents abandoned him and left him a lot of money, but gave him no love or tenderness.
- Bitterness is poison and forgiveness is the only antidote. Brendan carried resentment toward his parents in his heart until one day he finally forgave them.
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