They Picked Us!

We’ve always said they picked us before they arrived.  We’ve always felt that our kids picked us before we met them. Both of our daughters are adopted and this is the story of our first becoming parents.

After one late miscarriage and many surgeries for an illness, we had decided to adopt. Cathy wanted kids and at the time I didn’t care. But I knew that she had to be a mom, that was for sure.

I wanted to be a restauranteur!  It was late September 1979. I had begun my dream of opening my own restaurant. It took about a year and a half to plan and build.

In September, Cathy was suddenly needing to prepare the nursery. She said “you know, couples who are pregnant, have nine months to get ready, with physical reminders. I don’t know why but I want the nursery now”. I thought this was a bit early but it was her sewing room so we started to paint. As it turned out that was the month that Vanessa was born.

I opened my dream restaurant,”The Garden Of Eat’n” two months later.  I was standing by the telephone  near the kitchen, had my hand on the antique deli case, watching a number of guests arriving at the front door. The telephone rang – and the adoption lady on the other end of the telephone said “how would you like to come down and meet your daughter tomorrow?”. Of course there was a piece of me that wanted to say “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”!  I thought, to myself, “I just opened a restaurant- how about in six months or a year from now?”. That was a little piece of me. What I said was, “GREAT!” I guess that’s a good way to start the story of Vanessa, our first child.

Cathy had a sewing room at our three bedroom house on a sleepy little cul-de-sac in Santa Rosa, California. We had already gone through the difficult process of getting OKed through several adoption agencies. We were told we were on the list for becoming parents in about 11 months down the road. That was in June.

Since this is a story about my oldest daughter Vanessa I will skip ahead several years.  First of all – my kids are the BEST thing that happened to me, well, with the exception of my wife Cathy. I’m not going to say which of these are first or second place. I’ll just leave it there!!!

Both of my kids started playing the violin at 3 1/2 years old, it was simply part of their preschool. It seemed that Vanessa was a natural. She took private lessons from 4th grade through high school. As a sophomore she was offered a three year scholarship to the prestigious virtuoso  program at the San Domineco High School in San Rafael, California. Now this was a girls school catering to daughters of wealthy diplomats and kings. Her humble $3000 violin that we as a family scrimped and saved to buy, and her Mervin’s department store clothes were no match for the likes of her school chums, though Vanessa didn’t care. It didn’t help that she got a much better sound because of her expertise and talent than the others with much more expensive violins.

At the insistence of us and her that she not board there fulltime, she only stayed there 3 nights during the week. After 5 weeks, she said she wasn’t going back. At first we tried to convince to stick it out until the parent-teacher conference. Then she ran away. Her room was by the front door – she pushed out the screen and she was gone. Athough she only went over to a friend’s house nearby and called to tell us.

Now I knew that she meant it. I had lived with a mom who I think coined the term “my way or the high way”. It didn’t work for me and I was sure that it wasn’t going to work with my daughter. I decided to use a different track. If you’re not willing to listen to me this is the last thing I’m going to tell you. You’re going to make all of your decisions from now on. From now on they’re your decisions and you’re going to have to live with them. I will be here to offer my suggestions but that’s all they are. And I tried to live with that statement for the rest of high school.

One time that I thought I was going to reneg was when she came home from an outdoor theater project at one of the wineries in Napa. Being Vanessa, of course she always had to say goodbye to every one in the parking lot. She and  some friends were the only people left in the parking lot. She hadn’t noticed but her car was on empty. None of them had any money so they went to a busy restaurant. She opened up her violin case and started playing for the folks that were waiting for tables.

When she got home, I was sleeping in my easy chair. She said, “Dad! I figured out how I’m going to be able to get to New York this summer!” Now I could have hit the ceiling and said something that I would’ve been sorry for but instead I listened to her story. Found out that she had made enough money to put gas in the car and pay for their dinner. I didn’t say anything about New York hoping something would get be between her and New York.

In the meantime, she decided to go to the University of Santa Barbara. And too bad she had to take a biology class in summer school. We were not able to pay for her college. She pretty much had to do it on her own.

She has always been that way. She was working for an AIDS foundation for quite a long time during college and called me up regularly to get my opinion. On this occasion she said that she was tired of the director giving her all the work and all he did was go out and talk to people. I told her that was what his job was – going out and raising money for the cause. She said, “I know, but now he wants me to take an accounting class. I don’t want to be an accountant; I want to help people.” I did not comprehend what she was saying at the time. I said “I’ve always thought of accounting as pretty boring. But I’m not sorry that I took the courses.”  I continued “but you always liked math you would probably be good it.”  I told her I don’t know what I would do without an accountant and that they help people all of the time.  Then I asked if he was going to pay for the accounting class and she said, “well yes”.

Because of that job, when she graduated from college she was able to work for Robert Half Finance Division – “Account Temps” – then when a permanent job came available with them she be came one of their best sales people.

Three years later during one of our many conversations she said that one of her contacts at a local stock brokerage company wanted to talk to her. She hadn’t been successful getting any business from this man, should she take the appointment? She was sure he wanted to offer her a job. “But I don’t want to be a stock broker, Dad! I want to help people!” I reminded her of her grandfather who had been taken advantage of by a stockbroker. “Your grandpa lost all his money to the Enron mess  so you can see that many people can be helped by an honest broker.” Again I didn’t comprehend her negative response but she took the job past all of her exams for her certifications.

During the down turn in the economy in ’08, she and a partner who had been working with her at AG Edwards, started their own firm they named Monarch Wealth Strategies. Unlike the big firms, they were willing to help people with less than $250,000 to invest. It continues to be a successful and ethical enterprise today.

After working hard for two years she decided to sell her interest in Monarch and got a job with the “Foundation For Low Income scholarship Santa Barbara City College” Three years later instead of taking a raise she met negotiated with the board of the directors to take fridays off and for the board to pay half of her tuition for her masters degree studies.

After getting her masters degree and three year as the CEO She and her boss have just returned from a trip Sacramento where the Ventura County County Foundation has just received an reward For The Best Charity Foundation In California.

Only now am able I see why she was reluctant to take jobs that were designed to help successful people manage their wealth.