Staying True (5 page)

In understanding this, I learned not to take personally Mark’s thrifty ways, but I also started to appreciate in a deeper way the different loads we each carried into our shared emotional space. It became clear why Mark had asked me to have that discussion about goals, and why his many different goals had to be listed on pages and pages. He needed to accomplish as much as he could in whatever time God granted him. This also helps explain why Mark could be restless and impulsive.

After we finished renovating our house, Mark began agitating for the next big project. Our house came with an adjacent vacant lot. After less than a year, we sold the house we renovated and rented a house nearby so that we could design and build a new home on that vacant lot. We wanted our new home to be one we would own forever and yet one that was uncomplicated and easy to leave for weekends spent at Coosaw or for longer breaks in the summer. City living was fine for Mark, but he was adamant that he never wanted to feel closed in, so we made having a view of the harbor an important part of the design.

Building a house from the ground up is exhilarating. You watch your ideas, your creation, your hopes and dreams start to blossom with each new wall put up and floor laid down. But I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart. Even the best of teams have faltered under the pressure of so many large and so many petty decisions. And the way money seems to hemorrhage, even the most careful accounting can make your head spin.

I had, of course, learned with our first home renovation how important sticking to a budget was for Mark. I also learned how much I disliked having his fingers in every little decision I made. Unless we divided our areas of decision making, I knew we’d end up arguing about the cost of doorknobs, and I didn’t want him micromanaging the nonfinancial decisions such as paint color either. We avoided conflict in our second home the same way we had over our checkbook. We came up with an overall budget and design for the house and then split responsibilities, with each of us having complete control of specific areas with attached budgets.

Mark dealt with the outside of the house and the garage, yard, roof, and deck, while I dealt with all details of the interior. If I wanted expensive curtains, then I would need to skimp on cabinets or vice versa. I trusted him with the choice of brick or with shutters and he trusted my choice of paint colors and fabrics, all within the original boundaries we had agreed to. This turned out to be an incredibly effective way to survive the project, and I’m not a little proud to be able to look back at that time and see that two controlling personalities (one who was also a penny-pincher, and the other who realized she was pregnant) worked as a real team through it all.

Yes, too true. Shortly after settling into the rental home I discovered I was pregnant. This was a real surprise to both of us; starting a family was a few years off on both of our lists of goals. I was immediately excited nonetheless. Mark, however, was quite anxious at first. He thought he would be better suited to be a father if he was a bit older (his father was 45 when Mark was born) and he worried too what he would do, how he would react, the way he would play and interact, if this baby was a girl. At first his mumblings seemed funny. I couldn’t quite believe that the idea of a baby girl would cause him so much fear. But I soon realized that his anxiety was real. Even as he started to get excited about the idea of a baby—and he did; we both embraced it pretty quickly—he imagined boys, sons. His sister was always “one of the boys” in his childhood household. I often think that a girl would have been great for Mark. She might have softened him up a bit, and I know he would have been a wonderful father to her. But somehow God gives you only what you can handle. Maybe sons are what Mark could handle. Little did either of us know there would be four!

Mark and I worked together on plans for the new house and then watched it being built as my belly grew. Friends held a baby shower for me, and I prepared a small nursery in the house while Mark continued to keep his fingers crossed for a boy. I was able to continue playing golf and tennis and even worked planting fields at Coosaw while pregnant, though I did tire more easily as I grew quite large. Mark joined me at one Lamaze class before deeming it a waste of his time since, as he explained, “I’ve spent many long nights helping cows give birth and I know what to do when the baby gets stuck.” Of course, many fathers still didn’t attend births in those days, so Mark didn’t really feel he needed to know too much about the human birthing process. Instead, my sister Kathy came to be with me for the birth. We spent lots of time taking bike rides on the cobblestone streets in Charleston hoping to help nudge delivery along, to no avail.

When I was almost two weeks overdue, my labor was induced. Delivered at 10 pounds, 5 ounces, on June 23, our first son, Marshall, was a healthy, very content baby whom Mark delightfully began to refer to as the “little man.” Mark was instantly a very proud and very doting father. He called his family and mine to brag of this fine baby boy and to tell them all how healthy and handsome he was. Mark’s mother, Peg, came to stay with us for a few days and I was thankful for the help since I was not all that nimble after the delivery.

Mark’s enthusiasm for Marshall was wonderful to witness, but I could see changing diapers would not be his strong suit. He had planned a trip to climb Mt. Rainier with a few friends and, as the baby had been late in coming, his trip would begin when Marshall was only two weeks old. Marshall took to nursing right away, and he usually slept well between feedings. I was comfortable and confident in my mothering instincts. I didn’t really see any reason for Mark not to go off and enjoy his adventure.

Actually, taking care of a newborn alone while Mark traveled turned out to be much easier in many ways than assimilating to life at Coosaw with Mark and his siblings while raising Marshall.

I remember waking up with Marshall as the sun rose one morning on a family-filled holiday weekend and having a difficult time keeping him safe in the kitchen while I heated his bottle. He was crawling around the floor, which was, as usual, littered with farm dirt and dead cockroaches, and I saw scattered shotgun shells too. If that wasn’t enough, that morning there were also beer bottles left by Mark’s younger siblings who had likely gone to bed just hours before. I happen to love the abandon with which the Sanfords look at cleanliness at Coosaw, but throwing a baby into the mix and then adding his siblings and their habits made it all quite a challenge at times.

Pulling a shotgun shell from my baby’s tight grasp was all the more ironic given my mother’s involvement in gun control. Mom has long had a can-do attitude, and when I was about eight, she became particularly frustrated reading about so many shooting deaths in Chicago. She decided to do something about it and worked with a few fellow moms to create an organization that soon became one of the first national efforts toward handgun control. They started a campaign to “Ban the Bullet” with slogans like “We need guns like we need a hole in the head!”

This brought her all sorts of good attention and some unwelcome as well. We had to unlist our home phone number due to the many threats we received from outraged gun owners, and a national hardware store chain even refused to do business with Skil as a result of mom’s gun-control lobby. She was invited to appear on the
Today
show in the early 1970s, and my sister Gier and I were lucky enough to travel with her to New York. I remember being excited about flying to the big city for the first time, staying in a hotel, and eating at a fancy restaurant, not the important work our mother was doing there.

I now fully understand the many people—in South Carolina and elsewhere—who take seriously the right to bear arms, but remain amazed that my mom’s gun-control efforts were not brought to light and used against Mark in our campaigns. I also remain amazed that our babies survived those early days pioneering at Coosaw.

FOUR

B
Y FALL OF 1992 I WAS ENCHANTED WITH THE NEWFOUND JOYS of motherhood and enjoying every minute of life in this historic, eclectic, and sophisticated little town. We had a beautiful baby, were building a dream house, and shared an exquisite farm nearby. Also, I had developed many new and dear friendships with such women as Virginia Lane, an architect down the street, and Sally Coen, then my across-the-street neighbor, who had recently had her first son, too. I had also become close with Lalla Lee Campsen, who wasn’t anything like my traditionally Irish Catholic New York and Chicago friends. Lalla Lee is sweet and very Southern, and she is a great shot, drives a boat well, and doesn’t drink. Lalla Lee’s family has a hunting spot near Coosaw, and she and her husband Chip met through Mark. Together she and I shared time outdoors with our boys and our tennis games, but we also shared our spiritual sides.

With good girlfriends to complete the picture, Mark and I had such a wonderful quality of life, unlike anything I had experienced while in New York. We had enough money, but this wasn’t about riches. For lack of a better way to say it, I was so
pleased
by all Mark and I had accomplished in the few years we had been married. I knew every compromise I’d made to bring this about had been wise and I didn’t think of any of the choices I had made as sacrifices. For all of the pieces of my identity—my work, most importantly—and my family traditions that I’d surrendered, I’d received blessings that were so much stronger and more precious to me: my husband, our child, our home, and our rich life in Charleston.

Mark and I were smiling one hot, sticky evening as we watched Marshall sleeping peacefully in his crib when Mark said, “Jenny, with the exception of that little man, I’m bored with life. I want to be stretched and pushed to the point of exhaustion. I want to be consumed. I don’t want to just exist.”

A little taken aback, I noted that this was ironic, since he had been so concerned about whether I would be bored when we moved here. It now seemed our roles were reversed. He acknowledged this irony, but he brushed it aside. His restlessness was awake again and apparent on his face.

I understood Mark’s need to travel and to seek adventure, and all along I encouraged that, while hoping he would find what he needed to settle his spirit. Now, as his wife, I sensed his frustration and shared it in a way, absorbing what I could for him but unable to cure whatever it was that lay at the heart of his angst.

Shortly after announcing the need for something new to do, Mark considered some more significant real estate ventures, and his angst began to take a more specific direction. As he looked at the local and regional markets and the economy, he also considered the national climate that affected his ability to accomplish his goals. This was during Bill Clinton’s first administration, and Mark began to worry about the big-spending ways of our federal government and what that meant for our young and growing family if spending was not brought under control. On many occasions, we talked at length and deeply about his frustrations. As a way to focus his thinking, he wrote a thirty-page paper on the national debt and the problems with our Social Security system. I engaged in the policy talk over countless dinners, though I have to admit that the paper made my eyes glaze over. What was exciting, however, was that it ignited a passion in Mark, and I was happy to see him energized and focused.

Mark began to pay attention when the congressional seat for our coastal district, which runs from just south of Charleston up the coast to the North Carolina border, opened up when the incumbent retired. The race for the seat had already attracted a number of people who were actively campaigning. There were two well-financed candidates running (the favorite, Van Hipp, had run the state Republican Party) and a third who had very high name recognition because his father, who had the same name, was a long-time Congressman for the district in years prior. Mark met with local business and political leaders to discuss what they wanted from the next person who would represent that district in Congress. I saw how interested Mark was in getting the right person in that position, but I didn’t think he imagined
he
might be the right person. Aside from Mark’s exploring candidate positions, we had talked very little of party politics. In South Carolina, you don’t register to vote with a party affiliation, so I actually had to ask Mark which party he considered himself to be a part of. While unwavering in his conservative principles, he considered his answer before declaring he was a Republican.

While Mark was pondering deficits and Social Security, I found myself pregnant again. This time, neither of us was much surprised. We both wanted several children and had wasted no time working toward that goal after Marshall was born. Soon after settling into our new house, we welcomed our next son. My labor was induced before the due date because Marshall had been so big. On September 28, 1993, John Landon was born easily, weighing in at a mild 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Mark was wild with joy at having a second son. He was tender and sweet with both Marshall and Landon from the very first moment he held them. As one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 127, puts it: “Like arrows in the hands of a fighting man are sons born to a man in his youth. Happy is he who has his quiver full.” Mark was well on his way to enjoying a quiver full.

Still, he was restless.

I was in the hospital recovering from Landon’s delivery when Mark formalized something that by then I’d known he was seriously considering. He announced he’d decided to run for Congress. He said that the decision felt right and that he felt compelled to run in this particular race. Then, he dropped another bombshell:

“And, Jenny, you are going to run my campaign.”

“Me? You have got to be kidding! I’ve never even volunteered on anyone’s campaign!”

“But you’re free,” he continued.

“Free? I think my plate is pretty full right now!” I said. I was still in the hospital bed, after all. Clearly he meant a different kind of free.

“You can do this with the babies at home,” he explained “and we can just put a phone line in the kitchen. The only way this will even possibly work is if we keep our expenses incredibly low and that’s why I really need you. You are free. I know why I am running and have my ideas all mapped out but I need someone to keep the trains running on time, and you are great with that kind of stuff.”

I wish I could say that I threw my head back and laughed at Mark’s logic or that I was wildly enthusiastic at the prospect of working hard for no pay. Instead, my honest reaction was that Mark had devised a plan that was textbook blind leading the blind. But I did know a sparkle in Mark’s eye when I saw one. This decision might be the thing that would still his restlessness. Even though this work was really about achieving Mark’s dream and not my own, I felt it was worthy and I thought it would be something we could do together while raising our family in the midst of it all. I think I waited until I was home from the hospital with Landon, but I accepted Mark’s challenge. I signed on to help him to achieve a goal. I was excited, and at the time it didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.

I suppose you could say that women are built for sacrifice. After all, we “sacrifice” a youthful, firm body to child-bearing. Imagining holding that sweet baby in your arms can make the discomforts of pregnancy endurable. Over the nine months of sharing space with a growing child, a woman can find the joy that comes from physical generosity. As the baby grows, you give him life, your life: nutrients, oxygen, protection and, bit by bit, your heart. Then you launch him into the world and experience a wrenching release—emotional and physical to be sure—and then the joy that this new little person brings to you and all around you. You’d give anything to keep that child safe and to make his life good. Sacrifice? By any definition, it becomes a part of everyday life.

When Mark announced his candidacy on November 16, 1993, shortly after Landon was born, he said, “I am running because I believe that unless we do something about the debt and the deficit, it has the capacity to undermine the financial foundation on which all of our businesses, jobs, and savings rest.” The local paper noted the next day that “[Sanford] has no previous experience in elected office, no name recognition and little backing”
(Post and Courier
, November 17, 1993). The paper continued, “‘What’s wrong with regular folks who don’t have name recognition going out and getting involved in politics?’ he [Mark] asked. Will it work? Not too often in South Carolina politics will an unknown step in and win a race for Congress.”

I told Mark that I would put all my efforts toward helping him get elected this one time, but if he did not win, I was not willing to do it again and again as so many others seem to do. One shot. Thus I agreed, quite naïvely, to run Mark’s race for U.S. Congress. Never once, to my recollection, did either one of us question or discuss what would happen if he were to win.