Love and faith are different branches of the same tree. They can’t be seen. They can’t be touched. But when grounded in the heart, few things are as real or enduring.
Ralph Lowery’s eldest daughter, Cathy, grew up with absolute faith in her father’s love.
She knew her father had been in prison, but that didn’t matter. She knew she’d helped save him from returning to a life of crime. He told her so all the time. Looking back, she remembers how hard Ralph worked to provide a home and to keep a roof over their heads. She remembers all those nights, drifting toward sleep on a couch in some business office, while nearby he pushed a broom, moonlighting as a janitor to earn extra cash.
Now married with children of her own, Cathy Landolt lives in Missouri, where she helps manage a nursing home. Love for her father remains strong.
"He’ll pretty much do anything for his children," she said.
Not all of Ralph’s children see it that way.
Abandoned by his parents, and a product of nearly two decades behind bars, Ralph struggled to maintain relationships. During his first 15 years out of prison, he fathered seven children with three women, marrying and divorcing twice.
After Cathy’s mother left him in 1968, he married Carol Marsall of Lynnwood. Their eldest son, Damon, was born in August 1970. Brandy arrived two years later, followed by another boy, Randy, in 1974. Between 1978 and 1980, Ralph had another three children — Crystal, Josh and Jason — with a woman who now lives in Oklahoma.
Although Ralph loved his kids, most grew up living in other cities or states, separated by time and distance and the shifting alliances common to broken families.
Ralph carries a newspaper clipping in his wallet, a Dear Abby column that answers a letter from a man whose name is signed "Imperfect Pop in Philadelphia." The message describes the "deep reservoir of hurt and anger" in families that, for whatever reason, don’t work. It also discusses the importance of accepting that some things can’t be changed. Ralph said he reads the clipping sometimes because the words are oddly comforting. They tell him he’s not alone.
It wasn’t until 1982, when he was 48, that Ralph finally got the marriage thing right.
He found Carol Lowery, the woman he’s been building a life with for the past 21 years.
They were brought together by a newspaper advertisement Ralph placed in the Little Nickel. Carol never saw the ad. Her boss at the time, a man who ran a furniture store in Seattle, spotted the item in the paper and placed a phone call. He told Ralph that he knew a woman who was looking for somebody to share a life.
The courtship was brief. Ralph told Carol that he could give her, and her then-11-year-old daughter, Trisha, a good home. He was a divorced dad with a 13-year-old daughter of his own at home. His girl needed a mom.
Ralph came clean about his time in prison and the mistakes he made. Carol was more impressed with how hard he worked, how much he loved his children, how he’d known enough loss to appreciate what he had. Carol agreed they should marry, but was also honest about the arrangement. She didn’t love him, but promised that would come in time. And it did.
The couple made their home in Snohomish, first on a 5-acre farm outside town and then in a nearly 80-year-old house on the west end of Avenue J, a place that had been built by one of the town’s founding families. They lived quietly. Someone heard of Ralph’s ability at leatherwork and, never guessing it was a skill he’d learned in prison, asked him to make the fringed sashes and capes used by local Camp Fire kids.
Ralph’s other children were always welcome in his home. Sometimes they lived under his roof. Most would visit, often for weeks at a time, during summer vacations. It was a habit that stuck. Ralph’s youngest sons, Josh and Jason, called regularly from Oklahoma, where they lived with their mother.
Ralph’s second wife, Carol Marsall, had remarried after their divorce. She and the children moved to Bozeman, Mont. Her eldest boy, Damon, loved the freedom of the Big Sky country with its rivers, mountains and trees.
He liked to do things his way. When he was 9, Damon decided to go out and cut the family Christmas tree. All alone, he climbed a nearby hill, a mountain in just about any other part of the country. He spent most of two days dragging down a bushy green pine. His mother measured the tree at 13 feet, nearly triple the size of the boy.
When the Montana marriage went bust, Marsall brought her family back to Washington. By then, Damon was in his teens and didn’t quite know what to make of his father. Ralph also was uncertain.
He liked the boy’s spirit, but not all of his choices. For a time, he tried to be a parent, stepping up to discipline and direct his son. But the teen would have none of that. So Ralph instead resolved to be a father, offering care and counsel and an example to his son, for better or worse.
That’s what the best people in Ralph’s life had done for him, people like Warden B.J. Rhay at the state penitentiary at Walla Walla.
When Damon decided to drop out of school in 1986, Ralph didn’t hesitate.
"It was like me. I could see me in Damon," he said.
He told his son that not getting an education was a "bad, one-way road to get on," and that the minimum tool kit for survival was a diploma, a car that runs and a driver’s license. Ralph told his son he’d help him get those things.
"I made a deal with him like Bob Rhay made with me," he said.
Ralph promised Damon that if the teen attended classes and earned his general educational development certificate, he’d help him land a job and buy the blue 1964 Ford Mustang that Damon wanted.
Ralph kept his end of the bargain. He bought Damon’s car, took off its wheels and left it sitting on blocks at the Lowery farm outside Snohomish. It stayed there until his smiling son presented a copy of his GED and his driver’s license.
The family celebrated with a cake. A photograph from the day shows Damon beaming with teenage triumph.
Damon enjoyed other successes. He worked cleaning salmon on factory ships in Alaska. He tried his hand at jobs ranging from boilermaker to waiter. He could be fun to be around, with a laugh that "just came up all the way from his stomach," his mother said.
Damon was the kind of son who was always looking for ways to help out, to put a smile on the face of those around him, Marsall said.
"He was kind of a charmer," she said. "He always had something nice to say."
Damon never lost his love for the outdoors. He loved to hike and jet-ski and ride motorcycles. He was healthy and strong, working out and watching what he ate.
Like his father had been when young, Damon also had a penchant for escape. His preferred avenue was drugs. Ralph wasn’t too worried at first. Damon was 17 when he was caught by Snohomish police with a glass pipe and a small amount of marijuana. He got juvenile probation and counseling. But he kept using.
As the years passed, Damon moved on to cocaine and other substance abuse. More arrests followed, mostly for traffic problems. Damon went into drug rehabilitation. He lost his license to drive.
Although his misdeeds never came close to his father’s, Damon became mired in a legal morass of misdemeanor arrests, fines and jail time. He spent five months in 1999 cooling his heels in the Snohomish County Jail after being repeatedly caught driving with his license suspended. The time behind bars cost Damon his job and gnawed at his self-confidence.
Ralph worried about his son. At times, he felt guilt over Damon’s troubles. Ralph was always there, though, offering him a place to live, help finding a job or free advice. Damon did things on his own timetable.
"Some young men just bloom when they are ready," his mother said.
And some don’t get that chance.
In April 1999, Ralph’s phone rang in the dark. His youngest son, Jason, was calling from Oklahoma. He said that Josh, then 19, had been killed. He’d brought a handgun to his job stocking shelves at a grocery store. Somehow he dropped the loaded gun and it fired.
Just days before, Josh had invited Ralph to Oklahoma for their annual visit. Ralph had considered accepting, even though he had little desire to return to the state where he had served two stretches in prison.
When Ralph went to Oklahoma, it was to attend Josh’s funeral. Upon his return, he asked his wife, Carol, to put photographs of Josh away. He couldn’t look at them without tears. He also set aside the leather-working tools he used in his hobby, creating ornate book jackets, wallets and key fobs. Ralph simply had no more interest in trying to create anything of beauty.
The less Ralph did, the more grief settled into his marrow. He began spending his days sitting at the kitchen table, chain-smoking and staring blankly into his backyard.
One day, Carol carried a can of orange fluorescent paint outside and marked off the outline of the ornamental pond he had promised to dig. It was to be the centerpiece of a garden the couple had been planning, and it was time to get started.
Ralph didn’t argue. He picked up a shovel and tried to turn the hole into his own grave. He dug as hard as he could, hoping for a heart attack. But the more he worked, the stronger he became. When he stopped digging, the pond was nearly double the size his wife had originally planned.
By Thanksgiving, Ralph was still wrestling with grief. He decided against joining the family celebration with all his children living in Washington. He didn’t want to bring the others down.
Damon phoned Ralph as he sat alone on the holiday.
"Hi, Dad," Damon said. "I’m coming over with a plate of turkey dinner. I’ll be there in a few minutes. We can watch videos and talk."
Ralph told his son he didn’t feel up to a visit, but Damon overruled the objection. He wasn’t going to leave Ralph sitting alone on the holiday.
Damon showed up. Ralph picked at the food. The pair watched a couple of forgettable flicks. Then they talked.
It was clear to Ralph that his son wanted some advice.
"He was just searching for ‘What do I do now?’ " Ralph recalled.
Ralph said he could help his son land a job managing apartments, something that had once put food on the table. Ralph even offered to accompany him to work, drawing no salary, just helping out.
Damon said he was thinking about going back to school for real estate or maybe trying his hand at sales. He wasn’t sure. Then it was time for him to leave.
Damon smiled as he told his dad to make sure he returned the videos on time — he’d rented them in Ralph’s name.
It was the last time Ralph would see his son alive.
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