Dad in Le Mans, France, two months after the Normandy
invasion, 1944. Photographer unknown. All rights reserved.
Usually it’s Mom I call but this time I ask for Dad. When I ask him what he’s doing he says he is playing Sudoku even though he should be ironing shirts for the trip to Denver.
My parents haven’t been to Denver for a couple of years. Janet is coming to pick them up. They’ll be gone almost a week.
“Will you stop in Costilla?” I ask.
He says they will, and this time they’ll also stop in Ft. Garland. There is a World War II memorial there, and my dad’s Uncle John’s name is on the wall. His brother Onofre’s was supposed to be on there, too, but for some reason it didn’t make it.
“We’re also going to see Nena,” he says. Uncle Onofre’s kids, they all have nicknames. It drives me crazy because they use their first and middle names, plus the nicknames. Nena is Magdalena. She only has two names.
“Did you go to the funeral?” Dad asks. He’s talking about Onofre now.
“Da-ad,” I say, “yes, remember?!?”
“Oh, that’s right, you drove. And who else came with us?”
“Patty,” I tell him.
“Oh, right, and Janet came down from Denver.”
“Dad, don’t go losing your memory on me now.”
God, please don’t let him slip away like that. He’s already a little viejo. Don’t let him lose his memory. Onofre died in spring. The wisteria froze, big grape clusters whithered brown overnight. Don’t let Dad become the wisteria, frozen after a too-warm February.
“Why isn’t your name on the memorial?” I ask.
“We already moved to Taos,” he says, “and the memorial’s only for people in Costilla County, Colorado.”
In a box in my writing room, I keep a picture of my father. I have many pictures of him and Uncle Nemey, from the war. Nemey was in the Navy, Dad the Army.
The Normandy invasion happened June 6, 1944. My father knows all those dates. About two months later, after camping out for weeks in an orchard, his unit finally got to go into town and take showers. They dressed in uniform and walked all around Le Mans.
There’s Dad, standing with legs a broad shoulder’s width apart. He looks happy.
“I was happy,” he tells me.
My parents have another picture, of Dad and another soldier with a young woman who happened to be walking by that day in Le Mans. We joke that she was Dad’s girlfriend. Nah, nah, he always has to tell us, we didn’t even know her!
“Little did she know she’d become part of our family photos,” he laughs.
I’m crying now. I’m getting a crying headache.
Dad was walking the morning of September 11, 2001. Seven years ago he still walked five miles every morning, even more on the weekends. I’m trying to remember when it was he fell while taking his daily walk. Was it the following year?
I know he saw the cranes from the work they were doing to widen the Montaño bridge. I know he got dizzy and out of breath, that one of the workers saw him and came running. I know he got sick to his stomach, and that the ambulance was only able to reach him because of the construction project.
After they put in the pacemaker, that’s when he went from good old age to not-so-good old age.
“I don’t like to dwell on those things.” He is talking about 9/11. He goes on to describe how he was walking and someone told him that a big airplane had hit one of the towers. He says he couldn’t understand how the pilot could have made such a mistake in daylight. He got home to the TV just before the buildings fell.
“A day of infamy,” he says. Then, after a moment he adds, “like Pearl Harbor.”
My father has seen so much. So much life and death. I am an ant compared to him.
“I’ll come by before you leave,” I tell him.
I want to see his gray watery eyes. They used to be so dark they looked black.
***NOTE*** When I went to scan the photo of my father, I found a poem that one of my daughters printed out on my old scented stationery. I’m not sure if one of them wrote it or if they found it somewhere Dee wrote it; I loved it and wanted to share it now.
Rose thorn
by Dee
Remember the flowers?
Oh so red
So smooth the petals but beware the thorns
Ending sadness
Tomorrow the wound shall be gone
Happy with your new rose
Out with the thorn
Roses are red
No longer my finger.
Beautiful! All of it, from the photo, to the memories, to the poem. So touching. I really respect how you pay such loving attention to the details of family and events. Great writing, yb. Hope the tears and the headache are now a memory.
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They are, christine, thanks. (smile)
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what a wonderful shot of your Dad…he must smile when he see’s it…
Shared a few tears with you on this one. It hurts so much to watch them grow older…but hang on to it all…
…every moment yb
BIG HUG
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🙂
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ybonesy, tender piece. It resonates with me deeply. I hope your family members are able to read the pieces you write on your mother and father. The respectful and honest way you capture them shows a great depth in your writing. And keen powers of human observation.
I love the photograph of your dad. I have been scanning similar photographs of my grandfather and step-dad in their army uniforms. They are beaming with pride in their crisp uniforms. My grandfather’s name is on a plaque in St. James church in Augusta, Georgia. My family has a lot of history in that church.
The summer before this, Mom and my step-dad and I drove by and there just happened to be a church meeting at that time; the doors were open. So we got a tour of the church and saw the plaque. I had no idea it even existed before then.
Parents have many snippets of memory that come to life when we talk to them, ask them questions about their lives. It’s a wonderful thing to collect memories — those that are difficult, and those that shine.
I like that you added the poem, too. This piece has many layers that capture some of the feelings of 9/11. We are in such a different war now. But there is still a lot of pride by those who wear the uniform. Yesterday was a quiet day. A heavy day. I think people are silently remembering.
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My heart is thumping wildly after reading this. These lines –
“Dad, don’t go losing your memory on me now.”
God, please don’t let him slip away like that.
Over the last few months, I’ve said the same line, had the same unwanted, uneasy emotional response, when I speak with my mom.
I want to shake her awake and say “Of course, you remember…” and then I realize how frustrating this must be for her, too. Especially for her.
It is so hard to listen to her grow older. I think most of my frustration comes from the two of us being separated by so many miles, with most of our communication coming in daily phone calls. I can’t be there to react quickly, provide the little things, make the way a little easier.
I am going down to visit in another week. Three days filled with social workers’ visits, doctors’ trips, new eyeglasses to find and a hearing aid to check. I’m wondering already – when exactly will there be the time for all the conversations I want to have. And will she want to have those conversations. Sometimes she doesn’t want to talk. Instead she wants to watch her “programs”.
And if we do talk a little, I always come back home with all the words swirling in my head – as if I’m trying to memorize those sentences we just shared… just in case.
Thanks, ybonesy, for this post and for the timing. Think I’ll make a really strong effort for some conversation during our visit.
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Thanks, Bo, QM, Heather and Scot. Bo, yes, something we are both going through, journeying with our parents into their very old age. All the ailments. Losing memory is one that especially concerns me.
I hope your visit is both productive and touching.
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Hey, QM, yes, family members do read and respond. Once in a while a sister will print out a post and take it to my parents. Janet and I were just talking about which pieces she might share with Mom and Dad while they’re in Denver. We talked about how some aspects of what I write, like in this piece, my concern over Dad and what I was thinking about the wisteria—how will that make him feel if he were to hear that and was that a good post to share?
But you know what? It was my parents’ honesty with us that shaped my own voice. Ever since I can remember, people have felt my parents are safe. Friends in high school whose homes were tumultuous places felt comfortable with my mom and dad. A former boyfriend used to say my parents were wysiwyg (what you see is what you get).
So, yeah, that’s a long way to say, yes, they read and they reflect their appreciation and/or comments back to me directly. Often we’ll have conversations about things I write about from the past. I feel fortunate, too, that I can contact any one of them, including my parents, and ask for details when I’m working on a post about the past.
Oh, one thing I want to say is, some times my siblings learn about things through my blog. Like one sister learned from her daughter, who read a piece, that my uncle was sick. Even though we all talk to each other often and to our parents often, we don’t all know the same things. If I’m left out of the loop and later find out, I’ll call my mom and ask why it is I didn’t know something. She’ll say, “My God, there are five of you…I forget who I told what to.” 8)
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I wanted to give Dee credit for having written the poem. I found out this morning that it was one she wrote last year.
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Was really moved by this ybonesy…..I love the photo of your father……reminds me of family photos of my own. And the writing is beautiful.
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What a heartfelt and sad story. My eyes welled up reading this. Thank you for sharing this with us. It illustrates how we can’t forget those who had made such an impact on us, and because of that, we would always cherish the good times and memories of that person.
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The poem is so fitting with the post, and your daughter is a fine writer, in the footsteps of her mother. It reminds me of Emily Dickinson.
Thanks for the photo of your dad, happy, proud and strong.
Now so long ago.
My dad became vain in old age, did not want to wear his glasses. He drove around Caribou Maine, with no eyeglasses.
Amazing grace, not much traffic there.
The last line was special, an intense visual memory.
>I want to see his gray watery eyes. They used to be so dark they looked black.<
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Thanks, lil, A-Lo, Jo.
Went and spent a few hours at my parents’ house today. One of my sisters and nieces came by, too. I so love hanging out with them. I was just thinking, of all the people in my life, it is family with whom I can just let it all hang out. I wonder if that’s where the term “hanging out” comes from.
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Beautiful post. I’m sad in advance at the thought of losing my mother to aging, although it’s not happening quite yet … but I see her getting older, and changing. I hate it.
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ybonesy, tell Dee the poem is beautiful. I think you should go back into the post and do a little post script adding her name under the title. What a great writer.
Oh, and I was going to come back and comment on something you said in #8 — about how your siblings learn about things from the blog. It’s the same way for me and my family. Of course, we talk across the miles once in a while. But more often, some of the deeper things will spring from these posts. Or from a comment one of them makes on a personal post. I always find out things I don’t know about my mother and my siblings and extended family from their comments here. (And I am sure they find out more than enough about me!)
There’s something so rewarding about that exchange. When I was home in July, a few of the blog posts came up in our conversations with each other and I’d find out even more. I’m glad I’m not the only one and that your family has similar experiences. It’s kind of a hard thing to explain.
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Good idea, QM. I’ll add that byline later tonight.
It’s kind of a hard thing to explain. Yeah, it is. Normally when people talk, conversationally, there’s little time to delve into certain things. But when you can write about the past—an event or how things were—then sometimes the conversation can use that event or recollection as a launching-off context.
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David, I hear ‘ya. I didn’t think about it much either when my parents were in their 70s. It’s sad to think about aging. I mean, there’s joy in it, too, in sharing and learning and being part of that cycle. But I’m still a kid. I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready to not be the kid.
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[…] to the piece: Remembering – September 11th, 2008 […]
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[…] to posts: A Moment Of Silence – September 11th, 2011, 9:02am, Remembering – September 11th, 2008 […]
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