Empty chairs at empty tables...

Linda was one of the prettiest girls I ever knew, tall and slim, wavy dark hair, skin that tanned easily in the sun, and a body that made men turn their heads and look again. She grew up in Florida during the late 60's, in a modest home outside of Miami. Right after graduation her high school boyfriend came home from boot camp, all buff and handsome in his uniform and he was soon to be off to war. How could she say no when he asked her to marry him? When he was deployed to Germany she flew for the first time on an airplane, far across the ocean, into a foreign land. Her memories of the picture book city were less fairy tale than nightmare. Shopping with other wives she was taunted and spit on by the locals who did not care for the influx of Americans. The high school hero she married came home most days in a nasty mood and drank his way into a worse one. After a few months she regretted her haste, filed for divorce, and moved a few doors down to live with another wife whose husband had just left for Nam.  That's when she met the boy whose name was Ricky to his siblings and O'mar to his mates, but whom she always called "Blazer". 

He was a poor country boy from one of the many redneck regions of Virginia, the oldest of 7 children his mom bore to her second husband. He had some vague plans for college after he got out of high school, but with no money and no support from his family he quickly fell into the cannon fodder factory of our generation's dirty little war. I don't remember her telling me how they met, only that the two of them were tossed together by circumstance, destiny perhaps, and they clung to each other passionately. In the few months they had together they made a lifetime of plans. She could not stay in Germany once she divorced and he was to be deployed to VietNam. She went home to her family to dream of a Christmas wedding in Hawaii during his R and R.

Linda's divorce from her first husband coincided with mine, and as fate would have it I had taken in Ricky's   older sister who had been living from hand to mouth in a tiny room around the corner from my apartment. Her childhood as the outsider in her family had left her with terrible scars, some visible, some not. Her mother did not seem to even try to protect the child of her first marriage from the mental and physical abuse of a step father whose hatred for her was never disguised.  In the habit I have of collecting lost puppies, my heart went out to her. I was struggling with raising a child, finding work, school, and getting back into the dating scene. I had an extra room so I asked her to move in with me and watch my little one in exchange for rent. My son took to her right away and she came with a wealth of child rearing experience.

Meanwhile Linda sent passionate letters to her Blazer, all filled with stories about tomorrow and forever. He wrote back, telling her loving lies, not dwelling for a second on the horrors around him or his occasional use of the drugs that let him sleep at night.  I've seen the pictures of the wedding, her in a simple blue dress holding a bouquet, him in jeans and a knit shirt, all smiles and hugs. Friends gathered around them and one snaps a picture of her sitting in his lap, arms hooked together, each sipping champagne from the other's glass. She did not tell me the first time she showed me the pictures, but the wedding was not legal. When I knew her better she confessed. Thwarted by the army bureaucracy the vows they made were only in their hearts, but with the agreement that in six months they would do it again in front of the preacher.

Of course they knew he was in the business of death, but no 19 year old imagines it will really be them. Most of the infantry in that jungle hell filled with snakes, spiders, booby traps, heat, humidity, filth, and torrents of rain had no idea what they were up against, or even how to tell friend from foe. Many sought escape in the fog of drugs and so it was for Ricky when he came back from R and R. I would like to say that his passing meant something, changed something, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sometime in the early hours of a steamy hot January morning he asphyxiated on his own vomit after self medicating on drugs and alcohol. There is a cause of death listed graciously on the record. 

His tour began on Jun 29, 1970

Casualty was on Jan 23, 1971

In QUANG TIN, SOUTH VIETNAM

NON-HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY

ACCIDENTAL SELF-DESTRUCTION

Body was recovered

The box with his body was interred near his home in the Episcopal Churchyard. When the flag was folded and handed to his mother she held it only for a moment before passing it to the crying girl beside her.

 It was barely spring when I met Linda for the first time. She had turned 19 in February, right around the time of the funeral. She was not yet one year out of high school but had been married, divorced, engaged and symbolically widowed in that short space of time. Since the funeral she had been unable to leave the protection of Ricky's home, the grieving siblings, his parents that she thought would be her own. My housemate had talked her into coming to Richmond, accompanied by Ricky's brother, whose love for his dead brother's girl was palatable to everyone but Linda. We were best friends before the weekend was over and I pulled her aside to ask her what her plans were for the future. I could see by her face that she had none. I told her my lease would be up in a few weeks and I wanted to look for a larger place. I asked if she would like to come to Richmond to live. She leaped at the chance to start a new life. 

 We had two frantic years together before she and I were ready to move beyond our pain. We sometimes cried, but more often we laughed, and lived, and somehow together found healing for our strangely similar wounds. I made her a real wedding dress for her very real wedding in the summer of 73. Before she left she asked me if I would keep the box with Ricky's pictures, a few mementos of his short life, and the flag that had draped his coffin. They sat in my blanket chest for many years until she was secure enough to ask for them back one day. We sat down with a pot of coffee and I let her tell it to me all from the beginning to the end. I somehow felt I knew her Blazer personally after that, and his death never seemed like a statistic to me. That weekend we went to DC and for the first time she traced his name with her fingers on that cold black wall. We read off the names of the others beside him and knew that for each lost soldier there was a story that only the men that lived them would ever know. I pulled up the wall website this week and found that there are words written there by friends that served with him. One of them reads:

He was known to us as O'mar. He was one of my closest friends. When I got on that chopper to go home in Dec. of 1970, He went also to go on R&R to Hawaii. Thats the last time I saw O'mar. When I got home I received a letter from him telling me what a good time he had and how much he enjoyed seeing his family and girlfriend. I went on to my next duty at FT. Hood Texas. I wrote him a letter when I got there. The Army answered my letter to inform that he had he had died.All I have left are all the good times we had,a few photos and the memories of a friend who watched my back while I was watching his. He was a very special friend.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

I'm not sure why I picked this labor day to wax nostalgic about a life cut short, any more than I understand how I got involved in that particular drama so many years ago. I only know that survivors must tell the stories. Perhaps you have one that needs to be told too...

All the News from Dancing School

No one has every accused me of being set in my ways. In fact I sometimes think that I force my husband deeper into inertia by my proclivity for abrupt changes, like a ship that throws out its anchor to weather a storm. Deep in my silly putty heart however I retain a shape memory of my true self, so no matter how much I stretch, time seems to bring me back to the original mold. A few years ago I appeared to reinvent myself, but in truth I was merely returning to the me that lived inside, the inner child that my rigid upbringing taught me to fear.  I am comfortable with her now and have no intentions of retreating again. In fact you might say that I am almost free and more "me" than I have ever been in my life.  You note I said "almost".

Nothing more clearly illustrates this than my "dancing career". Way back in ninth grade I was introduced to the concept of "modern" dancing by my high school gym teacher. Our first "sock hop" was fast upon us and looking around at the nest of Southern Baptist adolescents, he formed an idea in his head, likely one of the few he ever had. He decided that he should "teach the kids to dance". If you are now have a picture in your mind of a cute made for TV movie called "Rocking High School", think again.  We're talking real life here guys.

The gym looked enormous in the bright morning light as I sat there with all the other thirteen year old girls, a knot the size and weight of a cannon ball in my stomach, gazing across the long wooden floor to the unfathomable faces of the thirteen year old boys on the other side. I had started first grade with most of them, except for one fourteen year olds that got held back somewhere along the way. Although a social pariah, he was really cute and I liked him despite the stigma of failure that hung over him. Just as I was thinking it might not be so bad if he asked me to dance, the teacher began barking instructions in his usual militaristic tone. "Anderson and Allen, front and center." He continued down the alphabet pairing us up by yelling out our last names.  I was frantic as I ran down the gender alphabet trying to figure out if the boy closest to me was also taller than me. Brandon, the intellectually challenged cutie I favored was already standing up with Bailey, K, so no chance there. Dread tuned to doom as he announced "Crume (me) and Dale, right here."

That had to be the longest walk either of us ever took. He came up to my chin, had a serious acne problem, and looked a like an bad version of Buddy Holly with a buzz cut. All of us stood as silent as sinners during a church prayer and likely all were twisting inside as we imagined those sinners would when they got to hell. At the time I could not imagine feelings other than my own as I stood praying for the last thing that I would not get, a short fast dance. From the gym loudspeakers we heard the familiar click of a needle hitting a 45. Our collective sighs of anguish were covered up by Frankie Avalon's pleading, "Venus if you will, please send a little girl for me to thrill.." You youngsters can google it or just take my word that it was a cheek to cheek kind of tune.

I have no idea how I got through that hour, but I do recall trying to put a spin on it around the dinner table that night. "We had dancing instead of gym today. I danced with three boys." I said this thinking to enhance my family's perception of my popularity. In truth we had been forced to change partners after two dances, switching to the next boy on our right. My father stopped his fork in mid air. The table grew very quiet.
"They had you dancing? In school?' This was my father's soft but angry voice, one I rarely heard.  He paused, picked his words, and annunciated them slowly and forcefully. "No good ever came of two people that close together on a dance floor." My father had spoken and that was that.  I am sure my mother intervened later so I was not forbidden to participate in high school dances, but it was very clear that he believed I was on the highway to hell. I imagine mother had to do quite a lot of persuading, but neither of them ever said another word about dancing. It was added to the long list of topics that were taboo in our home.

Most of my dancing after that was in front of American Band Stand, the must see how-to place for a generation of American teens. I watched it secretly of course, but by the time I was in college I thought I had a few moves. Unfortunately for me I started out at "Jesus Tech" so there was not a lot of opportunity to show them off. My first husband danced one time during our marriage when we were chaperones for the majority black university where he taught his first year out of UVA. I think it was the most fun we ever had during our marriage.

Divorced and dating again, my friends and I went to dance clubs for fun and to meet the men who were there to do the same. I danced with a lot of them up close and personal, but it was not until I was dating my husband that I found out I did not know how to follow. I was 26 and we were out for the evening with a married couple.  The husband suggested we exchange partners for a dance. On the floor with him he became immediately annoyed. "You're leading," he says, stating a fact. I realized this was the first man I had ever slow danced with who knew how to dance and was not doing it hoping to get my clothes off. I asked my husband later if that was true. "Sure," he said, "but I'm used to it and I don't mind."

Through trial and error we have improved our fast dancing and actually get compliments at times. Those times would be when Michael and Vanessa are not at the club too. They are the best of the new friends we have made. I like them both personally and they are the most incredible dancers I have seen in real life. Mostly we watch them as Vanessa spins 5 times in a row, dips and twirls effortlessly in Michael's hands. Vanessa confides that it is all Michael, she just follows and makes sure not to wear jewelry that might fly off during the spins. Michael basks in the compliments he gets from all the strangers who come up to speak to him in almost worshipful tones.

Last week, a lady asked to sit at our table, not an unusual occurrence as the place often gets packed on weekends. I welcomed her and we chatted between dances. She complimented me on how great my husband and I looked on the floor and then she made a comment. "I think at some point in your life you decided you were a dancer and your husband went along with you."Funny, I was thinking I was just a tiny bit mysterious but well, I have never been known for my poker face. I do know that Michael sees me all too clearly, but he is more subtle. A natural and diplomatic teacher, he gives my husband instructions on technique. He can see on my face that I want to be a dancer and would be except for the natural lack of grace that, at the tender age of 8, earned me the disgust of Miss Lila Jean, owner and instructor for the Lila Jean School of the Dance. After one particularly bad class I learned that I could not dance and neither could I sink into the floor and disappear when the elegant leotard clad teacher gestured toward me and spoke to my mother, "You are wasting your money on this one."I have always imagined that she said it in a French accent, although that is probably because she was a Yankee and up until that time I had never heard anyone speak who did not sound like the people on the NASCAR circuit.

I do wish Miss Lila Jean was still alive so she could have seen Michael pulled me from my husband's embrace last night and spin me a few turns around the floor while my man danced with Vanessa. I would prefer if she had not observed the deer in the headlights look on my face, but when it was done I behaved like a child who had just performed her first solo recital, the one I missed when I was 8 and my mother decided not to throw good money after bad. I admit I was relieved to be back in my predictable husband's arms for the next dance, for no matter how exhilarating it was the fact remains that I was not born to be a dancer. If I were I would be built a bit more willowy and a little less, uh... womanly. I would seem to float when I walk instead of remaining solidly on the ground and I would be much more compliant and a lot less stubborn. After all this time however I realize my father was wrong about a few things. If I had not been so fearful of his displeasure that day at breakfast I could have pulled the Bible that always sat on the table over in front of me and shown him this:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.

I've paid my dues on the mourning and weeping. It's time to dance.

For Beanie

I first met her at my sister's wedding in 1968. That's her in the brown dress she selected to fit with the color scheme of the fall wedding, and to compliment her strawberry blond hair. As far as the glasses are concerned let me just say that they were sort of "in style" in the 60's and 70's, which a perusal of any high school year book of the day will show. No one would ever mistake her for a fashion mavin, especially in contrast to my always perfect Mom, standing there in her green dress, whimsy of a hat perched atop her fashionable big hair, and the "oh yes we did wear them" white gloves. Mother poses perfectly for the camera, a practiced smile on the the sweet face I inherited from her, along with her great legs and a youthful appearance. Beanie, whose real name I barely remember as Edwina, pulls her husband Tommy to her and tries to tug her son into the same group hug she would have preferred over the formal picture. 

I remember standing there watching them with the critical eye of youthful arrogance, fueled by my mother's disapproval and disappointment in her elder daughter's choice. Ronnie, my sister's husband now these 42 years, had just returned from VietNam where he had vowed to my sister that if he came back alive she had no choice but to marry him. She was reluctant for reasons totally unrelated to his station in life, but because of their age difference and the fact that she had been his teacher for his senior English in high school, her first year out of college. No one from his family had attended college and neither his parent's dreams or means included higher education for their children. He was a miner's child and literally from the "other side of the tracks' in that small gossipy town where I was reared. 

I listened to all sides, my mother's concern over the what she saw as a dreadful social blunder, the determined pronouncement of love from this poor but honest young man, and my sister's tears as she tried to please everyone. In the end I told her to let nothing stand in the way of love. I am older and more jaded now, but I still  stand by that advice. So my Mother's chosen daughter, the one she could always manipulate and direct, made her first truly independent decision. I have to admit that after meeting the in-laws on the wedding day I too had a few second thoughts. 

My mother opened her home for the reception, a small beautiful venue, all gold and green and warm autumn day perfect. The happy bride and groom came in and cut the cake, we mulled around briefly with my sister's new family, and then the newlyeds, eager to be away from the awkwardness, went to change into their getaway clothes. I came through the dining room with a mission of some sort and found Beanie and her two daughters standing over the reception table stuffing chunks of wedding cake into their mouths with their still white gloved hands. Beanie looked up at me beaming, oblivious to the social gaff. "This sure is great cake," she said, slightly muffled as her mouth was a bit too full to speak.  

The years flew by, some slow, some fast. My sister settled into married life, a baby son arrived to be the joy of their hearts, my sister came to be my matron of honor in my own mother-orchestrated wedding disaster, but never in all those years did my parents embrace the man who made my sister happy. Mention of his family always washed across my mother's face like a shadow, a lingering distaste. When my sister and I spoke however she nearly always had a "Beanie" story to tell. They were hysterically funny, never boring, and a picture began to emerge of a woman who lived life with no apologies, but whose unabashed ignorance was as remarkable as her love for all those around her. One trip to Beaver Dam on the fourth of July we stopped to watch the hometown parade troop down main street. Among the horses and marching bands came a pickup truck with a rocking chair in the back. Sitting in the chair and waving at the crowd sat a little wrinkled lady with a baby on her lap. The hand painted banner on the side of the truck said "Beanie and little Bean". The crowd cheered wildly and when I turned to see the look on my sister's face it was one of love and delight.

On one visit my sister pushed me to "go to visit with Beanie". After my mother died in 1994 and Beanie's husband Tommy had also passed, my sister started going on daily visits to her mother in law. I saw no comfortable way out, so I got in the car for the short trip to her house. It looked exactly as one would imagine, the yard full of little wind spinning birds and flowers purchased at Walmart, a gazing ball, bird bath, concert dogs, cats, chickens and plastic flowers in hanging baskets. Inside sat Beanie on the flowered sofa but she rousted herself up to come hug my sister and me equally. For the hour I spent there she managed to make both of us feel like we were the most important people on earth. It was then I realized the most amazing and wonderful thing about this sweet lady. She saw everyone exactly the same. President or Mexican yard worker, the queen or the postman, we were all her welcomed guest. In sharp contrast to the agonizing chore of seeing my own mother in law, who spends most of our time complaining that I don't come often enough, I found myself reluctant to leave the busy little house. Over the years to follow I always made a trip to Beanies a must do when I went to Kentucky. She loved seeing pictures of my children and grandchildren as if they were her own. I honestly don't think she ever saw a flaw in anyone. She was the very definition of unconditional love.

My sister called me a few weeks ago to give me the news that Beanie was going into hospice care. She had not been doing well for the past month but had continued to reassure everyone that she would be "just fine" and begged them not to worry about her. When told about hospice, she had immediately asked if she could stay in her house, but her daughter insisted she come to stay with her just for a while. Beanie made her promise that when she got better she could go home. I asked my sister if she understood what hospice meant. "Yes," said Eleanor, "but Beanie has a unique ability to hold two opposing ideas in her mind at the same time and believe them both equally." 

Last night she slipped away peacefully in her sleep. Her last words to her children and grandchildren were simple. "Take care of each other and don't worry about me. I'll be fine." She had been concerned about how much trouble she was causing. She told her daughter last week, "Why don't you just take me to that dog place?" Everyone was briefly alarmed until they remembered that the local nursing home was called Dogwood Care Center. There are tears at her passing of course, I've shed more than a few this morning, but Beanie had a way of making even a desperate situation amusing. She also had left behind a legacy of one liners so filled with wisdom and humor that no one will be able to wallow in grief. I could write a book, but I'll leave you with one, my favorite. Several of the the ladies around her were talking about plastic surgery. "Well," says Beanie thoughtfully, "You can have a face lift, but you'll still be old, won't you." I laugh as I imagine her this beautiful Mother's Day morning with her true nature made manifest, smooth smiling face, a white robe, and of course, a shock of soft red hair flowing over her wings. 

I will be back to you very soon but meantime

Here's the reason for my absence...