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Background
Name: Deborah
Birthday: March 1
Gender: Female
Status:
Married
Religion:
Spiritual
Location:
Colorado
United States
Colorado
United States
Quote:
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." ~ Will Rogers
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." ~ Will Rogers
Tipsy TonkaThe Cedar Chest
Mom kept the cedar chest in the back basement bedroom. At some point it was probably upstairs but I was too young to remember it being a part of our main living area. As far back as my memory goes, it was always in the basement. Such a lovely piece of furniture, one of only a handful my parents had trucked out to Colorado when they left New Jersey in search of a better future. The cedar chest was stained a dark walnut color, the cover with a beautiful wood grain that was scratched all over, owing to the fact that my brother liked to run his little TootsieToy cars on the lid as if it were his own private interstate.
Lined inside with soft red fabric, the cedar chest always smelled of mothballs. Mom was big on mothballs. Although the rest of us held our noses whenever the lid was opened, mom liked the smell. Amazing things were buried in the bowels of the cedar chest. Occasionally mom would pull out those items and tell a story for each one. The chest also had a narrow top shelf designed to hold smaller mementos. Rolled up tightly on this shelf, held firmly in place with rubber bands, were the pictures. Dad’s war pictures. Mom showed us the pictures occasionally but it was understood that we should never mess with them.
Dad was drafted into the Army in 1942 and served in the South Pacific as a sergeant. He was in charge of a 12-man anti-aircraft artillery gun crew, fighting Japanese forces in the Philippines. He spent nearly three years in combat. While he was away, dad’s first wife gave birth to my oldest brother. Dad returned to the states to meet his two-and-a-half-year old son for the first time, and to discover his wife had taken up with another man.
Situated directly above the basement workroom, my bedroom was the smallest. In the workroom was a giant table that mom used to sew and assemble draperies, a job she took so she could supplement dad’s income and stay home with her kids at the same time. Oftentimes at night I fell asleep to the high-pitched whine of the power machines, knowing that mom was trying to catch up on her drapery orders. But this night I heard a different sound, the sound of crying and wailing.
Mom and dad fought loudly and frequently about issues that were complex and impossible for me to understand. Issues about dad’s first wife and my oldest brother and our relatives, issues about jobs and money. When I heard the crying that night, it was different. I just had to know what it was about, so I crouched down on the floor, ear pressed against the furnace vent, trying desperately to make out something, anything.
It was dad, sobbing like I had never heard. Raised with five brothers, dad had no patience for excessive emotions or girlish crying. He often complained to mom about my tendency to burst into tears. So naturally when I heard my dad crying, it was simply unthinkable. I knew it had to be the end of the world or at least, the end of our world.
Later mom told me that that dad had been digging in the cedar chest that night. He spread out the rolled-up pictures on the drapery table and flipped through a handful of individual photos of his Army buddies. He was lost in another time, remembering his buddies and the war that left him struggling for the rest of his life with ghosts and memories. You see, the largest picture showed dad’s original unit at Camp Stewart, Georgia, as they prepared to head overseas, 250 handsome young men standing upright and orderly in their fine new uniforms. The smaller picture showed the same unit, a tired group of men on a jungle airstrip, ready to go home at the end of the war. Only 45 remained.
Over the years this happened again from time to time. Mom always stayed by his side as he cried in the basement over those same ghosts. She tried to keep him from drifting away to the war too often but was never successful. As I grew older, I began to understand how important it was to talk about it. For him, it was clearly the most significant chapter of his life story. I also learned about post traumatic stress disorder. Although it was usually discussed in the context of the Vietnam War, it was not a problem unique to those veterans. Thankfully, the years brought a measure of peace to my father as he became more settled and better able to reconcile the worst of his memories.
For dad's eightieth birthday, my brother gathered all of dad’s medals and paraphernalia and had someone create shadow boxes that told his war story. The rolled-up pictures were dug out of the cedar chest one last time, framed and hung in the upstairs hallway, next to the little bedroom that dad now occupied. Those ghosts were finally out of the cedar chest and displayed proudly for everyone to see. When he first saw the framed pictures, dad wept openly in front of his many birthday guests. No one, especially not the handsome faces on the wall, seemed to mind.
hockettjn says:
Thank you for your beautiful story. My father was forced to stay behind and work for General Electric because "they needed him." However, we have many pieces of memorabilia about how they lived on the homefront...ration books and stamps and recordings (on records) from my uncle who was in the Navy aboard a minesweeper and stationed for a while in Okinawa. We also have some letters from him to his sister - my mother. Much of his work he couldn't share with my family, by he missed everyone and was looking forward to coming home. We just don't really know what they went through. My son is now in the Marine Corps and has gone to the Middle East 3 times...He does not talk about it much, but I have seen some of his pictures and he doesn't elaborate on it. Serving during wartime is a very private world for them because we probably wouldn't understand. But we love them and are glad they are with us and safe. Thanks again for sharing your beautiful story
Posted: November 18, 2009 11:05PM EST
RockyMountainGirl says:
Oh, Deb......thank you for this profound and loving tribute
Posted: November 11, 2009 9:07AM EST
bonnie1 says:
Excellent, thoughtful and thought provoking entry!! I can feel myself witnessing as I read your words. Truly a wonderful story. I am sure your folks are proud..
Posted: November 6, 2009 8:14PM EST
journal Details
Added: Nov 6, 2009
Views: 122
Comments: 4
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Views: 122
Comments: 4
Bookmarks: 0
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