daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t despise your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 23:22)

Two things I was thinking about that are kind of related, sort of.

1969. I walked into my parents’ house after work about July 12th or so. I worked for the Telephone Company taking money out of pay phones. Great job. I loved it.

They lived in Texas City and I had that city as a route and then went back to Houston to the shop. I always stopped in for a minute when I went to Texas City and had a glass of tea or something.

I walked in the kitchen and my mother and father were looking at me with these strange smile/grimace things. My mother handed me an envelope that was labeled Department of Defense. Inside was a draft notice. In a month I was to go into the army.

I didn’t want to, but I did and two years later came out.

I was thinking about that since it is Memorial Day tomorrow and it is in everybody’s minds. I had friends who died in Vietnam and I had friends that lived. I went to Germany and came back a year later, got married and took Ella back over for six more months of my service.

But I will never forget the look on my mother’s face that day in 1969 when she handed to me what many considered a death warrant: my draft notice. I was scared and she was scared. I would go in the army, go over to Vietnam and get shot getting  off the plane and be dead.

But of course, obviously I didn’t die. I lived and it has been over four decades since that time.

I still think of Ella like she was when we got married, and I still see my mother as she was when I was younger. But neither are. Both are considerably older. And I know for a fact that since my beard (which I am growing out as you might or might not have noticed) is almost totally white. That indicates a lot of time passed.

The second thing I was thinking about is my mother. She is spending some time with us and we are having good conversations. It has been a little more than a year since my father passed away and she is at loose ends a bit with life.

They were married for 63 years and celebrated their anniversary the day before he died last February.

Writing about her is hard as when I think about her so many things go through my head. Her warmth when I was little and sick. Her coming to all of the choir concerts and otherwise that I did all through school. The look on her face when I got my draft notice. Her pride in her sons and her joy in finally getting a daughter when they thought they would not be able to.

And I am glad she is here. It will probably be the last trip she will make. This one was hard with airplane mix-ups and falling on my rug and tearing her arm open.

I love her and am glad she is here. I just wish she could stay longer or lived closer.