Memorial Day: Another Anniversary

Today is Memorial Day. Thursday would have been my mother and father's 43rd anniversary.

As previously noted, my father served in the Navy for 36 years, starting as deck swab zero class and cashing out as a Commander. When I'm asked why I was never inclined to join the service, I like to respond that my dad served enough time for the three of us (his sons); also, hell, I had 15 years of growing up on military bases, and while it was a life-shaping experience that I wouldn't trade away, I don't much see the point in doing it again.

A bumper sticker reminds us that everything Fred Astaire did, so did Ginger Rogers-- only backwards and in high heels. Mom served 34 years as a Navy wife, but while there are plenty of people in the Navy to tell a sailor how to live as a sailor, the support network tends to get a little looser when it comes to spouses, especially for spouses of Enlisted folks. The Navy will assign you, the Navy will move you, and the Navy will house you, but the Navy won't tell you how to leave your family and home behind you. The Navy will pay you, and the Navy will subsidize your groceries, but the Navy won't tell you how to sit tight while your spouse (or parent) is off in Vietnam or Somalia, and the Navy won't tell you how to raise three boys. My mom and dad worked together to raise and support us, but when dad got the call to go, it was my mom who kept on raising us, feeding us, caring for us, making us do our homework.

(If this sounds suspiciously more like Mother's Day post than a Memorial Day/Anniversary post, well, I didn't get one of those this year, so here's this.)

My parents married young: she was 21, and he was 20. She was born in Buffalo but raised in California; he was born in Brooklyn and had only just arrived in San Diego (and started to realize he wanted to live there as long as he could). They courted briefly and then got married. They were both stubborn and smart and inexperienced, and there were tumultuous times to be had along with the good times. Frankly, I don't know how they did it: how they resolved their differences and set aside their habits; how they managed to find each other in the first place and realize just how similar they were; how they weathered deployments and kids and economic troubles, miscarriages, friends' divorces, and parents' deaths.

And yet, they did it. They stuck together through thick and thin, and they made it through the really rough patches into the smooth waters. They were married 42 years, six months, and 11 days; Thursday would have made 43 years.

May we all have at least as many good years together.