Saying Goodbye: Pensacola, FL

My aunt died.  It wasn't unexpected but really, does that matter?  Does that make it easier for the people that loved her?  Of course not.  She was ill for a long time but things had deteriorated and my cousin notified me that she was in hospice.  So I told her, when the time comes, I will be on my way.  But, as often happens in these situations, it didn't turn out exactly the way I planned.

Phyllis was my dad's only sibling.  They were close growing up.

 

When your mom regularly dresses you up and poses you for pictures, I assume you form a special bond.  There are a large number of pictures of my dad and Phyllis in various outfits, not always matching like the ones above, being posed both with and without their parents.  Church, funeral, school events like prom, Easter, Christmas, birthdays, a new haircut.  No event was too small for this exercise.

My dad moved to Texas in the late 60's and he and Phyllis never lived geographically close after that with Phyllis moving just over the line from their hometown of Atmore, Alabama to the Pensacola, FL area.  Almost every summer, we loaded up the car and made the 12+ hour drive to spend time with my dad's family and in particular, Phyllis's family.

 

This was a common ritual.  My parents LOVE the beach.  I do not (nor did Phyllis).  Possibly because I hate sand, maybe from being buried to my neck every summer.  The only plus side to this is being protected from sunburn, something I can do after being exposed to very little sun. 

Front to back:   Me, my brother Donnie, my brother Aaron, my cousin David, my cousin Dawn (they are brother and sister).

I saw my mother's family constantly growing up.  They lived nearby and we also had a boy and girl cousin on that side that were close in age to us.  I enjoyed spending time with both families but there is something about spending time with Phyllis's family that was different.  I peg it to staying in hotels and beach houses.  Staying at your aunt's actual home (which happened with Phyllis but not that often), isn't as memorable.  

 

I am sure our parents could say where this was taken but I cannot.  I do remember the outfit I am wearing and that a person in a gas station asked if I was a boy or girl.  Really?  I am the little blonde girl.  Do people really dress their sons in halter tops?  That's Phyllis on the left, her husband (one of my 3 uncles named Jim) and then my mom on the right.

 

Jim & Phyllis with David & Dawn.  This photo brings back so many memories.  We stayed in that hotel a bunch of times, the Holiday Inn in Navarre, FL.  I don't think it is there anymore, I believe one of the hurricanes damaged it beyond repair.

 Back to not sure of the location exactly.  My grandpa once took us swimming in a gravel pit so there is no telling.  That's Phyllis with my brothers on her left and Dawn in the foreground.  I don't know where I was but my guess somewhere in the shade.

I think Phyllis probably took this photo.  I also think this is the one and only year that my parents flew us out to visit in advance of their coming.  We stayed at Phyllis's house and at both of our (divorced) grandparent's houses.  I cut a huge gash on my upper thigh after I accused Donnie of cheating at cards and went to leave in a huff.  My grandpa's solution was to lay me on the floor and pour rubbing alcohol on it.  Based on the size of the scar I don't think I would be wrong in saying I actually needed stitches.  That's me in the middle in the white dress.  The tall one.

 Me and Phyllis laying on the beach.  No doubt we both sunburned that day.  It was always easy to see where I got my freckles from when I was around Phyllis.  I think I am about 16 here.  That's uncle Jim in the sunglasses behind us.  I could have sworn I had a copy of this where Phyllis was looking at the camera but I couldn't find it anywhere which makes me really sad.

When I was 18, her son, my cousin David died.  He was in a car accident the Wednesday before my wedding.  His sister Dawn was supposed to be my Maid of Honor.  Obviously, she wasn't as understandably none of that family came.  I got married on Saturday and on Sunday my parent's called to ask my new husband David and I to postpone our honeymoon so they could go be with Phyllis when David died.  We agreed.  He died that Monday.

 

Me and Dawn at her wedding in 1992. I'm still the tall one.

 

This picture was taken just a couple of weeks before Dawn's wedding (the baby is my son Blake).  We had traveled there when my grandpa died.  Someone suggested that maybe the women in our family shouldn't get married because someone always died around that event.  For Dawn it was grandpa.  For me it was David.  Phyllis's grandmother Dora died around the time of her wedding.

One thing about Phyllis that stands out to me, and really applies to that whole family, is that she always seemed happy.  She was always smiling.  Look at her in the picture above.  I know she wasn't always happy, no one is ever always anything.  But my impressions of her now and as long as I can remember, she was a positive person.  My dad has that trait too.  You never hear them complain or use words like "I wish".   I never heard her be sad about David's passing.  Whenever she talked about him she lit up, she smiled, she talked about happy times.  I want to be like that.

After her husband Jim died, things started to change.  After a few years, Dawn was forced to seek care for her mother.  Alzheimer's, early onset I would say since she was only in her mid-60's when she passed away.  Like her mother, I never heard Dawn complain.  She took care of it with a grace I hope to have half of if I am one day called to make the difficult decisions she was forced to make. 

When Phyllis passed away, my dad called me.  I asked if he planned to go to Florida and he said he would let me know.  He and my mother had been there only a few weeks before and he had said he wouldn't go back when the time came.  Knowing my dad I thought he might have changed his mind.  When he decided yes they would go, I knew my course of action.  

I would fly to Texas (from Montana) and then help him make the long drive to Pensacola.  Dad drives a truck for a living and let's face it, he isn't getting any younger (that was for you dad), so I didn't like the idea of him making that long drive by himself.  It isn't that he can't, that didn't matter.  I didn't want him to.   There are few people in the world that bring out my protective side but he is one of them.  Once, when he was playing softball, a man on the other team was heckling him while he pitched and it took a lot of self-control for me to not go punch that man in the face.  My plan is to get the keys as soon as I can and to do as much driving as possible.

All of this would delay my getting to Dawn as fast as promised but it felt like the right thing to do.  Besides, thinking Dawn would need me right away (or at all) was a fallacy.  It isn't that she didn't want me to come but she doesn't need me.  She has a great family, close friends, good colleagues at work.  She would have been okay had I never made it at all.

I flew to Texas and we made plans to start the drive the next morning.  When my brother asked what time we were leaving I told him that mom was setting her alarm for 6 am so my guess would be 9.  I was close...we got in the car at 8:30.  That's when things started to fall apart.  My mom calls her mom while we are still on the street my parents live on.   Her mom is unwell and at 90 years old, that is a big deal.  There is conversation about missing medication.  She speaks to one of my aunts who is at my grandmother's home and there is talk of going to a hospital.

Getting to Dawn quickly wasn't about Phyllis.  It was about Dawn.  When the discussion began about what needed to happen my dad said it perfectly to my mother, "Phyllis is gone, I can't do anything for her now.  Your mother is still here.  We have to take care of the living."  So dad drove me to DFW airport, I rented a car and drove on alone.  I know it was hard for my dad but I also know he would never tell you he was sorry for that decision or that it was wrong.  That's not the way he thinks.  Again, I want to be like that.

So I drove and I thought.  And thought.  And thought.  And wrote some of this post in my head along the way.  Probably some really good stuff I didn't write here. Driving to Florida to say goodbye to Phyllis and to do whatever it was that Dawn needed me to do gave me lots of time to think about them, about family, about my childhood.  

I remember that trip when we flew to Florida without mom and dad clearly.  Maybe because mom and dad weren't there.  Maybe because a lot happened and we had that factor of staying in homes we weren't familiar with and with people we barely ever saw.  What stands out the most is that when we arrived at the airport in Mobile, Phyllis and Jim were there to get us and I was sick.  We drove to their house with Phyllis sitting in the back of the van with me, holding my head in her lap, while I fought the urge to vomit.  I can't be sure that I didn't.  I just remember her caring and kindness and her promise I would be fine.  Those are important things when you are young and away from home and with what almost amounted to strangers.

Phyllis and I saw each other once, maybe twice on average, per year over the whole of my life.  Less after I was an adult.  But there are parts of my life that only she and her family bore witness to.  The time I was sick after the plane ride, when I cut my leg on the table, when I threw up large amounts of watermelon in my grandma's back yard.  Now I think, maybe those things never happened.  There is almost no one left to tell me otherwise.  

My family on that side is dwindling.  My dad, my brother, me and Dawn.  Our families of course.  But as it always is as generations begin to pass on, sometimes those below have a hard time keeping in touch, finding time to be together.  We have that whole geographic distance problem:  Dad and Aaron in Texas, me in Montana, Dawn in Florida.  Both Dawn and I have been married  more than 20 years and our husbands might have met once or twice.  Recently, Dawn and I have made an effort to find a way to see each other at least once a year.  Just like when we were kids.  

 Dawn and I in Nashville this past April.  I'm the one on the left.  Always the tall one.

Memory works in strange ways.  Phyllis lost hers.  I feel like some of mine are less real now that she is gone.  As Dawn and I go on and make new memories, maybe together, by seeing each other and talking about the old times, the fun times, hopefully those memories I feel are fading by the loss of their witnesses, can stay real.  At least for a little while longer.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Washington, DC

While purchasing gas, a couple of young teenage girls approached me asking if they could clean my already clean windshield for a donation.  They were collecting for a school trip in 2016 to Washington DC.  I gave her a $20 bill - the only cash I had.  Her eyes got really big so I assume that no one else was giving that kind of donation.  And I didn't make her clean the windshield. 

If I had known then when I know now, I might not have donated at all.

School groups were pervasive in DC.  Everywhere you go, there they are.  Observing them you know they are only there because 1) They can be so why not? 2) They get to stay in a hotel with their friends and without their parents 3) It provides an opportunity to hook up with someone, to goof off, act a fool and do all of the things teenagers do when they are away from constant supervision.  I know there are some exceptions but most of them do not care about the history of this country.

I know there are chaperones but let's be realistic...1 adult per 10 or more kids is not enough.  I know from experience.  When I was 15 my softball team went to Durant, OK for a tournament.  There were about 13-14 of us girls - all between 14-16 years old - and 3 adults.  We were traveling in 2 vans.  One of the vans had mechanical problems just south of the Texas/Oklahoma border.  Two of the adults had to go into a nearby town to get parts leaving all of us girls there with our coach Roy.  Someone, I don't remember who but certainly not me, convinced my friend Kim to moon the next person driving by.  So me and another girl stood between Kim and the coach and she did it.  The man stopped.  We went and hid in the van while Roy dealt with the irate man.  We also threw ice in the elevator at a hotel in Houston when the doors opened and then we ran away.  So again, I am not guessing.

Back in DC, they are everywhere and there are a lot of them around The Wall when we arrive.  The Wall was #1 on my list of things to see in DC.  I "know" someone listed on there.

 

Panel 12E, Line 18, first name on the line:  Thomas L Blackman.

Tommy was my mother's husband.  He was not my father and he died before I was born but he was a presence in the house I grew up in all the same.

Tommy was 21 when he died on November 4, 1966.  He and my mother had been married a short 15 months.  His son, my half brother, was 6 months old.  He was killed in a non-combat related fire, along with 7 other sailors, aboard the USS Franklin D Roosevelt "in South Asian Waters".  

I have been thinking about this time in my parent's lives more than usual and have been interviewing them about various details.  I always knew about Tommy.  My brother was never adopted by my father and he always carried the Blackman name.  I have seen Tommy's picture.  The flag from his coffin is still in my mother's house.  I have read the telegram they delivered when she was notified of his death and the one that was delivered to Tommy when his son was born.  I spent more than a few weekend days playing in Tommy's parents backyard so my brother could visit his grandparents and his cousins.  I attended Tommy's parents funerals when they died.  I have been to Tommy's grave more times than I can count.

I had never been to The Wall in DC.  I had been to a replica in Pensacola but the size isn't the same.  And maybe because I have been talking to mom about this more lately than I ever have before, it felt different.  My colleagues promised not to make fun of me if I cried and they even hung back and gave me a little space once we got there.  I told my mom I was going and she said, "touch his name for me" but I couldn't.  It is too high.

 

The Wall is higher in the middle and then tapers down to a few inches off the ground on either end.  Just like this boy who is taking a rubbing, someone would have had to sit on my shoulders to get to Tommy's name.  The park service said they have ladders they can get out during the day when it isn't crowded but I never had the opportunity to do that.

After being at the panel with Tommy's name for a little while, I walked down to the east end of the memorial and waited on my colleagues to catch up.  I am trying not to cry (at The Wall and also right now) but am failing (at both).  Two older teenage boys approach me and say, "What is this called again?"  I couldn't believe it.  There are signs all over the place that tell you what each thing is.  The Wall is right by the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Korean War Memorial.  Apparently, reading isn't being taught in high school anymore.  Or maybe it is common sense they are missing.

But more than that it strikes me that this memorial means so little to them, nothing really, that they don't even know what it is.  They weren't born during Vietnam.  At their age if they had a relative on the wall it would be a grandfather or great uncle.  But this Wall means everything to some people, like my mother.  But maybe you don't understand why my mother's husband's name on here would have an impact on me at all when he wasn't my father.

For me, the hard reality is that other people come here and mourn the loss of a loved one, someone they miss every single day.  But in my case, if Tommy's name isn't on that wall, I would never have been born. That is very difficult to reconcile.  I cannot even imagine how horrible that time was for my mother.  Her high school sweetheart was taken from her.  The father of her child.  She was 18 years old  when he died.  But if she had never gone through that awful time, I would not exist.

I know she can't choose between two lives but I can't help but wonder if she could, what would she choose.  And mom, if you are reading this, I know there is no right answer.  But I still wonder.  How could she not want Tommy to live?  Knowing that if he did, I wouldn't.  My younger brother wouldn't.  Our children wouldn't.  

We have all heard someone say that they believe there is only one right person out there for them but I don't believe that.  I can't.  If I believed that what would that say about my mother's feelings for my dad?  Or for Tommy?  My mother and father met not quite a year after Tommy's death and were married soon after.  They are still married today.  I know my mother loves my father but I also know she loved Tommy.  Still does.  Always will.

I know there are others out there like me.  People who would not exist if war didn't exist.  What does that mean?  Does it mean anything at all?  It is still happening now, today, will likely always be happening.  The answer for me is yes, it means something.  Something I cannot adequately explain.

 

On this memorial alone there are 58,272 names.

My father went to Vietnam when my mother was pregnant with me.  Once again, I can't even imagine how my mother felt during that time (or my dad either).  For a second time, she is pregnant and the father of her child is called away to Vietnam.  The stress must have been nearly unbearable this second time.  

 

This statue of 3 soldiers (the other is behind these two, this is the best angle I could get for this photo because of the massive herd of teenagers standing around it) was created to honor those that came back.  People like my dad who returned when I was 2 months old.

These 3 soldiers face The Wall, I assume as a tribute to those that didn't return.  Like these 3 my dad always has and to this day continues to honor Tommy.  He even cleans his headstone whenever they visit the cemetery.

I am not sure I can ever fully have peace in the knowledge that for me to live, my mother, Tommy's parents and siblings and others that knew and loved him had to live through so much pain.  When Tommy's father died some of us walked down to Tommy's grave which is nearby and my older brother, Tommy's son, was standing there looking at the headstone.  Even though I had been there lots of times before it never really felt the way it did that day to watch him looking down at that stone knowing his father was down there.  Someone he has no memory of.  Maybe it is even harder to consider since my dad is one of my favorite people on this earth.

So I visited the wall to pay tribute to a man I never knew.  To think about what his name, and all of the others here, mean to me.  To all of us.  May his memory live on in those who loved and knew him and maybe even a little in some of us who never had the opportunity.

Rest in Peace

Thomas Lee Blackman

February 10, 1945-November 4, 1966

The George Jones Museum: Nashville, TN

 

This is George Jones' fault.

While driving to my hotel in Nashville, I passed the George Jones Museum.  I knew I had to make time to visit there no matter what happened.  Because if it wasn't for George Jones, my children wouldn't exist. 

 

The museum, as it turns out, hasn't opened yet.  I was really disappointed that I wouldn't be able to make the pilgrimage.  Then I found out they were opening that coming weekend - and I would still be in town.  They opened to coincide with the 2nd anniversary of his death.

 

I wanted to get my dad something from the gift shop but this was a little out of my price range.  I do love the vanity plates.

 

The only size bottles of White Lightening they have.  A little too much for the suitcase home.  And then to get it to Texas next time I go.

 

Just right.  Dad modeling his shirt.  I also got him a coffee cup.  An item that will be well used in his house.

And though I was able to make the pilgrimage, I didn't end up going through the museum.  It was $20.  A little more homage than I was prepared to pay.  My dad would have paid twice that.

 

When I mentioned to a customer that I needed to go to the museum because George was responsible for my children's very existence, she gave me a funny look and I realized that she might think I am saying that George Jones is the father of my children.  He's not, but he is no less responsible.

Here's how it happened.  This is my my version of the story.  Others have their own versions, that is the nature of a story.  So, to those of you who were there, I don't want to hear any comments about the accuracy of my memories, they are mine.  If your memories are different, they are wrong.

My dad was a singer in a band.  His specialty was George Jones music.  I don't actually remember him ever singing a song by anyone else, at least not on stage.  He sang all of the time at home and there he sang songs by other people.  My daughter was about 8 when she said, "Grandpa is a joyful person".  When I asked why she said that, she said it was because he was always singing.

 

There he is, in the green (or blue, depending on your opinion and screen) shirt in the middle.  The one with the microphone.  

So one June night in 1983 me and my friend Kim went with my parents to watch him sing.  As you can see from the curtain in the background, this was at a VFW Hall.  The guy to the right of my dad, as you look at the photo (white cowboy hat, looking away from the camera, bass player) is Alan.  He will be part of this story in a minute.

My friend Kim looked a little like Lynda Carter, the actress who played Wonder Woman.  She was built like that too.  I was resigned to my role as the ugly friend.  Not one time when I was with Kim had a boy ever noticed me.  I didn't expect this night to be any different.  Plus, in June of 1983 I have just finished the 8th grade.  I am 14 years old.  Dating wasn't a big concern of mine.  I had never been asked on one and had never had a conversation with my parents about when I would be allowed to go in the event that someone ever did ask.

When I went to the ladies room I saw a group of teenagers at a table on that side of the building.  I hadn't really paid attention to them before.  Maybe I was sitting with my back to them?  Not sure, but this was my first time noticing.  And that is all I thought, that it was a large group of older teenagers.  I didn't notice anyone in particular.  But one of them noticed me.

When dad wasn't on stage, he would sometimes dance with me.  When we were exiting the dance floor that night a young man stepped in front of me and said, "Do you want to dance later?".  I said, "Sure" or "Okay".  Something sophisticated like that.  Later, we danced.  His name was David and he was 17, would be 18 in a few weeks.  Because of his July birthday, he had just graduated from high school about a week before.  He is there with his date (he took her home early), his cousin, bass player Alan, and some other kids from his high school.

I don't remember what we talked about while we danced but I do remember the change in his face when he asked how old I was and I told him.  He recovered and not to be that easily deterred, he asks my parents if he can ask me on a date.  Smooth operator, asking the parents.  

AND THEY SAID YES.  Years later my mom would say things like "what will you do when a grown man shows up and asks your 14 year old on a date?" and he would say, "the same thing you should have said, NO."  I was mature for a 14 year old, even my mom will tell you that but still.  14 is 14.  He had a job and an apartment and this is my first date ever.  As for me, he noticed me and not Kim so what wasn't to like?  I would have said yes on that fact alone.

So the next day, a Sunday, he picked me up and we went to his friend's house swimming.  And I got my first kiss.  Something I knew was coming most of the day and was totally dreading.  Not so much today.

That first date/kiss led to this:

 

David's dad took this picture of us in December of 1985 (written on the back of the photo).  So I am just turning 17.  We have been dating 2 1/2 years already. 

 

At our wedding in March of 1987.  I am barely 18, he is 21.  I am still in high school, graduating in May.  It was the beginning of Spring Break.  I must have missed that Captain and Tennille song, You Better Shop Around.

 

This is late 1993 or early 1994 depending on who is having a birthday here.  We have 3 children.  I am 25.  I was 22 when our son, the youngest, was born.  What were you doing when you were 22?

It was hard.  We had the kids young and really close together (22 months and 19 months).  We didn't have a lot of money.  In that last photo we are living in a 2 bedroom apartment while David is going to school at night.  He keeps the kids during the day while I work and I have them at night.  We are only together on weekends.  The kids have no furniture in their room.  They each have a foam chair that folds out to a bed, a pillow and a blanket.  That table was a dumpster dive.  And for those of you that are super observant, that isn't an expensive stand mixer in the background.  Its an antique juice press I got when my grandpa died.  It has no monetary value.  If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't be there.  I won a TV at work during this time and we drove it directly to a pawn shop.

It got harder.  The details aren't important.  This is what's important:

 

We made it this far.  

In 2013 we left Texas for Montana and we love it here.  And our easiest kid, Karma, is with us.  The others have moved on, all 3 living in different states.  We have 3 grandchildren now.  And David and I are having a great time.  We are on the best part of this adventure.  

And I have two people to thank for that...

 

George

 

And dad.  Thank you for being such a joyful person.