Month: June 2024

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Dorothy’s Cat

I remember my sweet mother-in-law every day of my life. She died in 2008, at the age of 98. I often wear her fuzzy bathrobe when I get up in the morning. I wear one of her sweatshirts it the winter, when it is cold outside. Snuggled in my memories of her, I am cozy and warm.

I loved spending time with Dorothy. She was pretty and funny, sweet and a little naive. But Dorothy was also determined and brave. She survived losing her father in the influenza outbreak when she was eight years old. She survived diphtheria and being quarantined at Denver General Hospital for six weeks when she was ten. She was the mother of six children, two of whom died before she did. Even as she approached 100 years old, she was determined to stay in her own home.

For many years, Dorothy and I spent every Friday evening together. Often we would go to the neighborhood restaurant for dinner and a glass of wine. Other times, we would sit in Dorothy’s kitchen and talk about our week. At various times, Dorothy shared her home with her husband, her children, her nephew, her mother, and Jim’s dog, Adolph.

Adolph was a medium-size, brown dog. Not a big dog, but not small, either. He was part Airedale and mostly mutt. Adolph was happy and  lovable, but not especially smart. Although Dorothy tolerated Adolph, her real love were her cats. She nearly always had a cat in the house. When one died, usually from crossing busy Grant Street, another one showed up, asking to be adopted.

One Friday afternoon, I stopped in to see Dorothy and I knew something was wrong. Her grey kitty was meowing around the kitchen. Dorothy poured each of us a glass of wine.

“Is everything ok?” I asked. “You seem a little flustered.”

“I am flustered. I had a weird phone call today.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. It was a man’s voice. He said he saw me at church.”

“Are you sure you don’t know him?”

“His voice wasn’t familiar at all. He said he wanted to see my pussy.”

“Oh, my. That’s terrible. What did you say?”

“I was very cross with him. I asked him why he would say such a thing. My cat was right there in the kitchen with me and I wasn’t going to take her outside to show her to him or anyone else.”

“What did the man say then?”

“Nothing. He hung up.”

Dorothy told that same story to everyone she saw that weekend. No one had the heart to tell her why we thought the story was funny.

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D-Day

They called him “Doc.”  As a pharmacist Mate 3, my father was the highest ranking medical officer on his ship, an LST (tank landing ship) used during WWII.

Dad graduated from pharmacy college at the University of Minnesota in June, 1941. Pearl Harbor was attacked six months later. My father knew he didn’t want to be drafted into the Army, so he enlisted in the Navy in June, 1942. He was twenty-four years old.

Dad did not go through traditional “boot camp” but was sent, instead, to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital, north of Chicago. His first assignment was the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, where my mother joined him. He then moved to the Naval Station in Geneva, New York, where he and my mother were married and where I was born. In June, 1943, Dad was sent to the naval base in Maryland. My mother and I went to live with Dad’s family in St. Paul.

Dad’s assignment, the LST 492, was his home for the next two years. The ship left Maryland and  traveled to England to prepare for the first wave on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

The following words are from an article written by David Chrisinger, published in the New York Times Magazine, June 5, 2019: “Most of the men in the first wave never stood a chance. In the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, thousands of American soldiers crawled down swaying cargo nets and thudded into steel landing craft bound for the Normandy coast.”

My father’s ship was one of those landing crafts. When they reached Normandy, the doors to the LST swung open, rolling out tanks and army men into the ocean. As a medical officer, my father stayed on the ship with the other sailors, waiting to treat wounded American and German prisons of war, alike.

“Allied troops kept landing, wave after wave, and by midday they had crossed the 300 yards of sandy killing ground, scaled the bluffs and overpowered the German defenses. By the end of the day, the beaches had been secured and the heaviest fighting had moved at least a mile inland. In the biggest and most complicated amphibious operation in military history, it wasn’t bombs, artillery or tanks that overwhelmed the Germans; it was men — many of them boys, really — slogging up the beaches and crawling over the corpses of their friends that won the Allies a toehold at the western edge of Europe.” ~ David Chrisinger

Going through old files, I came across a letter, written by Lt. Commander, Ralph Newman, commander of the LST 492, to my mother on July 4, 1944:

“I would like to take this opportunity to write a few words about your husband, Robert. We point with some pride to the record of the good old 492. No one has so much as broken a little finger. And no one has more friends than Bob. The “doc” has the respect of his officers and shipmates, alike.’

From Normandy, the LST 492 traveled to North Africa, Italy and Sicily, with German POW’s still onboard. On August 15, 1944, they were part of the second D-Day, invasion, Operation Dragoon, an assault against German forces in Southern France that eventually led to the liberation of Paris.

After leaving the  south of  France in September, 1944. The LST 492 was assigned to the Pacific fleet, and traveled to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and the Wake Islands. The ship was based in Okinawa. Japan, when bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When asked about his feelings about the Atom Bomb, my father later wrote, “I felt relieved that the war was going to be terminated and I could return to my family and my normal lifestyle. I was happy only for myself. I had no feelings for the eventual consequences of it. I suppose that was selfish. Now I’m don’t believe it was justified.”

My father was always a kind-heart, quiet man. I can’t imagine how difficult war must have been for him. But he has also a man who always did what he was called upon to do. Later, reflecting back on his time in the Navy, my father commented that at the time, he felt that WWII was necessary to defeat Hitler. But overall, he was opposed to war, which he labeled as  “senseless.”

Every year, on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, my father took his trumpet out of its case, stood outside in the dark, and played Taps. I imagine he thought of his days on the LST 492  as those sweet sounds floated through the air, for all of the neighbors to hear.

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Johnny

Johnny and his mother, Gail, lived on my floor in Heather Gardens. I am using their real names because they are no long alive. Gail died on Christmas Day. Johnny died this spring. They were two of my favorite, most memorable, neighbors. I am one of the few people who would say that.

I believe each person has a story. After we die, there is one story that becomes our legacy. Gail’s legacy is that she was born profoundly deaf. That is her story. But she was also a very bright, social woman who had a college degree and raised two sons. Her speech was almost impossible to understand but that didn’t stop her from being the first person to welcome  me to the building. She was always happy to see me. Even as I was getting ready to move and she had advanced dementia and was scaring people, Gail remained one of my favorite people.

Johnny’s story is that he was homeless before he moved in to take care of his mother. That is his legacy, but he was so much more than a dutiful son. He was a tall, unkempt man who was a licensed electrician. He preferred to sleep outside. He made friends easily (except in my building) because he was kind and generous. He was creative and loved to play tricks on people. He decorated his door in elaborate motifs for every holiday. He was especially fond of St. Patrick’s Day and thought of himself as an overgrown leprechaun. Once he decorated his doorway in giant spiders.

Johnny had a special love for his homeless friends, a love that was not shared by the residents of my building. He hired a woman named Marie, who may or may not have been his common-law wife, to move in to his take care of Gail so he could earn money as an on-call electrician for the local electrician’s union.

The bond between Gail and Marie was obvious. Whereas other people fought with Gail and insisted they were right, Marie never told her no. When Gail wanted to play games, they played games. When Gail wanted to put together jigsaw puzzles, they did puzzles. If Gail didn’t want to take a shower, Marie took a shower herself, and called it “good enough.” Marie cooked food and Gail ate it. Gail stopped going out in the hallway and bothering people. Marie did their laundry in the community laundry room, even though she could hear the mean things that the residents said to her. I thought she was a skinny saint in rags and purple hair.

After Marie moved in, Johnny gradually started inviting some of his other homeless friends to stop by, as well. They came to say hello to Gail and Marie. Many of them came to take a shower and wash their hair. They left after about an hour, clean and happy. I liked talking to them. Many of them were intelligent people who had made some very bad choices in their lives. Most of them still had all their teeth.

One night in May, 2023, I rode down in the elevator with a newly washed young man and his bicycle. I wished him a good night and then told him that I was on my way to meet some friends. I was celebrating my 80th birthday. The man shook my hand and then reached into his back pocket for his billfold. He took out the only money he had, a five dollar bill, and gave it to me.

“Happy Birthday!” he said.

“Oh, no. I can’t take your money.”

“But I want you to have it. It isn’t everyday that you turn eighty years old.”

“That’s true. But if you really want me to have a happy birthday, you will take that money and buy yourself something to eat.”

My last day in the building, I knocked on Gail’s door to say goodby. She wasn’t wearing any clothes and obviously didn’t remember who i was. She looked happy. I told Marie to let Johnny know that I came to say goodby.

Three months later Gail died in hospice care. Six months later, Johnny also died. He had multiple forms of cancer and was in terrible pain. We never knew he was sick.

May Johnny and Gail rest in peace. I will hold them in my heart forever.