Worth Waiting For

I waited a long time for a grandchild. Our son married right out of college nine years ago. I think I was discreet about it—the waiting, that is. They knew how much I love babies. But I knew how much they had in their plans that made having children right away not practical. I just did not know how hard it would be to wait. All my friends sending me their Christmas cards with their couches and laps overflowing with grandchildren seriously tested my patience! It was cute at first. Then, year by year, it became torturous! I think my discretion weakened these last couple of years and I probably not so subtly expressed my longing—if not with my actual words, my face around babies probably said it all! Or maybe it was two Christmas Eves ago at church when I brought a little baby over to my son to show him what one looked like!?

I confess. I had my own selfish expectations. I got married young and when my son married younger, also, I just planned on being a very young grandmother. I am still young, relatively speaking, but not as young as I had planned. I did tell the kids I just hoped they would have children while I could still get up and down off the floor to play! And I guess I did warn them recently that if someone did not have a baby soon I may end up in jail for stealing a small child.

But finally the day came. Last Thanksgiving our son and his wife announced during the Thanksgiving meal that they were expecting a baby! Wow! What a great context for that announcement! And, true to my anxious grandparent’s heart, I already had a baby gift waiting! I immediately went into my little hope closet and got the soft little blanket square with a critter in the middle and gave it to them. I had purchased it two years earlier when I just could not help myself anymore. I had passed by so many sweet baby things. This one I refused to pass by. I bought it and put it away. It could wait with me for the time when my hope became substance!

But in November of 2010 July 4^th of 2011, the due date, seemed so far away! I had waited over eight years. I told myself I could wait another few months. I did. It was so worth the wait! She was three days late, but Laurel Ana was born at 9 p.m. July 7^th. All fingers and toes accounted for. Healthy lungs to announce her arrival. Though I could not be there, my son sent me the audio of her screaming she was here. Beautiful dark hair. No conehead and no visible marks or swelling from the long hard 24 hours of labor she extracted from her beautiful mother. She is perfect! Really! I know every grandparent says that, but Laurel really is. And she has already shown signs of inner beauty to match her outward gorgeous looks. She is as sweet as any baby I have ever been around and I have been around a lot of them. She has been so alert and observant. Though I know their little eyes do not focus clearly for several weeks, Laurel is sure looking intently at every face and everything put in her line of sight. You can see that she is searching for meaning in her environment and from those who care for her. Her little mouth already trying to make the shapes that make sounds. She rarely cries or fusses. She is pure sweetness.

Her inner beauty was really tested when she was only three weeks old and dragged to her Auntie Anne’s wedding on the 30th of July. Such a trooper! She made it to every party and celebration and was passed around to relatives, young and old, and friends too numerous to count. And rarely a peep out of her! She just searched faces intently, thrilled us with smiles occasionally (you can call it gas if you want, but the timing in response to people smiling at her makes me stick to my story—she was smiling at three weeks!). Then she would close her searching eyes to rest from all the hard work of exploring her new world and all these crazy people called relatives. And I just want to say, her mom and dad deserve a medal for their gracious and generous attitude in sharing this precious young life with so many folks without proof of hands properly cleansed with antiseptic wash or Red Cross training for child care.

Dear little Laurel was definitely worth waiting for. Did I say she is the most beautiful and personable little baby girl I have ever met? Ok. So I am over the top. All discretion aside, being a grandmother who has waited so long there is not time for such silliness. Oh! And I have another grandchild coming in December! This one a little boy. No doubt he will be the most handsome and charming young grandson to ever arrive on planet earth. I bet you can hardly wait for that post!

Til Death Did Them Part

Although my father’s story of his time as a prisoner of war in WWII is a very tragic one filled with brutality and man’s inhumanity to man, it does have a fairytale ending of sorts.

When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, of the 300,000 prisoners they had taken, 200,000 survived—barely. Like my father most of them were severely malnourished and diseased. Almost all of them weighed under 100 pounds. The prisoners lost an average of 25 pound a year. Most were prisoners for 3.5 years, meaning they lost 75-90 pounds. My father joined the Army weighing 160 pounds, and he weighed 90 pounds when he was liberated. All of these POWs were seriously ill with malaria, dengue fever, beri beri, and dysentery. Along with 200,000 other soldiers my father spent the next three months in a variety of hospitals being nursed back to his normal weight. It took almost three months. In October 1945 my dad was in Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa, getting very close to being released to go home. There he met Alpheus Brown, who was in the bed next to him. They were both from the Brainerd Lakes area of Minnesota. Al showed my father a picture of his sister Hazel. She was a beautiful young thing! My dad declared, “I am going to marry her.” Al was outraged and responded, “Over my dead body!” Uncle Al later told my husband and me that he thought my dad was some kind of a weirdo! He was so friendly and talkative, Al thought something was wrong with him. But true to form—my father was a very determined man—Ken went home, met Hazel, and less than three months later they were married. The plot thickens.

Mom’s sister Harriet had also begun dating another ex-POW and long-time family friend Carl Kramp when he returned home in October 1945. Mom and Harriet had a best friend named Arlene Leibold. They did not want Al to be left out of the fun, so in late December they called Arlene and asked her if she would like to go out with them. Ken and Hazel, Carl and Harriet, and Al and Arlene went out on a Friday in late December. I don’t know what happened Saturday, but on Sunday Al and Arlene were engaged too. On February 20, 1946, the three couples were married in a triple wedding at my grandparent’s home in Nisswa, Minnesota. The brides all in identical gowns, the guys all in U.S. Army uniforms covered in medals, all three couples married after dating each other less than three months.

Young people who hear this story are aghast. How could these couples possibly do such a thing? They barely knew each other! And what bride would want to share their wedding day with two other couples, let alone wear the exact same dress? And the venue? A living room? As kids would say today, “Shut up!”

Yet these three marriages stood the test of time. Al and Arlene were married 30 years when Al died of a heart attack in 1976. Carl and Harriet were married over 60 years when both of them died in their eighties. And my mom and dad were married 60 years and two months when my father died in 2006. These marriages worked. These men came home after sacrificing some of the best years of their lives serving their country and settled down to do the same for their wives and families. The same work ethic, dedication, and faithfulness that got them enlisted and deployed, and helped them survive unspeakable brutality now went to work to build their homes, families, and this great country we now live in. These Greatest Generation men and women knew what commitment was. When they said “until death do us part,” they meant it.

The sorrow and suffering of their stories was in large part redeemed by this happy ending of three marriages that stood the test of time. All three men almost gave their lives in service to their country. When they survived they did give their lives in service to their families. They remained faithful to each other “till death did them part.”