Tears

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love."  - Washington Irving

11th Hour, 11th Day, 11th Month

In memory of Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles Wayne Stratton, MIA Laos, January 3, 1971, to July 5, 2007. DNA determination KIA Savannakhet Province, Laos, January 3, 1971, age 30.

And in everlasting love for and support of his wife and their sons, my playmates, Butch, Scotty, and Stephen.

 

"The Star Spangled Banner"
by
Madison Rising

 Chuck, I remember you.

"Missing in Action," May 2, 2011

Speaking German

I'm German. Born American, born Texan, and proud of both. But the blood in my veins is German.

When I was growing up, my mother's parents and siblings frequently would speak to each other in German. They most often did so when any of the children were around and the adults didn't want us to know what they were saying.

At our family Christmas gatherings, the adults would sing "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet" (O, Come Ye Little Children) while I would sing "Oh Kinder and Comet, la lah, la la lah." They would sing "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" (Silent Night, Holy Night) while I would sing "Still a knot, la lah-ah a knot." And then there was the perennial favorite, "O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum" (O Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree), which I sang out as "O tannin bowm, o tannin bowm, la la la lah bletter, O tannin bowm, o tannin baum, la la la lah oh summertime..."

Certain German phrases were common in our household, though; we thought nothing of it. Words and phrases like Gesundheit (bless you), das ist gut (that's fine), vas ist das (what is that?), bitte (please), danke (thank you), danke schön (thank you well), ach du liebe Güte (roughly, oh goodness gracious), and, the one that has persisted through the generations and the family tree, schlaf gut (sleep well) and it's companion, du schlaf auch gut (you sleep well, also).

My father's nickname for my mom was Schatzi (sweetheart, darling), and whenever we asked my mother "how much?" of something, particularly when we were learning to cook, she'd say, "dumme Junge, bis es genug ist!" (dumb young one, until it's enough!). I never could say that one, though, so I'd ask, "how much? the hibiscus thing?"

I always assumed that when I entered high school, I would learn the German of my heritage and be able to converse with my family. As my two older sisters went to our neighborhood high school, though, we were horrified to learn that the school did not offer German! My cousins were happily learning the German language in their school, however, which was hardly fair.

But then a strange revelation occurred. When my cousins tried to speak to their parents and especially to our grandparents, they discovered they could not be understood! It was not poor pronunciation. It was not poor teaching. It was almost like, well, a different language.

That's when I learned that there were apparently two German languages: high German and low German. Apparently the American schools taught high German, and my family spoke low German. (I understand that now low German is called Swiss German). My great-grandparents, and their parents before them, were born in Germany, but, as an adult, my great-grandmother prepared French cuisine for a wealthy family in Switzerland, and my grandmother and her two younger sisters were born in Switzerland before the family moved back to Germany and then immigrated to America.

After my grandmother joined her Heavenly Father, and my grandfather could no longer speak due to strokes, my mother and her siblings gradually stopped speaking German. By the time of my mother's Homegoing at the age of 78, she could barely translate a few words of spoken German and spoken Russian.

So here I am. Now a genealogist, struggling with correspondence and newspaper articles and recipes that the translators such as Bing and Google don't seem to know how to handle. And I still can't speak low German. Or high German. Or any German.

But you know what? I can still hear, on the outermost edges of my consciousness, the tenuous voices of my Nanny and PaPa singing, "irh Kinderleine kommet..." To all my German-speaking family who are now with God in Heaven, Ich erinnere mich an Sie.

(Addendum 09/13/2012: It appears I may have the low German and high German reversed according to Wikipedia. I just need some help to figure out what my documents are written in and which aspect of the language I want to learn).

Living with Regret

The New Abortion Caravan

A big Texas "thank-ya" goes out to my sister for providing the follow-up information regarding "The Abortion Debate Changes Forever," a teaser video that I posted back in May. To get the scoop, click here.

You Can Take the Gal Outta Texas...

Jeremiah was a Bull Frog! da DA

His name was Bruce, and he lived across the alley from me. We went to the same elementary school. We were 11 years old.

When I think of Bruce, I see him in a bright yellow button-down shirt and khaki colored pants. (Boys weren't allowed to wear T-shirts and jeans in my school in those days). He had a slight build, bright eyes, and brown hair in a crew cut.

I recall running down the hallway with him after school one day, hoping we'd reach the Exit door before we were caught. We were singing at the top of our lungs: "Jeremiah was a bull frog, da DA, was a good friend of mine, da DA, never understood a single word he said..." About that time, teachers spilled out of classrooms and we slammed out the Exit door, doubled over in laughter.

One morning, toward the end of the school year, I got to class and heard deafening whispers. Bruce was dead. No one knew how or why. Some said he was POISONED. There was going to be an AUTOPSY.

I never heard or learned any more. I don't even remember hearing about a funeral. I think his family moved away. He was gone. The End

But Bruce, I remember you. "Singin' JOY to the world, ALL the boys and girls now; joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, JOY to you and me."

Good Girl!

To My Sweet Cousin

I think about you so often, Kathleen! I've missed you so much since you've been gone. Lately I've been doing several things that especially remind me of you: visiting old cemeteries, cleaning headstones, and I recently saw a book about ghost towns.

 

I remember not just our Cemetery Weekends and our Ghost Town Weekends but also little things that happened on those trips. Like in that one extremely rural cemetery when we heard a strange wild noise up in a tree; you immediately headed away from it and I immediately headed toward it. I was under that spindly tree, craning my neck, and finally you convinced me to get away. Later we found out it was a bobcat!

And the time we finally made it to that really small old cemetery, the one we'd been wanting to visit for almost 2 years, and a funeral was in progress. You said, "The nerve of them! Having a funeral on the one day we could visit!"

Remember when we snuck onto the posted property of that abandoned high school, and you became apoplectic because I went inside to take pictures? You peeked in from the small, hidden door, and you kept up a running monologue. You called, increasingly louder, "Don't go IN there. You know we're trespassing, right? What if there's snakes? Watch out for that glass! There might be dangerous squatters in there. We're hours from home - who's gonna bail us out? You're gonna need a tetanus shot! Don't go up those stairs - are you CRAZY? You'll fall through those boards! That's it - you come out RIGHT NOW." I finally realized you were really in emotional distress, so I came back outside. It had been so dark inside, and you hadn't let me go very far. So all that for one photo. It was an okay photo, though, of the stage at one end of the gymnasium; the only well-lit area I found.

And somewhere we saw that child's grave, Bonner Boone Brown. For years afterwards, out of the blue, you'd say, "I still want to know who would name their kid Bonner Boone Brown!"

Remember that cemetery where a huge block of family graves was surrounded by a cement curb? We approached, as we always did at blocks of graves, planning to work through the familial relationships and the order of deaths. But at this one, we just stood and looked in disbelief. One man, surrounded by 8 wives whom he had outlived. In the great silence of nature, you finally whispered, "Do you think he murdered ALL of them, or just some?"

Last week I ran across the photos from that ghost town with the huge football stadium that had risers made of cement. We were so lost in the past as we looked across those ruins that had melded with the desert. I miss those moments.

And I remember the time we drove to visit the graves of our great-grandparents. We couldn't find them in the first cemetery in town, and you said, "This cemetery doesn't look right. This isn't it." Being older than me, you remembered more. So we went to the other cemetery in town. "This is it. This looks just like it. They're somewhere over - there!" But we still couldn't find them. So we went to the town library and asked the quite elderly woman how we could find the graves of our great-grandparents. She helped us look through a large number of cemetery records but kept asking us, "Are you sure that's the name?" And you just kept saying, so politely and patiently, "Yes, we're sure that's the name." Finally, long past the realization of futility, I said, "We'll just ask our mothers exactly where their grandparents are buried and then we'll come back some other weekend." The old lady sighed with relief and began to close the books and files. "Yes!" she said, "That's good! You come back with another name." You managed to make it all the way to the outside steps before busting into laughter. "That's right!" you choked out. "We just need to come back with ANOTHER NAME! Then we'll find out where they're buried!"

We never had the chance to go back with another name.

 (That's me in the background,

wearing black and standing with my arms folded.)

I haven't been to your grave since the week you were buried. You were only 57 years old. It gives me comfort, though, to know that you're buried next to my mother. Anne frequently puts flowers on your grave and the graves of our mothers. I sometimes wish I didn't live across the country now, because it would give me some temporary peace to visit all three of you. Even though I know you're all in Heaven and I'll actually see you again some day; in Heaven I'll have real peace.

My dear, precious, funny, interesting, and loving cousin Kathleen, I remember you.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

I remember you.