– With an honorary dedication to older parents everywhere –
The day was bright, the early morning sun falling with its customary late September crispness as I drove the 45 miles to my hometown. It was Sunday, and I arrived to find my father standing at the sink. Apron on, he had his hands in a bowl of apples just gathered from the trees out back. “Your mother’s resting,” he told me.
He sat down with me at the table to be interviewed for an article I was writing. “My life is an open book,” he said. “What chapter do you want?”
My father was born 81 years ago on March 28, 1925. He was born neither far from nor long after my mother in a small town in northern Minnesota. His parents were farmers and the infamous “Dustbowl Days” were no kinder to them than to anyone. His dad lost the farm, twice.
Yet, “we always had enough food on the table,” my father acknowledged. “Dad seen to that. They were very trying times, but we were united as a family. We were closer together in the Depression Days than if you grew up with a lot of money, it seems like.”
His education began at the age of six. With one hand holding close his books and the other on his lunch, (most likely a couple of pancakes rolled with sugar, a peanut butter sandwich or—on a good day—a bit of pork), my father would make his way to the one-room country schoolhouse the children jokingly referred to as “Brushwood College.” He spent eight years there and then transferred to the parochial school in town. He left, two years shy of a diploma, on December 7, 1941.
“I got real gung-ho to go into the Marines,” he said, “And I was only seventeen years’ old then. I conned my mother and dad to sign the papers so I could go in and be a big-shot Marine—a big hero.”
My father spent a total of 33 months overseas. He seldom speaks about his World War II experience, giving in only to persistent children who have an article to write. Even then he speaks more matter-of-factly than emotionally. He saw “a lot of combat.” He “grew up in a hurry.” Still, I know he spent many, many sleepless nights in the foxhole, alone with his rosary and his fear, and I have seen the creased black-and-white photograph that he retrieved from the body of an “enemy.”
The boy who went off to war returned a man. He brought with him some painful memories, yes, but also a budding hope for the future in his heart and a set of photos in his pocket. (My mother didn’t know that her sister had been sending Dad my mother’s pictures; however, both her sister and her mother had been determined to have him in the family.)
A year and a half later, on January 29, 1947, my father George and my mother Rita were married.
After about 45 minutes of being interviewed, my father grew restless, shifting in his chair and checking his watch. “How much longer?” he asked. “I gotta get my pie made.” My mother certainly didn’t marry a stereotype. Her husband is a man who spends as much time in the kitchen as he does beneath the hood of his daughter’s car—and who is as comfortable washing the floor as he is watching a football game on TV.
“We’re nearly finished,” I told him. Up until this time, the interview had been a sort of review—an interesting history lesson. Yet I knew that for every story my father told there was a moral, and I wondered what the voice of 81-years’ worth of experience might whisper to the person who had gained it.
“What is old age?” I asked him. “Does old age come with being retired?”
“Far from it!” he said. “Old age is when you sit in a rocking chair looking out the window all day. That’s when your old age comes.” He spoke about keeping active–be it through a good hobby, or doing some farming–but above all, keeping active. “Otherwise old age will set in fast.”
“Do you feel 81?”
“Oh, yeah. I get little aches and pains that I never had before. It was ‘go go’ before, you know? Heck, the Lord’s been good to me. I don’t get sick very often. Your ma and I, we lead a pretty quiet life.”
“Do you think about death?”
“Oh, any time the Lord wants to take me I’m ready.”
“Are you afraid?”
My father’s voice drops low, and more than his answer–more than his conviction–I hear his faith. “No. Absolutely not. We’re all going to die–it’s just when the Lord calls us. And if you’re ready to meet Him, what’s there to be worried about?”
It was about that time that my mother emerged from the back bedroom. She smiled, a bit sheepish at having had to nap. “Are you ready,” I asked. “Oh sure,” came the response. She poured a cup of coffee and took a pair of scissors and the coupons from the Sunday paper with her to the table. That way at least her hands could be working on something while she was being held a captive of my interview. My mother has never been one to sit idle.
My thoughts were still on what my father had just said, and that was the subject I wanted most to return to.
“Ma, what is old age?”
She looked at me. “Do you want the truth? I haven’t had time to think about it. Really and truly. And I haven’t had time to think that I’m growing old, because I haven’t finished–I haven’t near finished what has to be done.” Her eyes were on the coupons before her–scanning, choosing, methodically clipping–and I felt that her words were being chosen in the same easy yet deliberate fashion.
“A person is old when they feel old,” she continued. “When they don’t feel they can accomplish anything more. When their sight is gone, and when they can’t think, and they can’t go and be and do for others…” She thought for a moment. “When they’re not able to be the person they’ve been all along.”
“Do you feel like you’re 82?”
“Well, I don’t know how old anybody’s supposed to feel at what age. Chronologically I don’t feel like I am what I am, except on certain days…” Again she paused. “You have to keep your hands in something and keep at something. As it is now we gotta just go and go and go.”
My mother has always gone and gone and gone. She finished high school at the age of 16. From there she went straight on to business college in Minneapolis, graduating in May of ’41. At 22 she married my father and at 26 began a family (after several years of trying). Her family was still growing 16 years later when she had me; she was just one month shy of 42.
She has done volunteer work at hospitals and retirement homes, and has worked with the area Hospice program. I wondered if her experience with Hospice had changed her outlook on death.
“I’ve never been scared of death,” she said. She showed me the obituary of a woman in their community who had just passed away, a woman she had known and worked with. “You know, it kind of makes you envious. Her pilgrimage is done and I’m proud to have been a part of her life.”
I asked my mother why she thought so many people were afraid of death. “If people don’t have faith and they don’t know there’s a Lord waiting for them–if they’re not headed in the right direction–they think this is the end. And it’s not.”
After these interviews I was struck by how my parents’ convictions so closely paralleled one another’s. The years of their life together represent not only a union in marriage but a union in faith. Their faith has always seen them through–from the Depression to World War II to raising four teenagers during the sixties. (“My hair turned gray!” said my mother.) Their reward is in their family–their six children, their 22 grandchildren, their 14 great-grandchildren–and their reward will be in death.
“You must remember,” said my mother, “that we have won the battle. ‘Greatest is He that is in you than he that is in the world.’ And he that is in the world is forever trying to make us despair. And there’s just no way! I mean, I’ve looked at the last page…and we’re the winners!”
Momto5Minnies says
What a wonderful story Margaret. That is the kind of story that most people would love to be able to tell … how lucky and blessed are you!
Jennie C. says
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Margaret, and thanks for starting my day with this story.
Dawn says
Thank you for sharing this *beautiful* story, Margaret! Stories of faith and family are the very fabric of our lives, aren’t they? Many blessings to you and your family, today and always!
Jennifer says
Thanks for sharing this Margaret. It is beautiful.
Jamie says
What a beautiful love story! Your parents are SO cute! You are blessed with wonderful parents! Thank yo for sharing and God Bless you, your family and your wonderful parents!
Melissa says
God bless you and your family on this Thanksgiving, Margaret. Your parents testimony is a wonderful story of love and faith…thank you so much for sharing it with us!
causa nostra laetitiae says
Margaret, I have never seen a more beautiful tribute to parents, and,of all days,on Thanksgiving!
Your parents sound like true ‘salt of the earth’ types;the kind the Lord will greet with “well done, good and faithful servant”.
Let’s pray it doesn’t happen too soon, so you can enjoy their love a good many years more.
Ladybug Mommy Maria says
Ohmigosh! How beautiful this story is.
Thank you for sharing it and give those two beautiful and lovely folks a big hug!
Oh, they take my breath away with their cuteness.
Jennifer says
Thanks you so much for sharing this. They are an inspiration!
Mary Vitamin says
To think I almost missed this post because of bloglines problems! I am so glad I checked your blog. Thanks Margaret for sharing the story of your inspirational parents.
Alice says
Like Helen, I am only just finding this now! What a treasure this post is! I do not know where to begin except to thank you for this deep, moving, beautiful, personal, hopeful post. Your parents are so wonderful and my prayers are with them as they continue this fruitful pilgrimage together.
God bless you for sharing this with us, Margaret. This is an incredible piece!
minnesotamom says
Thank you, everyone. They are cute, aren’t they? And very inspirational to me.