My Father the Warrior....A Re Post

June, 1950, North Korean soldiers poured across the 38th parallel, the arbitrary dividing line between North and South Korea. By the time they stopped they had smashed through the South Korean capital of Seoul and had the NATO and South Korean troops bottled up at Pusan, in the southern part of South Korea.

In March of 1952, my father, Marty’sHusband Senior, sailed across the Sea of Japan and made his way up the South Korean peninsula to the front lines just north of Seoul. My dad was a forward observer directing fire for the army artillery. His trip to the front took days, the months he spent in the holes, trenches and bunkers must have felt like years.

This is a re post of a blog I wrote in May of 2011.  Since that time my father, the dude to the right here,  has served as President of the National Korean War Veterans Association.  He is about to serve his second term.  I am proud of my Dad and everything he has done for his family.....and his country.  Happy Memorial Day Pops.

At the end of April 2011 I had the privilege of accompanying my father to Austin, Texas so the state senate could recognize and honor veterans, heroes of the Korean War. I stood in the Lt. Governor’s reception hall and ate breakfast with these men, these heroes of a war no one remembers and I was honored to be in their presence and proud that my father was a member of this brave and aging group.

My Dad, like so many soldiers, never really talked much about his experience in the war. I think he was so busy taking care of his family and his job that he didn’t have the time or bandwidth to remember what a life changing event the war had been for him. He very successfully managed to compartmentalize his memories until he retired and became involved with his own band of brothers.

After he retired he got involved with the national Korean War Veterans Association and helped found a chapter in Dallas. Through this veteran’s group and the South Korean government he took me to South Korea on a returning veteran’s trip in 1997. It was an amazing and eye-opening trip in so many ways. It was the first time I really understood how impactful this life event had been for him, it was the first time I saw my father as someone other than just my father, it was a chance for me to see him be a part of something larger than my family.

As we toured through South Korea I listened. I listened to my dad as he related to these heroes of a war that has too often been relegated to a somewhat erstwhile conflict instead of the awful, frightening bloody mass of men and women dying and being maimed. They all marveled at how Seoul had recovered and they talked about how this modern city of eight million was nothing but ruble when they had last marched through the city.

I listened as these old soldiers talked and enjoyed each other’s stories and company as they relived a time in their lives that will always separate them from those of us who have been spared the worst of war. I watched as they looked at maps and pointed to where they had been stationed, I marveled at how my own father, a warrior in a real war, looked for familiar spots and I felt pride as I watched him, along with the other veterans, accept an honorary medal from the South Korean army. It was one of those moments that expanded my view and understanding of my own father.

In the Texas Senate gallery I sat with my dad and his compatriots. When the time came for the proclamation recognizing the Korean War veterans several Senators spoke. In turn they each recognized the men surrounding me. Some read names, some spoke of the cold, the heat, the Chinese, the Chosin Reservoir, Pork Chop Hill, and Inchon. Finally they asked for the veterans to stand and finally they applauded, and applauded, and applauded. I felt a great sense of pride as I sat among these very ordinary men who had served their country in an extraordinary way.

As my father and I drove back to Waco from Austin we talked, or rather he talked the whole way home. I asked the questions I’ve always wanted to know and he told me about his journey to war and his time at war and for the first time, his feelings about what he had experienced. I drove up to my house feeling fortunate to have spent this day with this man.

As we drove into the driveway of my home I said I thought it was really nice for the Senate to recognize you guys. My dad said, “Yes, they didn’t have to do that, but it sure is nice.” I’ve always been proud to be his son.

Subbing for Marty

The call came late in the evening as I stood at our front door and watched as the city repair crew dug up portions of our street to repair the very obvious water leak.  They worked until the very early morning hours to restore our water service.  The only real consequences were no bath for Marty that night and it threw me out of rhythm, and we all know I’m a very rhythmic guy.

Then the call came from my number one son-in-law, a halting, kind of plaintive call asking a simple question before getting to the larger question, he said, “Hey Marty’s Husband, what’s going on?”

Marty’s Husband, “Not much son-in-law, how’s things?”

“Oh, not too hot, your daughter is not doing well; she’s got a really bad headache and has been throwing up.”

“That sucks,” I replied with more fatherly concern than it sounds.

“Yeah,” son-in-law says, “I wonder if you could come up tomorrow to help out with Lily?”

The question itself was simple, straight forward and belied a very simple courage on the part of son-in-law.   He saw a need for his wife, my daughter, and a need for his daughter, my granddaughter, and called seeking help.  I can remember trying to squirrel up the same kind of courage, call and ask for help.  I didn’t do it very well or very often.  My son-in-law clearly loves his family.

 

My instinct in changes to our rhythm, in any changes to my schedule is to go with the real easy, “Oh, I can’t.”  “Nope,” has always been my unfortunate fall-back position.  My brain ran through the list of things I needed to do in Waco, I needed to pay bills, I needed to exercise, I needed to be with Marty and the damn water was off and she didn’t get her bath.

In the back of my mind came the old arguments Marty and I used to have, she would want to do something different, my instinctual response was no.  Instinct can be limiting and Marty hounded me to not always start with “nope” but to simply think before responding, to think what was really important, to focus on what could be better than just the same old.  

I paused, took a breath, took a mental accounting of what needed to happen for me to leave early the next morning, pushed away from my baser, selfish instincts and said, “Of course I’ll come.” 

Of course I would go; helping with my granddaughter was the priority, not the paying of the bills, not the gym, not the rhythm of life; of course I would go.

As I lay in bed that night I couldn’t help but think how much and how often in many situations like this our family misses Marty being Marty.  It was in her nature to be the matriarch, the Victoria Barkley, of this family.  She would have been right in the middle of helping, maybe to the point of too much.  She probably would have driven up that night, she certainly never would have thought about not going and she would have severely chastised me for even having an inkling of not helping. 

Our new normal mandates that I substitute for Marty, that I try to fill in the gaps the strokes took from our family when they struck Marty.  I know I cannot be Erin’s mother or Matt’s mother, I know I’m a substitute for the real thing.  I’m a pretty good substitute, the spirit is willing, but I am replacement for the real thing none the less.  Marty was a good mother.  She was a different kind of mother, one prone to profanity, one prone to telling dirty jokes, one prone to listening to you cry, one prone to offering the best and most qualified advice.  

I know how much both of our children have missed Marty’s presence, her advice, her confidence and her intimate involvement.  I know there are times in her life, when Erin feels Marty’s absence, Marty’s inability to mother, the most.  

Marty and Erin, mother and daughter, so very much alike and often at each other’s throat, only to be followed by whispering in each other’s ears and laughing out loud.  There is no bond like a mother and daughter and I think a woman wants her mom when she has her first baby, Erin gets her dad.

Marty is painfully aware of her lack of a maternal role.  I’m aware that she feels less than, that she feels guilty, that she feels she is not doing what she was intended to do. Marty’s response to my quick trip to Dallas, “Poor guy, that’s what I should be doing.”  I love that she knows, I hate that she knows.

I did the parental duty and loved doing it but, as always, missed Marty.  I didn’t wish she was pre-stroke Marty to relieve me of my responsibilities, I mostly wished she was okay and functional so she could have the same joy I did as I sat on the couch feeding our precious Lily.   I wished she could truly feel and give voice to the pride in our daughter and her husband in how they are caring for dear Lily.   I wished she could connect and feel the power of holding and feeding the vulnerable and the innocent.  

That’s where we are, the agony and the joy of recovery six years post stroke.  Marty is aware of what’s going on, she’s aware of what she can’t do what she once did.  What I hope Marty knows, what I want her to be aware of, is how much what she has been, how much of what she is today impacts my thinking and my doing.  I want her to know how much of what she was as a mother is being lived out by both her daughter and her son in how they care for their own children.