Being the Granddaughter of a Hero

From the time I was about 3 years old, Granddad lived in a small house on my family’s farm.  I spent every day at his place.  My mom would even say that his house was my first home, and my parent’s house was my second home!  I could write all day about how Granddad was the greatest man I’ve known, or about how he and I had a special relationship, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts centered around his service in the Army Air Corps in World War II.

Granddad (along with his two brothers, Jim and John) served in the military during WWII.  Granddad was the Engineer and Top Turret Gunner on a crew that flew a B17 heavy bomber.  In 1944 he married my Gran, who he met in England.  Two weeks after their wedding, in May of 1944, Granddad was shot down over Denmark.  Their plane made a crash landing, and the crew was captured.

Granddad's mother would wait two months to hear on the radio that her son was alive, and four months to be formally informed that he was a Prisoner of War.  I don’t know how long it took for Gran to know of her new husband’s fate.  These are the women from whom I have come.  These are strong and brave women, and I hope and pray that I can be like them.

When the plane came down, Granddad thought quickly and lowered the landing gear half way.  When the plane belly-landed in a field, the landing gear acted as a sort of shockabsorber.  The crew was captured and sent on tightly-packed train cars to prison camps.  Granddad ended up in Stalag Luft IV.  He was 25 years old and made a room leader in the camp where all the younger men looked up to him.  Men and women were definitely made from a seriously sturdy stock in those days.  Granddad was in the camp until February of 1945 when he and 8000 other men were forced to walk 630 miles in 83 days with no food or shelter provided.  This death march is known as the Black March.  He credits his upbringing for helping him survive.  Granddad knew that he shouldn’t take his shoes off—the swelling would have made it nearly impossible for him to get them back on.  Growing up he had watched his father chew on a small piece of a tree twig while he worked in the woods.  While on the march Granddad did this and said that it helped sustain his strength (Saylor, p.156).  He was liberated in April of 1945 and sometime after that met his wife and 8 month old son.

Growing up, Granddad and I would talk about a lot of things.  I learned from him that the Red Cross provided decks of cards to the POWs and to pass the time they would play cribbage.  He told me about the time when everybody in camp was getting dysentery and how his mother had taught him that if you ate charcoal it would cure you.  He burned his bread and ate it and never got dysentery.  He taught other prisoners what he had learned from his mother, and saved a lot of lives.

There are things that my Granddad never told me, though.  Like how he weighed 185 pounds when he was captured by the Germans, weighed 130 pounds when he started the 630 mile death march, and how he weighed 115 pounds when he was liberated.  He didn’t share with me how he was only given dried cabbage to eat for the first six weeks of confinement after he was captured.  He never told me about the people he had seen shot and killed in front of him, or how he had to fight to survive the death march. 

Granddad was a gruff, opinionated, straight-forward, intelligent man.  No doubt these personality characteristics were useful during the 11 months he spent as a Prisoner of War.  As his granddaughter, I was among the privileged to see him share his story with students of all ages in our town and the surrounding areas.  There were occasions when people would visit him and record his experiences for books they would write.  Granddad would often declare “freedom isn’t free.”  Nothing could be truer.  Towards the end of his life he would express how the numbers identifying your birth and death aren’t what are important on your gravestone.  He said it was that little dash between the years that meant something.  He said that he lived a full and meaningful life, and he wanted the same for me.  He wanted that for everybody.  I’ve never met a man quite like him, and I don’t expect I’ll ever meet his equal for as long as I live.

The information used for this post was obtained from sites linked in the body of the post, and also from Thomas Saylor's book Long Hard Road: American POWs During World War II, 2007.

When Life Plans Change

When I was younger, this is what I imagined my life would be like by now:  Married with a kid or two.  My husband and I would own a house.  I would have a degree and a few years of experience in the workforce, but I would probably be a stay-at-home mom.  We would have pets.  Life would be predictable and good.

Now I am 27.  I am as single as can be.  I’m 2 online classes away from having my bachelor’s degree.  I have a job.  I live in my twin sister’s basement.  But I've also learned that you can never make plans for the best things in life.

The reasons I love working with teens

Life hasn’t unfolded AT ALL how I expected it would.  I never imagined that I would serve a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I never thought I would know three languages.  I never knew that I would be an Americorps member and learn to live and work outdoors building trails.  It never crossed my mind that I would love working with teenagers.  I never planned all the great adventures I’ve experienced while traveling across the country.  I never knew I would meet people so wonderful that would become as dear to me as family.

Wonderful people from my mission

Margaret and Bob

I never knew that Margaret and Bob would all but adopt me when I lived in North Dakota, and that Margaret would become my best friend even though she’s 53 years older than me.  I never knew that I would find a place among the kind people of Askov, Minnesota (look it up, it’s a tiny town and it has some of the state’s most thoughtful people).  I never knew that I would call the woods of St. Croix State Park home—and not because of the cabins, but because of the inclusive nature of the people around whom I found myself being completely comfortable as I am.  I never knew I would learn the true meaning of respect and listening from the amazing examples of people I worked and learned with on the North Shore of Lake Superior.  I never knew I would have a large base of friends in Utah—so large that I can go by myself to an activity and know that I would find people to have fun with, and that I wouldn’t be alone.  I never knew that I would have the kind of friend in South Dakota that I could call in the middle of the night if I needed someone to talk to, and that he could also do the same if he needed.  I never knew that there would be people willing to drive through a blizzard to pick me up and bring me back to North Dakota when I rolled the truck; and a friend who would say to me, “I’m sorry you rolled the truck, but I’m glad you get to stay one more night with me.”  And then to have a family friend drive 100 miles to ND and 100 miles back to bring me home again after the weather had calmed down.  I never knew that when I waited several years to be baptized that at least 100 people would unexpectedly come to show me that they had been waiting with me.  I never knew that a wonderful and generous family would invite me on their family vacation to Nauvoo, Illinois—a place I never would have seen if not for them.  I never knew that I would have friends that meant so much to me that I would cry when I said goodbye to them—not knowing when I would see them next—only to begin laughing and smiling to know that I had friends dear enough to me to make me cry.

Some of the people I shared 'home' with in the woods

Life is about learning and growing.  I may not have reached all of the personal goals I set when I was younger, but I’d say I have definitely learned and grown an awful lot.  I sometimes feel like I’m a little behind, but I never feel like I’ve failed.  And really, I’m not behind.  One day I’ll look back and see the brilliance of it all.  It’s not what I thought it would be, and it’s not what others might think it ought to be, but somehow it’s just right.  No, life isn't at all what I expected it would be when I was a teenager.  It's much, much better.  You can't plan on meeting amazing people.  You can't plan on love or friendship or experiences that mold you.  I consider my life to be truly blessed, and I wouldn't change the path I've traveled on for the world.

To Have a Bizarre Fascination

We’re all individuals, right?  We have our quirks.  There’s no reason to be ashamed.  Our differences make us unique.  Some people spend their lives trying to conform to the standards of “normalcy,” and that’s OK, if it’s important to you.  I, however, will never be able to deny that some specific things interest me.  Fascinate me.  Beckon to me.  And very few things draw my absolute attention like garbage trucks. 

That’s right, you heard me:  Garbage trucks.

I’m not ashamed.  Have you ever seen the way those big trucks extend their mechanical arms and grab the can, then robotically lift it up and empty the trash into the giant thing-a-ma-jig?  COOLEST THING EVER!!!

Now, I have no extreme fascination with robotics, engineering, or refuse.  I just think garbage trucks are cool.  When I was two years-old I thought garbage men were cool.  Every week my twin sister and I would go out and greet the garbage man and watch him empty our garbage cans into the truck and watch the truck mash the garbage.  That was cool, too.  I’m pretty sure he even said, “it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.”  By the time I was three or four we moved to the country and we had to haul our garbage to town in the back of the truck.  That was not cool.

I could probably evaluate my life and delve into the deepest corners of my mind in an attempt to figure out just what it is that draws me to garbage trucks, but what’s the use?  I won’t think any more or any less of them.  It’s not like answering the question “why do I have this bizarre fascination” will unlock my deepest personal mysteries and lead to self-discovery, self-mastery, or higher understanding.  I just think garbage trucks are cool.  That’s all there is to it.

If you have any bizarre fascinations, please feel free to share them in the comments!

To Not be a Mother on Mother's Day

My experiences and my perspective are totally my own.  I acknowledge that many others might have different emotions associated with Mother’s Day, but these are mine:

When I was a kid, Mother’s Day was for Mom.  One day I found myself, 19 years old, living alone in North Dakota, 200 miles from Mom.  The day was for her, sure, but I wasn't just thinking about chatting with her on the phone that afternoon.  I sat in church by myself, and an extremely clear notion came to my mind:  I’m a mother—I just don’t have my children with me yet.  And it’s true.  I will have children one day, they will be “mine” and they will probably make me bracelets out of pipe cleaners and plastic beads for Mother’s Day (And I hope I’ll be a big enough person to actually think that the jewelry is beautiful and wear it proudly to church).

So Mother’s Day is for me.

I sometimes get the sense that mothers set themselves apart from women who have not woken up with babies in the middle of the night, or who have never had the magical power to heal owies with kisses.  I might never have babies.  I might adopt older children who sleep through the night (that is, until they sneak out of the house at midnight, and then I’ll have some extra special strong mothering to do).  I might never know what it’s like to give birth or nurse my child.  I might have children who balk at affection, but are in need of a different type of deep and lasting comfort.  Or I might not have any children that I can call “mine.”

I’m 27, single, and “childless,” but I have mothered.  If you tell me that I haven’t been a strong and permanent influence on my nephews, just listen to three year old Caleb call me Super Auntie.  If you tell me that all the teenagers I've worked with called me “mom” for no reason, I’ll find no less than 20 young people who can tell you that I was important to them.

When people say things like, “I have a sense about these things, I’m a mom.”  Or, “if you need someone to talk to, I’m good at it.  I’m a mom,” I struggle to not take offense.  I have so many of the same skills that these proud mothers do, but I can't claim the same title.  My maternal aptitude is here, but my children are not.  In so much of my work with adolescents, I have received feedback that I have a “calming presence, much like a mother,” and that’s because I am a mom.  I just don’t have my children with me yet.

I don’t expect special recognition on Mother’s Day.  I’m not even sure I want flowers, chocolates, or pictures or jewelry made by children.  I wouldn't mind it, though, if women weren't categorized by those who have children, and those who do not.  Because where do I belong?  I don’t have my very own children yet, but I do have children, and I have mothered.  Am I both?  Maybe I am.