That About Covers It

Occasionally I enjoy watching a cable program called Airline while I fold clothes or work a crossword. This is a bare-bones "reality" show wherein the camera follows two or three storms-in-a-teacup occurring at modern airports where, as we all know, since 9/11 tensions are higher than the price of gasoline and twice as combustible.

She cradled it as tenderly as if it were a newborn baby, smiling through her tears. I cried too.

Specifically the show is about Southwest Airlines and their employees' tireless attempts at diplomacy in the face of an increasingly belligerent and inebriated public. People angry over missing their flight because they were in the bar and lost track of time, or people who have had too much to drink and are barred from flying at all, or people who are upset because something about their luggage has been found to be unacceptable, or people sad because of the circumstances prompting them to travel in the first place.

One such lady was featured recently. A lovely woman whose first husband had been killed in Vietnam over 35 years ago, she was traveling to a reunion of Alpha Company, the infantry unit he commanded until his untimely death during his second tour of duty. Unable to suppress her tears, Bonnie related that the neatly folded triangle-shaped American flag she had been given at her husband's funeral was in her luggage ... but it was no longer compressed into that tight, smooth, heartbreaking bundle. After the death of her beloved so long ago, the only solace she had been able to find was in cocooning herself within the folds of the flag that had draped his coffin, and crying herself to sleep. At the long-awaited first gathering of his buddies since the war, over three decades later, they had promised to re-fold the flag for her.

You would have to have seen Bonnie's brave tearstained face to understand that, even though she had remarried and moved on, she still loved and mourned the loss of her first husband. His fellow soldiers spoke highly of his leadership abilities, his patriotism, and his valor. During a solemn ceremony attended by many people where the names of all the fallen heroes from Alpha Company were read, Bonnie's flag was re-folded and handed back to her with the renewed thanks of her country and her president. She cradled it as tenderly as if it were a newborn baby, smiling through her tears. I cried too.

I've never lost a loved one in a war and can't imagine what it would be like to have one of those triangular flags handed to me. I've kept some pieces of fabric through the years, though, that summon memories when I hold them, touch them, and look at them. In a curio table is a much-decorated and lushly-fringed scarf that my late father received in Air Force flight school. I like to imagine how handsome he looked in his uniform with the scarf draped around his neck or across him or however they did it.

In a box I have the shirt that TG wore on our very first date, August 24, 1978. I still have TG but I love to hold that shirt and remember how handsome he looked in it on that hot summer night at old Comiskey Park in Chicago. (The Sox beat the Royals 4-1. I'd never seen a baseball in my life until that night. It really does look like an aspirin ...)

Also in that box is the impossibly tiny dress that Stephanie wore the first time she ever went to church as an infant, and a little bitty lavender fleece sleeper with a ruffled lace collar that was Audrey's. (My grandmother had sent me a check for $10 to buy something for my new baby, and the sleeper was what I picked.) There is a pink gingham outfit that my mother bought for newborn Erica to wear home from the hospital. I can't find anything in the box that was Andrew's, but sometimes I go up to his room and touch the clothes he left hanging in his closet when he went off to college.

Speaking of the boy ... he'll be home day after tomorrow and he's bringing a buddy from school. I'd better get busy making beds, fluffing towels, and planning menus. Life goes on.

Comments

[Keli]

I love these keepsakes too!
I have two teens, and whenever they get on my last nerves, I take out tiny outfits and baby photo albums and remember how sweet and adorable they once were (and still are under those know-it-all teen facades). And I feel very grateful.

[Jenny]

Yep ... those teens are nothing more than grown up babies. In a (very) good way ... not belittling them. Only to say, they always need their moms and we can never forget the infants they once were.