WordSisters

Category: Fathers

  • Holiday Presents

    In response to queries about what I might like as a holiday or upcoming birthday present, I am wondering if I have hit “that age” or developed a stronger sense of being part of the universe?

    With the evil spreading in our country that has stripped families apart or made the simple costs of food, shelter and other necessities too expensive for others, how can I want anything? If I need to think about creating a list for days, I think I know the answer

    First, my deepest wishes: food, safe shelter, healthcare and education to be accessible in our country. People with compassion, wisdom, morals, the ability to use real language when talking, willingness to listen, commitment to collaborative decisions to lead government at all levels, in all nations. Narcissistic strong men be removed from positions of influence or power.

    On the personal level: A giant gift would be securing my family’s futures so that those of us aging don’t burden the younger, the middle generation continue to live the modestly comfortable lives they have achieved, the children reach maturity in a country that has found its way back to peace and prosperity while honoring the Statue of Liberty‘s invitation. It would be grand to find a small house for our last decades and free our family home for a family.

    But if my stumbling over the gift question is about approaching “that age” and actual physical items must be named, my gift list is simple: warm socks, two books, a box of English Toffee, framed photos, individual time with each family member in the coming year, donations made to food shelves.  

    Add new pajamas and a couple of white long sleeve polo shirts, this might have been my father’s list twenty years ago when he was the age I am now. And he is a good reminder of what holiday presents should include. He was someone who gave to others at holidays: food boxes we packed, a canned ham, cookies we baked, wrapped toys, sweaters and pajamas for others’ children, cash in a card, and because it was Wisconsin sometimes a bottle of brandy. 

    Time to get busy.

  • To Louis and Octavia

    An enthusiastic three-year-old ran craft materials to the kitchen table. She had a project in mind, a puzzle to build out of tongue depressors. 

    I was not enthusiastic about the project which, as many projects, would lead to painting which might lead to painting herself. In fact, I was tired and working hard to be gentle as she taped sticks together. When a washcloth became necessary, I got it damp at the sink, looking at her head bent over a row of painted wooden sticks. 

    The oak table where she worked on a protected area was made in 1902 when Louis Cravillion married Octavia Orde, my paternal great grandparents. How I miss my Grandma Tavy. My grandmother died following childbirth, so Octavia cared for her grandson. As a woman of the age, I am now, she cared for me. I sat on one of these chairs while she braided my hair, ate meals she cooked, or colored. My mother worked in town.

    After my great-grandfather died, we had moved in with her. My parents remodeled the kitchen and dining area storing this oak table for a new Formica and metal model. Eventually an apartment was finished upstairs so she would have her own place. The table returned. Eating breakfast in my designated chair, it was possible to watch everyone come to the new post office across Main Street. Patterns were cut to make clothes, cookie dough rolled out, homework completed.

    After her death, the table was refinished and set up as my parent’s game table. As they downsized, it came to be mine. Our children ate and did homework and projects on a glass surface that protected the oak. Today’s artist is one of their children. 

    Stories of six generations of my family have been exchanged here. Men have returned from wars to a first home meal, baptisms and weddings celebrated, hard decisions made, children loved. Great grandma’s quiet and calm presence participated in half of its history. I see her hands now show in mine; her brown eyes look back from our mirrors. I can only hope I carry some of her wisdom to those who sit at this table, her blood mixed in their veins. I am not so tired.

  • Honoring WWII Heroes

    My father never talked about his experiences in the Navy during WWII until late in life. He was in his 80s when I learned he’d been on a destroyer off the coast of Normandy during D-Day and that his ship, the USS O’Brien, had been hit by a kamikaze pilot when the war shifted to the Pacific. He never glorified war or his role. Like so many men who served in WWII, he said that he hadn’t done anything special—he was just doing his job like everybody else.

    WordSister Cynthia Kraack coauthored 40 Thieves on Saipan with Joseph Tachovsky, whose father Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky, led the elite Marine Scout-Sniper platoon known as the “40 Thieves.” The younger Tachovsky didn’t know the incredible scope of his father’s role until his father’s funeral, which sent him on a quest to learn more. In 2016, he came to Cynthia with hours of interviews with surviving platoon members, letters, and military research that he’d gathered.

    During an informal interview with Cynthia I asked, “What was the story you wanted to tell?” She explained, “The book is a fairly accurate capture of the story I wanted to tell. Understandably, the old men he interviewed found it easier to talk about the lighter side of their Marine service—the jokes, the pranks, the exploits. They said a situation was tense without describing the conditions. Joe wanted to pay tribute to the men and we focused on a line of his father’s: ‘War makes men out of boys and old men out of young men.’ The 18-year-old who went to church with his family and had a last Sunday dinner at home before reporting for training would never come home. The man who came home would need time to rebuild his connection to living outside of war. I also found myself wanting to write a book that would help women understand war’s imprint on the men in their world.”

    Last fall, I visited Omaha Beach and other sites associated with the D-Day invasion. Part of me understood that although I was hoping for a glimmer of Dad’s experience, I wouldn’t find it. There’s no way I could possibly understand what he went through. Maybe a soldier or sailor could, but not me.

    I sensed that longing in Joe and Cynthia, whose father also served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater during WWII. As coauthors, their main focus in writing the book was to remember and honor the men known as the 40 Thieves. Ultimately, their work was personal, too. They hoped to gain insight into their fathers, access those younger men, honor and remember what they did. As coauthors, they have.