The Power of a Song -- The Love of a Lifetime

Normally when I get the blogging bug I sit right down and get my thoughts on the screen, but this one has been percolating in my head for a few days. I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts and feelings into words. But I'm going to do my best to tell this story ... at least a small part of this story. There are days that I feel like it is a story that demands to be told and other days where I feel like it is a story that needs to be thrown right into the vault, never to be heard of again. Today I'm feeling the need to record it. Maybe I'll change my mind a bit later. Either way I'll have a record to keep for myself. So here goes:

I have a monster commute every day when I drop all of my children to their various schools. From travelling to and from seminary in the morning, then dropping Spencer off at the middle school, I finish up by taking the younger four to three different schools. This month during the Christmas season I have hooked my iPhone up to the car sound system and listened to my very eclectic collection of Christmas songs. Did you know that I am a bit obsessed about collecting Christmas albums? Well, I am. When we were in the poverty of our early marriage years I still found the funds to get a new album every year. Now, after twenty years of collecting, I've got quite a selection of songs. You'd be surprised how many ways a person could sing Silent Night.

Well, last week I had dropped everyone off at their different schools and was heading for my last drop off of the day. Minsy is taking preschool classes offered by the Waynesville school district. The Early Childhood Center is actually located on Fort Leonard Wood, so I have to go through the security at the front gate in order to get her to school every day. It's no big deal. I think that I've gone through enough times now that I'm almost on a first name basis with the MPs and guards that man the gate posts. But it does add a bit of time to the commute. On that day as I was driving toward post from Freedom Elementary I was listening to my Christmas songs on shuffle. That is always an interesting thing because I can have a song like Ave Maria sung by Josh Groban followed by Deck the Halls sung by John Denver and the Muppets. Quite a juxtaposition at times. At one point on this drive Blowin' In the Wind by Peter, Paul, and Mary came up. Blowin' in the Wind? Yes. I know it is not considered a Christmas song, but it is a Peter, Paul, and Mary standard, and I guess they felt obligated to sing it at every concert. Their Christmas album is a live performance, so it had to be on there. Normally I just fast forward it. I do love the song, but it always feels weird to hear it in the middle of my Christmasfest. But today I felt like listening all the way through.

Peter, Paul and Mary remind me of my parents so much. We didn't have a ton of records when I was growing up, but we had Peter, Paul and Mary -- Ten Years Together. My parents are big folk music fans. Lots of people think of Blowin' In the Wind or Puff the Magic Dragon when they think of PP&M, but they actually sang lots of great songs during the height of the folk music movement of the 60s, and we listened to a lot of those songs. I actually love listening to their Christmas album because it has so many unusual choices for Christmas songs ... songs that you don't normally hear on Christmas albums. So it keeps my Christmas music shuffles a lot more interesting. An example is this song:

I love that song!

Anyway, as I was listening to Blowin' In the Wind that morning I started thinking of my parents and all that they have gone through in their life. I remembered my mom talking to me about one PP&M song in particular, Leavin' On a Jet Plane. 

The picture quality on these is terrible. (I couldn't figure out my new scanner,
so I had to just take a picture with my camera.) But ...
Aren't they super cute? This is a picture of my mom and dad when my dad
returned from duty in Vietnam, and a picture of my mom
 in some of my dad's battle gear,  along with a picture of my dad in uniform
walking out the door.

My mom told me that she loved that song because it reminded her of my dad when he left for Vietnam during the Vietnam War. They were super young and newly married when my dad got drafted into the war. It wasn't anything that they had planned for, but they made it work as best they could. Neither one of my parents ever talk much about my dad's time serving during the war. I don't know why. I do know that it was really hard for my mom, and I'm sure it must have been equally difficult for my dad to be separated at such an early time in their marriage. I can hardly imagine what it might have been like. We have been blessed to live in a military community, and we have seen the sacrifice that families and service members make in order to serve our country during a time of war. It isn't always easy. The strains on families can be tremendous. But I have always been impressed with the people we have known who are making this sacrifice. There is a sense of community within the greater armed forces family that is admirable. So although I can't imagine what my parents went through, I believe it might have been similar to what I see around me every day.

Well on that day, as I was headed to Ft. Wood I thought of my mom, waiting here at home for my dad to come home. She waited for him. I'm sure that she wrote to him. She's a letter writer. But there aren't any letters for me to see. Why not? I would have loved to see those. But she waited. A long while.

Aren't they cute?

As I thought of that I fast forwarded my thoughts to today. They have been married for 45 years. That is an accomplishment in a world where marriage is becoming more and more temporary or undesirable to some people. Mom and Dad are older and more frail. And now my mom is suffering with the effects of bi-polar disorder. She hasn't always had this, but about fifteen years ago she had her first episode (or whatever you call it), and she hasn't been the same since. It kind of comes in waves, periods of horrible followed by periods of relative normality. The horrible times are very, very horrible. There were some things that were absolutely hilarious to behold, but most things were just horrible. But the normal times were nice enough. But this summer something different happened. I don't know exactly what changed, but Mom had an episode that was pretty bad. It was worse than normal ... so different that at one point there was a whole team of researchers from the University of Missouri that was watching her and trying to treat her. Kind of like our own real-life House M.D. experience. They managed to stabilize her so that she wasn't having any mood swings, but her personality seems completely altered. She cannot concentrate, and she no longer can do the normal household things that she used to do. It almost feels like Alzheimer's in some ways ... but it isn't.

Well, on that morning as I thought about my parents and Leavin' on a Jet Plane I thought about my mom waiting at home all those long months for my dad to come home. And then I thought of today. My mom hasn't gone away on a jet plane to a war zone. But she has gone away, fighting a war in her mind (so to speak). She is not here completely. She is trapped in the complexity that is the human mind. I don't know how much this affects her personally. She seems very happy most of the time these days, so that is good. But it is very difficult for my dad. He has to care for her and protect her, through his own physical pain much of the time. But, just as she waited for him all those years ago, now he waits for her. We don't know if she will be coming back to us fully again on this earth. We sure hope so. She is much too young to be so frail. She potentially has many, many years of happiness and fulfillment ahead of her. Watching my mom in this state of mind is not all fun and games. At times it has been extremely difficult for my dad. But he stayed. He waits for her.

That day as I thought of the sacrifices my mom made for my dad in the late 1960s and the sacrifice my dad is making for my mom in the present, I thought of the words of Leavin' On a Jet Plane.

So kiss me and smile for me.
Tell me that you'll wait for me.
Hold me like you'll never let me go.

I thought of how that song applies just as much to their situation today as it did more than forty years ago as my dad headed to war ... and I broke down in tears. Part of it was me thinking of how heartbreaking it is that such a condition exists in this world. Mental illness sucks -- for the people suffering with it as well as their families and loved ones. If you have never seen it firsthand, you have NO idea what it is like. Sometimes it just seems so unreal, like you are watching your family on a television movie instead of real life. But, anyway, part of me was also thinking of how amazing my parents are. I never really noticed it all that much as I was growing up, but the older I have gotten, the more I have noticed their own personal strength. Are they perfect? No. But I think that is what makes their decisions and their sacrifices all the more impressive. Life has handed them a few lemons, but instead of running away, they have found a way to keep moving forward.

As I drove toward post I thought of the good years that we spent together as a family while I was growing up. I thought about how quickly those years have flown by. I thought about how quickly life changes and how much I wished that I had appreciated things as I was growing up. I mourned the life that I felt like my parents deserved after all that they sacrificed as we were growing up, a life that shouldn't have included the difficulties they face right now. And I thought of my own life and how quickly it seemed to be passing me by. I remembered sitting around our old record player, listening to our PP&M albums as a family. It seemed like only yesterday. Yet here I am, mother of a girl getting ready to leave home, forging her own path in this world. It will only be a matter of time before she is driving her own children to school, listening to music and thinking about Herman and me. (Wonder what song she will associate with us?) I thought a lot as I was driving.

And I became a blubbering mess.

It wasn't the best spot in the world to break down and cry. I was in line, waiting my turn to arrive at the gate and present my ID so that I could go on post and take Minsy to school. But I couldn't stop. I frantically tried to compose myself as I pulled up to the MP at the gate ... and woefully failed. I could tell that my eyes were swollen, my face was blotchy, and water was pouring out of every opening in my face. But the MP was super calm and collected as he took my ID. He wished me good morning, grabbed my ID, ran it through the reader, and then handed it back to me ... when he noticed my face. He did a double take. I could tell that he wanted to pull me aside and make sure I was okay. But that isn't how the gate works. If they pulled every driver aside who looked distraught about something it could significantly slow down the already long lines onto post. So this MP just smiled sympathetically as he returned my ID, wishing me well. I should have told him that I was okay ... simply feeling a bit sentimental at the time. No worries.

So time moves on. And on and on and on. I must say, despite my tears, I really am grateful for the knowledge I have that life does not end at death. I know that at some point all of us will have the opportunity to become whole again, to be healthy and happy and together with our family forever. And I am super, super grateful today that I grew up with the parents I have. Seeing them push through the struggles they face today proves to me more than ever the good people that they are. I owe much of my happiness and success in life to the values they instilled in me at a young age, and they don't just talk the talk. They walk the walk. Whatever may come in this life we lead, I know that my parents love each other so deeply that they are willing to wait ... through whatever comes their way.