Eighteen years ago today, my Father died. I would say he lived a good life, but he died a hard death. The photo above was taken on Iwo Jima during WWII. Daddy is 4th from the left in the bottom row. He served in the Navy as an Electrician's Mate Third Class (an aircraft machianic) in CASU 52, attached to the 5th Marine Divison.
Other, better known men were also on Iwo Jima in WWII, including the Photographer Joe Rosenthal, who took the famous Mount Suribachi flag raising photograph. Joe Rosenthal died yesterday in an assisted living facility in San Francisco. I know nothing more of his death.
My father died in a hospital bed in his own living room. At the moment of his death, three of his children were holding hands at this bedside, jumping up and down, crying and saying, "Thank God! He did it. He's gone. He's gone." It was as if a great weight of gloom had lifted, the clouds had parted and the sun was finally shining down on us again.
Sometimes I wonder if the main purpose in life is not to get to the other side of it. On August 21, 1988, Daddy made it to the other side of life.
8 comments:
I know you read that Lois Morris said that before he enlisted in the Navy...he said I do not want to
be a foot soldier and walk across Europe. He chose the Ocean voyage. He would tell us about acrossing the date line..the guy who missed his own birthday...losing a day...then gaining it back when he came back across. He talked about his polish friend who made him his powell sign for his home.
He would not talk about the "war" but he often remembered his sailing days.
i try not to think about his death. for 3 months after he died i thought about him and his life every waking monment then one day i was going home from work and thought i haven't thought about daddy for 3o minutes. from then on i started to recover.
I thought some guy he worked with on the Dam made the powell sign.... am I wrong???
Yes, I think the guy was in the service with him....but I could be wrong...but I think it was a polish guy in the service with him.
I am sure Pat and Clayton know.
I like to think that the main purpose of life is to learn as much as we can from the journey and that "getting to the other side" is the reward that makes the effort of the journey worthwhile. Either way, it sounds like your daddy had all the bases covered.
I think life on earth is our punishment for what has gone before.
I think life is a second chance to make a progress that we failed to do before. As God's children this life is a chance for us to be redeemed by the blood of his son and all the sins are forgiven. Our old sin nature in born with us...from an evil before...probably following lucifer and not God.
Fleta, are going to try to bring your computer back to life or just bury it?
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