Such is the case with my nieces, Jennie, Kristen, and Brooke. I don't often comment on their Facebook "doings," but it's been such fun to read their profiles, look at their pictures, and stay up to date with their statuses every day. I tend to think of them all as sort of frozen in time at, say, about six years old, so it's fun to keep up with their grown-up lives via Facebook.
They have something in common with my own girls, too--they lost their father way, way, WAY too soon. So tonight I just wanted to put a few memories out there--stories that they've probably heard a million times, but then again, maybe not...
Mike was nine years older than me so you'd think I wouldn't know much about his early years. You'd be right, except for the fact that I'm the designated family historian and as such, I have all my mother's papers and memorabilia. It's amazing the things that mothers keep. In her papers I found a letter from my grandfather, Colonel, dated April 11, 1947. He congratulated Mother on her "darling little boy," and refers to a check he enclosed with the letter that was to be used to attend to the back yard. As Colonel put it, "I don't want any grandson of mine, especially the oldest, to have to play in the dirt like I did, through choice, when I was quite small."I also found a tattered Better Homes and Gardens Baby Book that contains information both funny and tender. Mike was born at 1:36pm on April 9th, 1947 in Los Angeles. He was 8 pounds, 13 1/2 ounces and 22 inches long. Under "condition at birth," Mother wrote "in perfect condition." Subsequent pages are filled with all the trivial little things mother's keep track of about their babies' first years--what they eat and when they sleep and how old they are when they giggle for the first time. One entry caught my eye under "Mental Development." Where there is space to record "Further comments," Mother wrote..."sworn into Regular Army and baby blew bubbles - August 11, 1947." Apparently at the ripe old age of 18 months, Mike was already commenting on military history!
From the second grade on, the "Interests" portion of the book contains references to Mike's love of all things having to do with airplanes, ships, and space. He excelled in science, loved to build model airplanes, and enjoyed Cub Scouts and, later on, Explorer Scouts. By the ninth grade, he was reading books on Gettysburg and the Civil War--these are subjects, along with the history of World War II, that he would study intently for the rest of his life. He was an excellent swimmer and an asset to the Canoga Park High School swim team. I can remember watching him do the butterfly--have never understood how anybody can do that stroke and he was SO good at it!Some of my earliest memories of Mike date from his teenaged years. I remember the day he got his first muscle car--a metallic blue Chevelle Super Sport. It wasn't long before he wrapped it around a telephone pole while trying to impress a carload of girls, but boy he loved that car while he had it! I also remember when he broke his collarbone, bodysurfing at, I think, Zuma Beach. To this day, the smell of A&D Ointment takes me back to Baltar Street and I can see him standing in the den, swathed in bandages. I remember the really vicious migraine headaches he used to get and how he'd try to manage the pain by lying in bed with blankets over his windows to shut out the light. I always tried to tiptoe past his room at those times because I knew the pain made him sensitive to sound as well.
He had a temper. It may have been his skateboard that I tripped over when I was about 10 years old. I fell flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me for the first time. After laying there for a few minutes, gasping like a fish out of water, I got up and heaved the offending object into the street. I think it was Mike that chased me into the house and nearly put his fist through the bathroom door that I locked behind me. In reality, I probably deserved to be pounded. I can remember answering the phone once when his girlfriend, I think her name was Carol, called. I held the receiver out so she could hear and hollered loudly for Mike, saying that "Debbie" was on the line. When he picked up the extension, I listened just long enough to hear her say "WHO is DEBBIE!" I know, I know, but that's what punk little sisters do, after all.
He went off to college at Loyola University in Los Angeles and was a pre-med student for almost all four years until he took a computer class as an elective during his senior year and fell in love with the technology. Four years at a Catholic university and I can still remember the Thanksgiving prayers he used to offer: "Good food, good meat, good God let's eat!" Irreverent, yes, but a tad more polished than his alternate version: "Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub, thank you, God, for all this grub. YAAY GOD!"
As the years passed and he traveled the world, becoming a successful and sought-after troubleshooter for an assortment of banking institutions, he really did seem to become larger than life for me. But at some point during those years, he also seemed to realize the importance of family. Starting about the time I got married, he began a tradition of calling me on my birthday every single year. London, the Philippines, San Francisco, New York--it didn't matter where he was--or where I was--I could always expect that call. It's one of the things that hurt the most after we lost him on December 18, 1995. It's also the reason I really hate my birthdays even today. Not because I'm getting older, but because I miss those calls more and more with every passing year.
When Mike was only 18 months old, he had his first x-ray. It was a chest x-ray, taken to investigate a heart abnormality that would eventually take his life. Truth be told, there was never a damn thing wrong with his heart. The organ in his chest that pumped blood had serious problems from the very beginning. But his heart was quite perfect--and solid gold.
