“Hi, buddy,” my father says.  “How many women have called you asking about me?  Have there been any?”

He knows the article about us comes out today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC).  He is curious, wonders what it says.  This is code.  It’s his way of asking.

“The article is stunning,” I say.  “It couldn’t be more perfect.  We did good, you and me.”

“Did they put my picture in there?” he asks.

“There are several pictures of you in there, Dad.”

“Do I look okay?  Did they blow up the pictures of me big?”

“Not too big,” I say.  “Your head looks big, though.  Like it always does.”

He laughs.

“The article starts on the front page,” I say.  “It’s on the cover.”

“Well, Lord,” he says.  “It’s on the cover?”

“Yep.”  I can hardly believe it myself.  Our story is out there for the world to see.

For weeks, I have been afraid of this moment.  What will happen when my father reads the article?  What will happen when people I know read it?  Everyone will know about me then.

All that fear for nothing.

Now the moment is here, and I am calm and collected.  It happened suddenly.

I am ready to share my story with the world. So is my father.

We’ve been waiting all our lives for this.

Now is the time.

I tell my therapist I am afraid of what will happen after Sunday.

The story comes out in the Atlanta Journal Constitution then.  It’s going to be on the front page.  Half a million people will see it.  My life will change.

It has already.

I passed the tipping point long ago.

“What are you afraid of?” she asks.  She leans back in her chair, crossed her legs.

I am afraid of so many things.

“If I’m interviewed again, I’ll screw it up,” I say.  “My mind will freeze.  I won’t be able to think.  What if people ask me questions I don’t know how to answer?  I know my story.  I know the symptoms I had, and how they affected me.  What if that’s not enough?”  I reach to pick my scalp, stop myself and finger the button on my jacket instead.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say.  “I like being alone.  The whole world is going to know about me now.  I am still socially inept, you know.”

I cringe when I say it, regret it at once.  But what if it’s true?

I don’t know for sure. Continue Reading »

“It’s snowing here again,” my father says.  “We have almost an inch.”

I wish it would snow here.  Might as well, it’s been so cold.  One reason I moved to the South was to escape the frigid temperatures.  But last night it was 17 degrees.  It’s not supposed to get this cold in Atlanta.

“Tell that reporter I have to go to the VA on Monday,” he says. “I have to get my shingles checked out again.  Tell her to call any other day but that one.”

“I’ll tell her,” I say.  Helena is supposed to interview him again this week.  The story will come out in the Atlanta Journal Constitution next Sunday–or the Sunday after that.

“Dad, do you remember Melissa at Virginia Tech?  She was my roommate for a while?”

“Maybe. I might remember a little bit of her.”

“She married a Vietnamese guy named Vien. He was living in South Vietnam as a child.  She read the blog and e-mailed me.  She called last night.” Continue Reading »

My father is in the field burning brush when I call.  He is out of breath by the time he gets to the phone.

“I went to the therapist today,” I tell him.  I am finally comfortable talking to him about this.  I don’t cringe when I say it.  It’s not a confirmation anymore that something is wrong with me.  It means I am working through things, giving myself the attention I need, that I am worthy.

He knows this too.  His voice is calm.

“What did she tell you?” he asks.

I grin.  “She said I was going crazy,” I say.

He laughs.  “Well, we all knew that.”

“She said I’m doing well,” I say.  “I’ve made a lot of progress.  She said something else too.”  Something I can’t get off of mind.

“What did she say?” he asks.

“She thinks what I’m doing is not just going to be a blog or a book.  She says it’s going to be a movement.”

“A movement?”  He is confused. Continue Reading »

“Did you hear from Ralph Stanley?” I ask my father.

He has just sent the famous musician some songs that he wrote in hopes that Stanley will record them.  Dr. Ralph Stanley lives not far from my father, deep in the Clinch Mountains of Appalachia.  Back before he was known for his haunting melodies in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, my father was a die-hard fan.

“Ralph Stanley asked me to play with him once,” my father always said.  He told anyone who would listen.  It was his claim to fame.  Years ago, my father sent Stanley some tapes of him playing the guitar.  Stanley was so impressed that he called my father, insisted that he come to his house and play with him.

A blizzard came the night my father was supposed to go.  He never rescheduled.

“I haven’t heard from old Ralph,” my father says this evening.  “I tried to call him, but only his daughter was there.  He is listed right there in the phone book, you know.  She said he was out on the road, at the Grand Ole Opry, she thought.  I left a message for her to give to him.  He’ll either like the songs I sent him or he won’t.  It don’t matter much to me.”

I don’t believe him.  Of course it matters.

“I’ve seen Ralph and his family at Cracker Barrel several times,” my father says.  “I’ve sat right down next to him.”

This makes me excited.  “What did he say?  Did you talk to him?”

“No,” he says.  “People don’t want to be bothered like that when they’re eating.”

He continues on.  “My songs may not be good enough for him to record.  Probably ain’t.  He’ll have to be the one that decides.  It’s kind of like food, I guess.  People like different kinds of foods.  Maybe he won’t like my kind.”

“But he did once,” I say to my father.  “Why didn’t you reschedule the night the blizzard came?  What if you missed a golden opportunity?”

“I just didn’t,” he says.  It is as simple as that.

Is it really?  I am not convinced. Continue Reading »

We open presents by candlelight in the cabin that night.  We cannot wait for Christmas—or even Christmas Eve.  The familiar wind chimes on the porch clink against one another, sound their approval as we laugh the night away, hold to each other in the snow as we walk back to the house, presents in tow.

This does not feel forced or unnatural, though I was afraid it would.

It feels like the only thing that has ever been, or will be again.

It is.

The synchronicities continue.  Before I go to bed this night, I receive an e-mail.  It is from my favorite college roommate, a veterinarian in Maryland now.  I have not spoken to her in a year, but she has been following the blog.

“I can’t wait to talk to you,” she says.  “I have a story I’d like to share.  It’s about Vien.  He lived through the war as a child, when he was in Vietnam.”

How could I have forgotten?

Melissa’s husband is Vietnamese.  I met him several times when he visited her at Virginia Tech.

The story continues.  It widens, deepens.  There is so much more than this. Continue Reading »

On the drive home to my parents, I chew the sides of my fingers as I approach John Douglas Wayside in Abingdon, Virginia.  This is where the flashbacks come, on this dark, windy road that curves up and down a mountain.  No sunlight reaches this place.  Even on the brightest days, there is only darkness here.

I have tried to make it home before the sun sets.  I am too late.

The moon is hidden by the thick forest that surrounds me.  Trees, heavy with snow, hang over the road, illuminated only by my headlights.  There is a foot or more of snow on the ground.  I hold my breath, wait, then remember to breathe again.

My whole adult life, I have had flashbacks here, when I drive through this place of darkness.  I am close to home now.

In the past, in my mind, I saw my father take his gun to the river, my arms wrapped tight around his legs as he tried to shake me free.  I saw myself curled into a ball, lying on my bed, my back against the world.  There was another flashback too, one from my dreams that came awake and alive here.

It was night in the jungles of Vietnam.  The moon was bright.  My father walked alone, creeped across the countryside with nothing but his gun.  He was a dark shadow of a man.  I followed.

It was hard to keep up.  He moved quickly through the underbrush, up and down mountains.

I fell behind.

I always fell behind. Continue Reading »

“I have shingles,” my father says.  He’s been at the VA hospital most of the day.

“What are they going to do for you?” I ask.

“They say I have six months to live.  If I’m still here then, they’ll do something.”  He laughs, then gets more serious.  “They gave me some pills and ointment.  Are you coming home tomorrow?”

“Yes.”  I can’t believe it.  Twenty-four hours from now, I’ll be home.  “Will there be any snow?”  I ask.  I’ve been afraid it’d all melt before I get there.

“It’ll still be here,” my father says.  “We got all kinds of snow.  You can take some back with you.  I’ll put it in a bag.  You can show them down there what snow looks like.”

I can’t talk long tonight.  I am going to a party.  It’s a Christmas dinner at my neighbors Mary and Elizabeth’s house.  It’s the same Mary that accompanied me to the VA hospital.  I tell my father this.

“That’s good,” he says.  “Fix me a plate and bring it tomorrow.  You can do that, can’t you?  I’ll see if Mary can cook.”

I haven’t gone to a Christmas dinner in ages.  I am feeling more social these days. Continue Reading »

My father thinks he has shingles.  He is headed to the VA hospital tomorrow morning to see for sure.  My mother is going too.

“If you want some, I will pick them out and give them to you,” he says.

I gag.

No, thanks.

They’re in his head, little pustules that itch and burn.  Sounds like what I have.

But mine are not shingles.

They are because of my nerves.

Psoriasis, the doctors say.  Others say eczema.  Steroids don’t work.  Neither do antibiotics.  Moisturizers make the problem worse.  I’ve been given special shampoos, mouses, oils, and creams.

They don’t go away.

The sores ooze and bleed.  If I’m really nervous, they spread to my ears.

They come and go with how anxious I am on any given day.  Mostly, they stay.

I was fourteen when this started.

Lord, I wish they’d go away. Continue Reading »

Leila Levinson called today.  She’s the creator of Veterans’ Children, a site that went online almost the same time as mine.  We talk about the synchronicity of this, the synchronicity of all things since then.  Leila is the daughter of a World World II veteran, old enough to be my mother, from an entirely different generation of daughters of war.

Yet her symptoms are the same as mine.  Her father’s symptoms were the same as my father’s.

She always longed to be normal, knew something was wrong even as a child.

She didn’t tell.  Like me.  Drifted through life the same way I did.

Her family did not talk about the war.  It was only after her father’s death did she find the photographs of his liberation of a concentration camp.  She began to piece together his story.

For most of her life, Leila’s depression consumed her.  Same as her father.

When her children were older, she saw the same tell-tale signs that she exhibited herself.  She was passing her depression along to them.

It was time to take charge, time to act.  Time to tell the truth.

It was the first step.

The only way.

Leila did.

“I want to work together,” she says.  “We have to spread the word.”

Something big is coming.  I can feel it.

She doesn’t have to ask me twice.

All day today I think about my conversation with Katrina.

“I know what you mean about your mother coming to Atlanta,” she said.  “It’s like bringing the war here.  I feel it when my parents come and visit me too.”

She gets it.  Finally, I am not alone.  There are people out there just like me.  I have to find more.

This Wednesday, it is I who will drive into the war zone.  I am armed and ready, though this time not with anger and hate.  This time, not with a thick wall all around me.

This time, I am armed with love.  With hope.  With compassion.

With forgiveness.

This time will be different.

If there is anything I can say about myself, I am strong.  Way stronger than most.  It is one of the good things that came from my father.  Katrina has this too.  We had to be strong, had to stand firm against the darkness.  Otherwise, we’d die–if not in body, in spirit.

The war almost killed me, but I lived. Continue Reading »

“We got a big snow here,” my Dad says.  “Probably 16 inches.  We’re stranded.”

I miss being stranded in the snow.  That never happens here in Atlanta.

“Mommy sent a picture of the cabin on the computer,” he says.  “Did you get it?”

I did.  The cabin my father has been building for years is almost complete.  My parents decorated it for Christmas.

When I was young and living in the mountains of Virginia, the best feeling of all was staying in my pajamas all morning when school was canceled, putting on my snowsuit after lunch and trekking through the fields with my neighbors Tre’ and Ashley.  My mother made soup for lunch.  Ramen Noodles.  I ate the seasoning in the tiny foil pack when she wasn’t looking, emptied the rest into the soup when it came to a boil.  Ashley and I had a noodle fight once.  For months, my mother found noodles all over the house.

I am going to have a white Christmas this year–if I can get back there.

“It’s still coming down,” my father says.  “Supposed to come down until Wednesday.  Aren’t you coming home on Wednesday?”

I am.  Three more days.  No matter what, I’ll get there. Continue Reading »

“We’re supposed to get snow here,” my father says.  “Did Mommy tell you?”

Snow.  We might have a white Christmas when I go home. “How much?”

“Eight to ten inches,” he says.

I remember sliding down the hillside on innertubes with my neighbors Tre’ and Ashley, how some years the snow drifts were higher than our trailer.  My father would climb to the roof of the trailer, shovel all the snow off so the roof wouldn’t cave in.  We were proud of that trailer.  We didn’t have truck tires on the top like everyone else to hold the roof down.  My father’d anchored it down with real anchors made of metal.  We had the best trailer in New Garden Estates Annex.  The best land too.  My mother always said it.

I am surprised that I feel so strong tonight.  The house is empty.  I am alone.

It’s different here.  Or is it me who is different?

I am starting to remember things, memories I thought I’d lost.  Nothing is more important than what I’m doing right now–than the relationship I am forming with my father.  It is this that I am clinging to.  It is this that is sustaining me.

“Tell me some things that you like about me,” I say to my father.  I need to hear this tonight.  I need to know. Continue Reading »

“God will work your problems out,” my mother says.

I wish these words meant more tonight.  They are empty.

“I am going to take you to the VA hospital here,” my father says.  “When you come home for Christmas, we can go down and look around.  I want you to go.  Will you go?”

“I will,” I say.  I am distracted.  It’s hard to get excited about anything tonight.

There is a long silence between us.

“Can I talk to you about something, Dad?”  My voice is timid.  I am a little girl again.

“Yes.  What is it?  What do you want to talk about?”

The dam explodes.   Water gushes all over my keyboard.

I can’t get the words out.  It’s hard to breathe.  Hard to think.  “I think….I think there is something wrong.  Something wrong with me,” I tell my father.  I put my hands over my face. Continue Reading »

I dread calling my father tonight.  I don’t want to break the news.

I have cried so much my eyes are swollen shut.

I have seen this coming.

I have changed so much over the past four weeks that I am hardly recognizable now.  I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

“Daddy,” I say quietly, then break into sobs.  “Sunil and I broke up.”

Helena the reporter is here tonight.  She has a gentle spirit, sees the value in sharing this story.  Same as me.

She wants to listen, wants to learn, has been reflecting on what all of this means.  I like that.  I like her.

She is perfect for this story.

Her own father was in World War II.  He was always distant.  Always odd.  It affected her.  It affected one of her sisters more.

She gets it.  Even if she doesn’t realize it yet, she does.

“I have an awesome responsibility to tell my truth,” I say to her.  “I want people to care about what happened to me–about what has happened and what will continue to happen to so many children when their parents return from war.  If people learn about this cause, I think they’ll care.  That’s what I want.”

I do not pretend to have all the answers.  More than anything, I have questions.

I have a story.  So now what?  Where is my action plan?

I don’t have one.

I’m not there yet.  I’m trying hard to get there.  More than anything right now, I need for people to acknowledge that generational PTSD is a problem–a social epidemic that spans across generations.  Continue Reading »

“Has your head gone down?” my Dad wants to know.

Funny.

“Yes,” I say.

“Mine hasn’t,” he says.  ”I told them in church this morning that I had to sleep on the sofa last night because my head was swelled so big I couldn’t get through my bedroom door.”

“I am proud of you,” he says.  ”I think I’m prouder of you than Mommy.”

“So what do I get?” I say.

He laughs.  ”What do you want?  I said I’d give you 50 dollars for Christmas.  That’s double what I usually do.”

“When are you coming home for Christmas?” he wants to know.

“Probably the 23rd.  I don’t get off until then.”

“I’ll take you out that night to eat, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.”

“What did you do today?” he asks.

I smile.  ”I went to the VA hospital.”

“Tell me about that,” he says.

I cannot wait.

I wake up this morning and decide that I will go to the VA hospital today.

I feel ready.  The time has come.

My neighbor Mary said last week that she would go with me.  If I want.

Lord, it is hard for me to ask, to call and tell her that today is the day.

It is dangerous to get close to people, to let them in like this.

But I want to.  I know I need to.

Mary is a good person.  I can tell right away.  She is kind, open-minded, an artist.  She’s an actress too, has been on Broadway, lives with her partner Elizabeth a few doors down the street.  Elizabeth is a good person too.  That’s easy to see.  She is an actress like Mary, got fed up with commercials, and now does pharmaceutical research.

They are exactly the kind of people you should welcome in your life, my psyche tells me.

Why is it so hard?  Why is it so comfortable to be alone?

It’s easy for me to form relationships with the teachers that I mentor–and with their students.  Why is talking to my own neighbors so hard?  Our houses are tightly packed in this part of Atlanta.  I have hundreds of neighbors, always smiling and waving.  I walk past their houses quickly, hope they won’t see me, or avoid walking past altogether.  These people do not watch their backs, do not seem cognizant of their perimeters.

I text Mary.  She says she can go. Continue Reading »

I must have checked out slowly in high school, though it seems suddenly when I try to remember.

In eleventh grade, I quit most of the sports I played.  My grades fell.  I stopped having friends.  There were so many groups, so many cliques.  I didn’t fit in.  I drifted from table to table when I ate lunch in the cafeteria.  I was always distracted, always imagining I was somewhere else.

I was.

“Must be boys,” the teachers said.  I heard them whisper.   I had my first boyfriend by then.  It was a logical assumption.

Wasn’t it?

I sat the bench for basketball games.

“What has happened?” people asked.  “She was on the starting line-up last year.”

“She’s not trying very hard,” the teachers said.

No one asked.

I wouldn’t have told.  Maybe. Continue Reading »

“Dr. Presley?” my Dad asks.  He’s unsure of how the defense went, is feeling me out.  Did I pass or did I fail?

“Yeah,” I say.  I am.

God.

I am.

“Dr. Presley,” he says.   “Boy, that sounds good.”

He’s smiling.  I know it.

“I can tell everyone now that my girl’s a doctor.  It all goes back to me.  Ain’t you glad you got a smart father?

He cracks me up.  What do you say to something like that?

“I am, Dad.”

“I got a head on my shoulders,” he says.  ”Ain’t got nothing between my ears, but I got a head on my shoulders.”

“I’m proud of you,” my father says.  ”Instead of giving you 25 dollars for Christmas, I’ll give you 50, okay?

He doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“When do you get your raise?”

I laugh.  ”I don’t know.”

“I’m proud of you.  I really am,” he says.  ”My girl is a doctor.”

He can’t say it enough.

You would never know we hadn’t talked in 31 years.

God.  You’d never know.

Life is a funny thing.

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

For Day 22-1:  http://www.unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=791

It’s later than usual when I call my father back.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I’m exhausted,” I say.  ”And nervous.  My defense for that big paper I’ve been working on is this Friday.”

“Are you ready?” he wants to know.

I’m not sure.  Everything is spinning.  My newfound relationship with him is more important.  This cause is more important.

I have to make myself care about this dissertation for two more days.  Between this blog, my day job, and the impending defense, I have been burning the candle at so many ends there’s only the wick left.  This can’t go on.

I just have to get through Friday. Continue Reading »

“Why do you want to go to Vietnam?” my therapist asks.  She leans back in her chair, crosses her legs and nods.  She is thinking hard.  I can tell.

She approves of this trip.  But she wants to know why.  She wants me to know why.

I don’t know.  It’s hard to explain.

“I need to see,” I tell her.

“See what?” she wants to know.

“I need to see where my father went.”

“Why do you need to see?”

I close my eyes, rub my hands over my face.  It’s hard to think. Continue Reading »

I call my father on the way to therapy.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I want to lie.

Let me come up with something good.

“I’m going to therapy,” I say.

He doesn’t know.  I can’t remember if he knows I’ve ever been to therapy.

If he knows, he’s never asked.

He is quiet, gentle.  ”How long have you been in therapy?” he says.

God.

I don’t expect a question like this.

Let me think of a big one, something to throw him off subject, something to make him forget he ever asked.

“Years,” I say.  ”I’ve been in therapy for years.”

I hold my breath, pray this truth does not make him have an episode.

“Call me back tonight,” he instructs.  ”Let me know how it goes.”

“And decide when you’re coming in for Christmas,” he says.  ”You are still coming, aren’t you?”

Everywhere I go these days, I find myself staring at strangers, wondering if they are veterans.  I look for men my father’s age the most.

“Are you a veteran?” I ask.

I want to know.

I ask the homeless under bridges, men in suits, customers in restaurants, parents at the schools I serve.

I need to know.

I hold my head high, look them straight in the eyes.  I am not afraid.

“My father was in Vietnam,” I tell them.

This is my code phrase.  I am okay then.  One of the group.  They know me.  I know them.

We do not know each other at all.

They want to talk.  They want someone to ask.  They tell me stories.

Each time my heart grows bigger.

I have to do this.

“Thank you,” I tell each one.  “Thank you for serving our country.”

They smile and nod, shake my hand, thank me for thanking them.

I do so little.

It is so much.

“I am going to Vietnam,” I tell them, though the words still feel foreign, the truth hard to picture.

March of 2010.

It is already set.

I am going to Vietnam…

Some nights, I stare at the pictures in the albums that my mother gave to me.  I see a smiling little girl in all of them.

This little girl likes bright colors and patterns, wears them every chance she can.  She has a blue snowsuit, a pink and purple 10-speed, tears through the yard in her socks.  She owns a fake fur coat when she is eight, sprawls out on top of her father’s brown Nova to sun herself, totes a camera with her so she can keep her memories forever.

She can’t.  They’ll go away.

She doesn’t know this yet.

Even with the pictures, she won’t be able to remember.

Who are you? I ask the girl in the pictures.

She stares back at me and smiles.

I know you have secrets, I tell her.   No one will ask you.  You will not tell them.  Not for a very long time.

The girl in the picture plays the piano, looks over her shoulder.  She does not keep her eyes on the notes.  She wears clothes her mother sewed herself, stands on her head til all the blood drains there, presses pine cones between her hands.

She looks right at me, this girl in the pictures.  She laughs.

I want to get her, scoop her away from the darkness, take her to a place where she doesn’t have to hide.  A safe place.  One where she can keep her memories.

The girl in the pictures does not pay me much mind.  She pushes her orange cat named Tiger in a stroller, turns flips on her trampoline, buries herself in piles of leaves.  She walks through the woods.  Like her father.  Goes to the river.  Like her father.

Look at me, I say.  I have something to tell you.  It will be okay.  No matter what happens, it will be okay.  I need you to know this, I tell her.

She gets up from that Nova, stretches her legs, pops the top on her thermos and takes a swig.

She looks through the picture, nods back at me.

No, I need you to know it, she says.

For Day 20-1:  http://www.unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=757

My father wants to know what I did today, tells me he has to go to the VA hospital tomorrow.  He goes to the one in Johnson City, TN.   It’s an hour and a half drive from his house.

“Did you get to go to the VA hospital in Atlanta to look around yet?” he asks me.

“No, not yet,” I say.  I’ve been avoiding it.  I don’t want to see people with missing arms or legs.  I’ll have nightmares again, the way I used to when I was a child.

“Why do you have to go to the VA tomorrow?” I ask.

“My eyes,” he says.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“The doctors just check my glasses every year.  I got glasses a few years ago.”

I didn’t know he wore glasses.  I guess I’ve never noticed him much before.

“How often do you go to the VA?” I ask.

“Every two or three months.”

“Why do you go so often?”

“I have to go to my primary care doctor.”

Going to the doctor that often isn’t normal.  Something must be wrong with my father.

What if he is dying?  What if I don’t know?  What if he is keeping it a secret? Continue Reading »

I’ve been thinking a lot today about what could have made a difference in my childhood–and thus, what could make a difference in the lives of other children of veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  What can be done to prepare children for when their veteran family member returns from war?  What can we do to ensure that there is a reintegration program for veterans, and coaching for children and other family members?  What will that reintegration look like, feel like, and sound like?  How will children and family members be coached?  How can I use an experience like mine to make a difference?

I don’t know all the answers.  I know so little.  I have only begun to validate myself, to tell my story, to further explore what it meant to be a child of a veteran with PTSD–and what it means today.   As a child, I longed to tell someone–anyone–about what was going on in my home.  I fantasized about it thousands of times, waited for the perfect opportunity when I felt completely safe.  That opportunity never came.

I do know this.  More than anything I wanted to talk.

It took 31 years before I did.

Now I cannot stop.

My mother is sick.  I can tell at once.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, though I know already.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.  “I can’t move.  My whole body can’t move.  The medication is wearing off.”

“Can you take more medication?”

I wish I could be closer, yet I’m glad I’m far away.  It’s hard to see her like this.  It’s bad enough imagining it.

“I did.  It’s just one of those things,” she says.   She sighs.  “My body’s gotten used to this medication.  It doesn’t work so well now, even when I take more.”

She’s had Parkinson’s Disease for seven years now.  It’s only been in the last three that she’s revealed that secret openly.  The only people that knew before were my father and me and a few select family members.

If there’s one thing I am good at, it is keeping secrets.  I have had lots of practice.

It’s hard for me to talk about her illness.  I’d rather push it to the side, pretend she’s fine.  She’s just having a bad day today.  Tomorrow will be better.

“What would you think if I went to Vietnam next year?” I ask her.

“Oh my Lord.  Wouldn’t that be dangerous?  Why do you want to go there?”

“To see…” I say.  I don’t finish the sentence.  I haven’t figured it all out yet.  I need to see.  I don’t know why or how or what yet.

But I need to see. Continue Reading »

I cannot stop crying.

I have become my mother.

Sunil does not know what to do with me.

He runs into my office.  ”What’s wrong?  What happened?”

I point to the computer screen.  An e-mail has just come through.

It’s a comment from my Aunt Donna, one of my mother’s younger sisters.

This is the first comment from my family, the first time any of them have acknowledged my story.

“I have a lot of fond memories of the little girl in this picture,” she writes.  ”A little girl whom I loved and whom I
thought I knew.  I had no idea. I am so proud of you.”

I lay my head beside my keyboard and sob, Sunil’s hands gently gripping my shoulders.

My cup runneth over.

For Day 18-2: http://www.unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=686

My mother calls back.  She has read tonight’s entry.

“I’m proud of you.  So proud,” she says.  ”I’m glad you said what you did to your father.”

Her voice is stronger than I’ve heard in months.  Her words are so light they float.

“You should hear him upstairs playing that guitar tonight,” she says.  ”It’s like nothing you have ever heard…”

For Day 1: http://www.unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=69

For all “Thirty Days with My Father” posts, go to:  http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?cat=25

There are lots of things I have inherited from my father:  his eyes, his wrinkled forehead, his nervous energy.  We are both hyper-aware of our surroundings, of people’s body language, of verbal and non-verbal cues.  We stand back and skim the crowd, look for exits before we enter, are never first or last because it is safer to be in the middle.  We are private, reserved.  We do not trust easily.

We listen before we speak, can read intentions in an instant.  Don’t try to get one over on us.

You won’t.

This scares some people.

Let it.

We are artists, writers.  Warriers.

I am just beginning to understand this. Continue Reading »

I talk to my mother first tonight.

She’s been on my mind all day.  She came up in my therapy session way more than my father.

I need to make sure she’s okay, that she knows I don’t blame her, that I love her.

I tell her all these things.  I need her to know that I understand now.  She and Dad did the best they could with what they had, with what they knew.

No one can ask for more.

Now I have to make sure I do the best I can with what I have.  That’s what this is all about.

I am ready to heal, for the first time brave enough.

Nothing else matters. Continue Reading »

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about why I never told anyone what happened when I was a child.  I had friends.  There were neighbors.  I saw my extended family often.  There were many opportunities.

I didn’t say a word.

I always planned to say something, mapped it all out, envisioned myself many times flinging open the doors of truth, finally emerging from the darkness.

I never did.

What if no one believed me?

People would judge me, call me a liar.  I’d be ruined.

What if they did believe me?

People would judge my parents.  I’d be responsible.

My parents were upstanding members of the church.  In our world, one had to be perfect in order to reach heaven.  A single unforgiven sin would send a person straight to the depths of hell.

Telling the truth would mean I’d expose my parents as less than perfect.  I loved them too much for that.

Telling the truth would mean I’d expose myself too.  What if I was to blame for my father’s behavior?  There had to be something wrong with me.  Otherwise, he’d want to get close.  Wouldn’t he?

I couldn’t run the risk that my friends–my neighbors–my extended family wouldn’t understand.

I did not understand.

No place felt safe.

No place in the world.

I needed help.  We all needed help.

There was no one to help us.

So I kept quiet, my hands clamped hard around our lives so nothing would escape through the cracks.

The harder I squeezed to keep it all inside, the more I died.

For Day 16-2: http://www.unitedchildrenofveterans/?p=641

The emotional strain of this project is taking its toll.  I feel out of sorts, exhausted.  It’s hard to force my eyes to stay open, was hard to keep my mind on my work today.

I’m glad I’ll see my therapist tomorrow.

I am tempted to call my father and ask if we can take a day off, pick this project back up tomorrow.  I have to get some sleep.

But I press on.  I’ve made a promise.

I won’t disappoint him.

My mother answers the phone.

“Do you think after this project is over, you’ll remember some good things?” she wants to know.

I wish she’d stop asking questions like this.  ”I hope so.”

“I sent another picture to you,” she says.  ”I have more pictures here.  There are so many of them.”

I open the picture on my computer.  I am 13.  Smiling.

You should remember how happy you were, I know she wants to say.

I shake my head, close my eyes. Continue Reading »

“You need to go down to the VA Hospital sometime.  Atlanta has one,” my father says.

That’s the last place I want to go.  I have bad  memories of VA hospitals, used to have nightmares of being trapped inside.

I went with my father to the one in Johnson City, TN, a few times.  I went inside once.

That was enough.

The other times I waited in the car, locked myself inside, monitored the perimeter with his binoculars.  If someone came too close, I hid in the floorboard.

For years, I dreamed of crazy, open-mouthed men, saliva dripping from their chins, their arms reaching for me.  The ones with no legs chased after me in their wheelchairs.

“Go look sometime,” my father says, interrupting my thoughts.  “You’ll see people with no arms, no legs.  People that came back from the war.  Some are brain damaged.”

He doesn’t have to tell me.  I remember all too well. Continue Reading »

My mother says my father is in a good mood today.  She has talked to him twice already.  She is at peace, relaxed and comfortable, as I drive her back to Knoxville to meet him.

When my father is in a good mood, my mother gives herself permission to be happy.  When his mood changes, so does she.

“He sounds so cheerful,” she reminds me again, smiles as she looks out the window.

It is a good day.

She’s glad she’s leaving.  This project has been tough for her.  Being in the same house with me for seven days straight has been a lot to handle.  The war is here now–with me.  I have brought it in of my own free will.  I am keeping watch over my father now.

“Do you think you’d want to go to counseling?” I ask.

Her smile fades.  ”I don’t know if I need it,” she says.  Still staring out the window, does not look at me.

I bite my lip, want to shake some sense into her, tell her how wrong she is.

I keep my mouth shut.

When we meet at the designated gas station, my father and I share an awkward hug.  I have been worried about this, how it would be when I see him again.  I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Things can turn on a dime.

I know. Continue Reading »

“I had a nightmare today,” I tell my father when I call this night.  ”It was when I took a nap after lunch.”

I’m still nervous.  On edge.  So many thoughts swirl in my head.  They’ll soon collide.

“What did you dream about?” he wants to know.

I can hear my heart beat.  I can’t settle down.

Since I woke, I have avoided my mother.  I want to be alone.

I haven’t told her about the dream.

I want my father.

I start at the beginning. Continue Reading »

Father (F):  You should go to the library to get some books on Vietnam.

Christal (C):  It’s Thanksgiving.  They’re not open today.  We’ll go tomorrow.

F: What’s Mom doing?

C: I don’t know.

F: What do you mean, you don’t know?

C: I don’t know where she is. She’s somewhere in the house. We’re not getting along right now. I’ve locked myself in my office.

F: What happened?

C: I got mad at her. I told her she needed to leave you alone, stop fretting so much. I like to be alone when I’m depressed. I don’t like it when people come around. It smothers me.

F: I’m like that too. I want to be alone. I like it better that way.

C: I guess we’re a lot alike like that.

F: Do you get along with yourself good?

C: Yes. I like myself. Most days. Some days I’d rather be alone than with people. Continue Reading »

My mother has it in her mind that she has to leave tomorrow.   She has to call my father right this second, has to get back there to take care of him the way she always does.  Judy to the rescue.

She was supposed to stay with me for two more days.

She calls home twice.  He doesn’t pick up.  She calls her mother to ask if he’s been there.  Did he come for Thanksgiving? What was he like?  What time did he leave?  She can calculate the time, then.  It takes 30 minutes to get to their house from my grandmother’s.  It’s been an hour.  He should have been there by now.

She doesn’t realize that none of this is normal.

When he does finally call her back, he says tomorrow won’t work.  He has a funeral to attend, other things to do.  He can’t meet us at the halfway point.  She’ll have to stay another day.

I am relieved.  He is going out, doing things, keeping himself busy.  He’s not giving his guitars away, not getting rid of those silver dollars.  If he was, I’d leave right now to get there.  I have seen him far worse than this.

She will not let it go.  She needs to be there.

I will take a walk alone now, calm the voices in my head, put some distance between my mother and me.

She won’t like it.  She’ll want to go.

I won’t let her.

I wonder sometimes if she understands my father at all.

Right now he needs his space, needs to clear his head, needs our support from a distance. 

When I come back from my walk, I will lock myself in my room and stay a while.

We have a lot in common, my father and me.

For Day 12-2, click:  http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=510

I look up everything I can find on the Americal Division, 1st Batallion, 6th Infantry.  They were called “The Gunfighters.”  My father’s name is listed on their website.  There are hundreds of stories, hundreds of photographs there. 

I don’t look at them.  Not yet.  

I’m not ready for that today.

Some of these men must have known my father.

I tell him about the website I found, ask him if he wants to contact any of these soldiers.  Some of their addresses are listed.  They have a reunion once a year. 

“No,” he says.  He doesn’t have to think about it. 

“Why, Dad?”  I hope I’m not pushing too much.  I want to know.   

He sighs, lowers his voice.  He sounds lifeless, exhausted.  ”Maybe.  Maybe one day.  Wait and see.”

I need to change the subject.  He doesn’t want to talk about the war today.  

“What are you doing right now?” I ask.

He is holding his cat named Avery, brushing its hair. 

“Avery likes to hear me play the guitar,” my father says.  His voice is so low I can barely hear.

“What’s wrong, Dad?”   There is a lump in my stomach now. 

“I stay depressed,” he says.  Continue Reading »

My father, Delmer Presley, wrote this song right after the war, kept it hidden for years:

Where Were You?

When I was a young man

I was sent to a far off country

To fight in a war I still don’t understand.

But I was proud to go to serve for my country

In a place they call South Vietnam.

When I got home,

I didn’t know about all the demonstrations

They were having at all the airports, towns, and schools.

If you don’t mind,

I’d like to ask you a simple question.

When I came home from the war,

Where were you? Continue Reading »

I won’t press my father.

I’ll let him lead.  I won’t mention the war unless he does.

When I call my father this day, I talk about my dogs.  The weather.  How my mother and I spent the day.

“Some veterans exaggerate,” he tells me.  ”I don’t go to group meetings anymore.”

He wants to talk.  About the war.

He is ready.

By “group meetings,” he means group therapy, but he will not say it.  I remember when he went to those meetings.  I was a teenager.  He didn’t go for long.

“Everyone tried to outdo each other with all their stories,” he says.  ”The first feller would tell a story about what he did, then the next one would make sure his story was worse.  I couldn’t stand it.”

He tells me that he was a radio carrier in the war, carried a radio in a backpack for his squad leader.  Eight or nine people were in his squad.  His division was Americal.  198th Brigade.  Company A1-6.  Third Platoon.

I don’t know what any of this means.

This radio weighed 20 pounds.  He had to change frequencies often so the enemy wouldn’t hear.

If he screwed up, everyone in his squad would die. Continue Reading »

When I think of my father, music always comes to mind.  There was always music in the background.

Ricky Skaggs.  Ralph Stanley.  Peter, Paul and Mary.  Especially Johnny Horton.  Lord, I loved Johnny Horton.

They ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles, and they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go…

We’ve got to sink the Bismarck ‘cuz the world depends on us...

War songs.

I wanted to get up and shake myself all over the place whenever I heard those songs.  I didn’t, though.  That would’ve been a sin.

Instead, Dad and I would sing along, so loud our ear drums hurt.

I remember that.  It is a good memory, one I wish I’d held onto more when things got rough.

“Why do you want to know about the war so much?” my therapist asks today.

This question has many answers.

“I want to know more about my father,” I tell her.  ”The war is a big part of him.”

My therapist is a mind reader.

“There are many ways to get to know a person,” she says.  ”And many ways to forgive them.”

For Day 10-4, click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=432

My mother doesn’t know how to respond to my father, so she doesn’t.  She’s hasn’t read all the blog, can’t vouch for what’s there or what’s not.

She spends the next two hours alone in my office reading, crying.

It kills me to see her cry.  I feel responsible.

I walk the hallway, the living room, the kitchen.  I alphabetize the books in my bookcase, turn all my spices to face the same direction.  What is she thinking?  Will she understand?

I wish Sunil were here.  I wasn’t planning on spending this week without him.  This would be easier if he were here.

My office door opens.  It’s the moment of truth, or more appropriately, the moment of acceptance or denial of it.

My mother has removed her glasses.  She does not look exhausted or feeble like I expect.  She stands tall, strong.  She hugs me close.  I try hard not to pull back.

I have to get used to this.  I want this to feel natural.  I want to open up to her.

“I’m proud of you,” she says. “What you’re doing is important.  I want to help if you’ll let me.”

This is more than the story of my father and me.

For Day 10-3, click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=293

I call my father before 6:00 the next morning to check on him.  He has to leave early today to go sing and play his guitar in church.  He attends a different church every Sunday, gets invites from all over the state to come and play.  On weekends, his calendar is full.  Back home, they play his songs on the radio.  ”Could’ve made it in Nashville,” he always told me.  But my father never went to Nashville.

I’ve been up all night thinking about him, worrying that if he tells me about the war he will put a bullet in his head.  No one will be there to stop him.  My mother is here with me.

He sounds better than I expect, wants to know how we slept.  I do not lie.  I tell him I was up all night thinking about him.  I’m relieved he’s okay–glad he’s okay.

“You shouldn’t stay up on my account,” he says.  He sounds more energetic now, happier.

I tell him that I love him again, thank him for doing this project with me.  I don’t want him to forget.  Things change fast for him.  I need to remind him often.  I’ll need to be reminded often now that he’s okay.

“I’ll call you back tonight,” I tell him.

I put my mother on the phone.

Her voice is normal.  She doesn’t try to hide or whisper.  He is himself this morning.

She chats for a while, tells him about our plans for today.  She frowns at the end, tells him she loves him, puts the phone on the bed.

He has said something off kilter, something she doesn’t like.  I know that look.

I wish she wouldn’t tell me, but I know that she will.   I’m all she’s got too, the only person who knows the truth about us.  About him.  It’s too much to carry alone.

“He says he hopes you don’t ruin him,” my mother says.

His words gouge a hole through my heart.

For Day 10-2, click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=280

My mother and I lie awake all night in my bed.

She cannot move when her medication wears off, is trapped inside her own body, can’t speak.  She struggles to sit up in bed so she can breathe.  She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease almost seven years ago.  You would never know there is anything wrong unless you have known her for a long time, or unless you see her at night.

Nights are the worst.

I wonder, when something happens to her, what I will have left.  I have no brothers and sisters to share my burden.  There is only me.

I wonder sometimes if I would go back home at all.

She turns towards me.  Her words are slurred.

“Why do you think we never told anyone?” she says.

For Day 10-1, click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=275

At 10:30 that same night, my mother’s cell phone rings.  It is my father.

She starts out in normal conversation, moves to a whisper, then goes into my bedroom and closes the door.

Ten minutes later, she comes into my office where I am typing.  Her face is red, swollen.  She is crying, phone in hand.

My heart palpates.  It’s hard to breathe.  I have seen this look before.

This isn’t supposed to happen.  It’s why I moved away, what I’ve been running from.  It’s Thanksgiving.  I need to relax.  Why is this happening?

It’s my father.  I know it.  I don’t have to ask.

He’s had an episode. Continue Reading »

“I can’t believe he talked.  I can’t believe he was social,” I say to my mother on the drive home.

I was so worried he would show himself in front of Scott and Sunil.  That was the last thing I needed.

This is the week of Thanksgiving, the only vacation I’ve had from my job in a year.  I need it to go well, to be as stress free as possible.

This project with my father is going to work.  I have a good feeling about it.

“He’s been that way for about five years now,” my mother says quietly from the back of the car.  ”He’s friendlier now, okay with strangers.  He’s in a good mood often these days.  Your father has changed.”

I didn’t know.  Why didn’t I know that?

“I think it’s because of that guitar,” she says.  ”Ever since he started traveling around and singing in all those churches.  Since he took the songs he wrote and put them on a CD.  He wrote a song about Vietnam.  Did you know that?

I did, but I don’t remember it.  I don’t know the words.  My father gave me a CD a few years ago for Christmas.  I never played it, stuck it inside the TV stand behind a glass case.

“It’s the first you’d ever heard about the war, right?” I ask my mother.  ”The first time he’d ever talked to you about it?”

I am excited.  This day has been momentous.  She didn’t know any of this either.  I am sure of it.

She shakes her head.  ”Most of it, he told me a while ago,” she says.  ”I’d heard most of it before.”

My face drops.  I didn’t know.

I am silent after that, in deep thought.  Thinking about why I didn’t know, why he didn’t tell me.

For Day 9-3, click:  http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=247

“Don’t be surprised if my father doesn’t talk much,” I say to Scott , my friend and writing buddy, who offers to ride with Sunil and me to get my mother in Knoxville. She’ll spend the week of Thanksgiving with me in Atlanta.

My father will not come, will only drive her to the halfway point in between.

He doesn’t know my phone number or address, has no way to get in touch with me if something bad happens. I remind my mother of this often.

“I know,” she whispers, so no one else will.   “I know.”

“Don’t expect my father to stay for lunch,” I tell Scott.  ”He’ll drop my mother off, high-tail it back home as fast as he can.  He’s always been this way.  If he’s in a good mood, he might tell jokes.  They will be annoying,” I assure him.

Sunil has met my father before, but Scott hasn’t.  Scott knows how many times I’ve tried to write about my father, quit mid-way through every project, insisted I was ready to move on, write something else.

I never did.

I tried.  All my other projects ended up in the same place–right back to the war.

Scott’s presence makes me nervous.  I don’t know if my father will be in the mood to meet a stranger.

I haven’t seen my father since July, the only time Sunil and I went home this year.  I barely spoke to him.  He barely spoke to me.  It takes a lot of energy to avoid each other the way we do.

I am distant as usual when my parents get out of the car this day in late November.  I need to stand back, watch to see how my father acts, the way his eyes look, before I get too close.  When I hug my mother it is short-lived, mechanical.  I watch my father shake Scott’s hand and then Sunil’s.  He watches me to see what I will do.  We reach to hug each other at the same time, barely touch before we both pull away.  My heart races.  What is he thinking?   Continue Reading »

My father isn’t home when I call.  I forgot that he and my mother are at a Christmas play.  It’s become a tradition these last few years, which remind me that he has improved.  He’s getting better.  Isn’t he?

I’m disappointed, yet relieved.  I’m ready to talk to him, to officially begin this project.  Aren’t I?

Why is it so difficult to get comfortable with this?

I don’t leave a message.

I will see my father in person tomorrow.  He’ll meet me halfway between here and Virginia to drop my mother off for Thanksgiving.

I don’t know how I feel about seeing him in person since I can’t seem to muster up the courage to talk to him on the phone.

It will either be a good way to officially begin this project, or it will be the project’s demise.  With my father, I never  know what to expect.

To click on Day 9-1, click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=189

My boyfriend Sunil suggests that I state my goals and objectives for this project, refer back to them so I don’t get sidetracked.  He knows me well, knows that I am apt to fly in a hundred directions, sometimes all at once.

Goal Number One:  To get to know my father

Goal Number Two:  To share my story as I heal

Goal Number  Three:  To heighten public awareness about the implications of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), particularly for children of veterans.

Sunil and I talked for hours last night about this project, about the reactions and emotions it has already brought to the surface–in others and in me.  He held me as I cried.  He cried with me.

He is coming to understand.  Slowly.

I have known Sunil almost two years now, and this is the first time I have ever seen him cry.  He is analytical, practical, not emotionally charged like I am.  I have worried about whether our relationship can endure this project.  It was only two weeks ago that I first told him about the idea for this blog, confided that I had PTSD, told him my story.

He didn’t know.

He stood in the doorway of the office that night, quiet and still.  “I feel like I don’t know you at all,” he said.

He did not reach for me.  He did not comfort me.

I didn’t need him to.

It was then that I realized I’d passed the tipping point.   Continue Reading »

A reporter called today from the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC.) She heard about my blog, wants to do a story on my father and me.

It takes about two seconds for me to turn into a nervous wreck.

“Will he talk to a reporter?” she wants to know.

I cannot answer that question. I wonder if he’ll talk to me.

“Would he come down for an interview?”

I bite my nails, don’t answer the question. Atlanta is six hours away from his home in Virginia. He has never visited me here, swears to my mother that he never will. It is too crowded. Too loud. Too many people to make him nervous. He’d rather stay close to home where things are safe and predictable, where there are familiar places and familiar people. In the thirty-five years since Vietnam, my father has only traveled overnight a few times.

But how am I supposed to tell the reporter this?

She suggests I call him, feel him out, tell him there are people who are interested in our story.

I go numb. My heart drops to my feet.

I don’t want to call him. I’d planned to wait.

“You’ll ask him, won’t you?” she says. I can tell she wants to do this story, that she knows she’ll need him to make this work.

So do I.

Much as I hate it, I do.

I promise I’ll call. Continue Reading »

Another day passes, and I don’t call my father.

I’m afraid.

Afraid of what he’ll say–or what he won’t.  Afraid of the emotions that will come.

It’s why I’ve stayed away so long, why I still stay away even for holidays and birthdays.

“Please come home,” my mother always tells me. “I miss you. I love you.”  She cries. She begs.

And still, I don’t go.

I love my sweet mother so much I’d die for her, but she doesn’t understand. She won’t see.

“Look how happy you were in the pictures,” she says.  “You are smiling in every one, such a pretty little girl.”

To see would kill her.  She is not ready.  Continue Reading »

I decide to go to therapy for the first time in two years–just until this project is over.  To get me through.  Just in case.

Dr. James is  older than I expect, old enough to be my grandmother.   She sits across from me and flips through the hundred papers I just completed.

I count the pictures on the wall, the plants in the room.

I hate the first day with a new therapist.

I have seen a lot of first days with new therapists, mostly because I am a good judge of character, and can tell right away if you are someone who can help me.  Or someone who I want to help me.

I listen to myself these days.  The one time I didn’t, I saw my therapist half-naked, passed out across a pool table in a college nightclub.  It doesn’t take long for me to figure people out, move on to the next if I need to.

I like Dr. James.  Her voice is kind, and she doesn’t butt in to ask a million questions.  She doesn’t wear a suit or try to impress me with her qualifications.   Continue Reading »

I remember pieces of my life after this, but nothing is connected.

“You are smiling in all the pictures,” my mother says.  “You were happy.”

Was I?

I don’t remember the girl in those pictures , but she’s right.  It’s me.  I was smiling.

I’m smiling in all the pictures my mother put in the scrapbook.  We all are.

“This is Christal’s childhood,” she says to my boyfriend.  “Look how happy we were.”  She smiles when she looks at me. ”Look there,” she says, pointing to a picture of me when I turned twelve, sitting behind a birthday cake with a horse drawn in icing.  She made that cake herself, made me a whole cup of icing, let me eat it with my fingers because she knew I didn’t like the cake part.

If I know anything in life, I know that Momma loves me.  She loves me so much she erased the war best she could, cleaned it all up so I wouldn’t have to remember it later.

The problem is that I don’t remember anything else.  I see those pictures, and I know it’s me, but I don’t remember that girl.  I don’t remember that time.  I see the war and nothing else.

I called my father today.  “You’re still doing the project with me, aren’t you?” I ask.   I bite my lip.  I want to cry when I hear his voice, but I don’t.  “I don’t want to start the project today, so I’ll call you back in a few days, but I want to know if you’re still up for it.  It’ll just be some questions.”

“Questions about what?” he wants to know, though we have already had this discussion.

I hold my breath.  “Questions about the war.”

“I don’t want to talk about the war,” he says.  “I don’t know anything about a war.”

For Day 4, Click: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=119

I remember the first time I was afraid of my father. I was five, at home from school, tucked away in my sofa-cushion wolf den watching Tom & Jerry reruns. I was eating crackers, dipping them in potted meat, blowing away the crumbs when they fell onto my lap.

We lived in a trailer then, in a trailer park called New Garden Estates. I had a ten-gallon aquarium, with a black pop-eyed goldfish inside. I had an orange and white cat named Tiger that I pushed around in a wagon. My favorite drink was the lemon-lime Slush from IGA.  Momma had just quilted me a My Little Pony bedspread and purple curtains to match.

This is my first memory.

I know I had a life before this, because Momma has the pictures to prove it, but I can’t remember those times.

“Your father used to hold you,” my mother still says, as she points to the pictures of my father and me that she has arranged in the scrapbook. She looks happy when she says it. She really remembers us that way.

It must help to have something to hold onto like that. Continue Reading »

For the past thirty-one years, my father and I have barely spoken, though we lived in the same house for the first eighteen years of my life.  Our silence is something that I’ve hidden from the world, and refused to acknowledge even to myself until recently.

I recently wondered what it would look like if my father agreed to talk to me for thirty days straight.  Would he tell me anything about himself?  Would he finally talk about Vietnam?  Would we be able to have a relationship after all these years?  The problem was I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him.  I had become comfortable having a father I didn’t know.  What would happen if I stepped outside my comfort zone?  Would it matter in the end?   I have decided to share our story using this blog.

November 12, 2009

“Dad says he’ll do it,” my mother says.

My hand goes limp as I press the phone against my ear.  I didn’t think he’d say yes.  He wasn’t supposed to say yes.

What was I going to do?  This wasn’t part of the plan.

Two days earlier, I’d called my mother to ask my father—for this was the best way to gauge his mood and not deal with him directly—if I could call him every day for thirty days and ask him some questions.  Questions about Vietnam, about who he was. Questions about I don’t know what else.

I’d figure it out as I went, I said to tell him, though there would be nothing to figure out. My father wouldn’t talk about the war or anything else.  In fact, my whole life, he had barely spoken to me except to criticize or tell me to leave him alone.

This would be my last effort, my last try.  I was comfortable with the fact that he’d say no.  At least I’d tried.  I had learned to live without a father for thirty-one years. No big loss.

“He says he’ll do it,” my mother says.  “Did you hear me?”

For Day 2, click here: http://unitedchildrenofveterans.com/?p=89