Amazon
Category:
Memoir
ISBN-10: B0B14KJW2Z
Type: Non-Fiction
ISBN-13: 9798985009026
Price: $5.95 (eBook)
These pages weave a tribute to the author's wife who endured the tragedy of an incurable disease, but sustained her unselfish, loving personality.
A U.S. Marine meets his wife at the London Embassy. After a life of romance, raising a family, travel, and adventure, he loses her to an incurable disease. And grief sparks a bizarre dream story.
Excerpt
Rushing towards the airline’s boarding ramp, my wife suddenly stopped, turned to me, and burst out crying. In contrast to Pat’s usual wave and a broad smile, it was a troubled face and a river of tears. She pirouetted and faded in the dim boarding tunnel, and the airline agent slammed the door shut. I stood rigid in shock, rooted in place. My heart dropped to my knees, and my eyes welled up in tears.
Pat was usually upbeat, gregarious, and under control. She seldom cried, unless in the grip of intense emotions. Like on the transatlantic flight to America when she first left her home in England.
This time, the airport episode again flared her emotions, but the reason was different—a week later, a doctor diagnosed her with a severe illness.
It was a sudden, surprising, traumatic end to what had been a lovely retreat together. I had been working for an internet company in Emeryville, California, on the bay across from San Francisco, and during that time, we were apart except for short visits. Consequently, I was not aware of the onset of Pat’s disease. She had seemed to enjoy the time at my apartment. Freshly equipped with new, comfortable furniture and enveloped by a marina near the east end of the Bay Bridge, it seemed an ideal place for Pat’s vacation, for private time.
“This place is nice! The bay, a Trader Vic’s within walking distance,” Pat had cooed just a few days earlier, as soon as she set foot in the apartment. It was an opportunity to enhance romance. We renewed our marital commitment in a refreshingly different scenario, away from our humdrum routines. It felt like the beginning, in London, when we were courting, falling in love.
Amid pleasant memories, I hate thinking about that painful experience at the airport—it has forever seared my mind. I try to ease the pain with thoughts about our courtship, sincere love, romance, family, and the good times we shared. Nonetheless, the dark days remain like a shadow; and the agony lingers. Anyone who has dealt with a similar experience—especially about a loved one—feels its heart-wrenching effects and permanency.
Many years later, I’m sitting on the sun deck of a beach house on Crystal Beach, Texas, contemplating writing my story. It’s a perfect place for kicking back, taking in the best of the Texas coast. This delightful Tuesday morning, the radiant sun glitters brightly, reflecting off the line of cascading waves. The weekend beach raiders have vacated, gone back to their homes or local hotels, their routines, their jobs in surrounding communities. The Gulf of Mexico current undulates its pearl-crested waves that sweep the mauve-pink sand—a placating, hypnotic white noise, pleasing to the ears. As I plunge deeper into the far reaches of memory, the ambiance of a misty breeze blowing across my face, under the Texas sun, stimulates nostalgia. My mind begins to unfold the past.
Some memories are exquisite, like glistening jewelry in a box. Like the time I first saw Pat marching down the American Embassy hallway in front of a group of Marine Guards (I was one of them). Her head down, she was blushing in embarrassment, her stiletto heels clicking quick-time on the marble-slabbed floor. Then there was the time when we first met. It was by chance, face-to-face in the embassy doorway. Having lunch together in Grosvenor Square was an absolute delight, and enjoying the beautiful way Pat savored the sight and aromatic scent of the flower garden.
I’m smiling broadly now.
I recall the days of strolling the streets of London with Pat. We went to jazz clubs in Soho, concerts at the Palladium, espresso shops, and touristy places. Often, we would stop at a fish and chips shop or buy roasted chestnuts from street vendors. After duty on liberty weekends, we would rush to take an Austin Black Cab to St. Pancras train station and board a steam locomotive I nicknamed “Beetle-Bomb.” The train, with velvety seats, would chug towards Corby, some 100 miles north of London, to visit her family. I particularly enjoyed going to the open market in the town square on Saturday mornings. After shopping, we would have a breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, pork sausage, and another type of sausage called “black pudding.” On Saturday afternoons, Pat’s dad Albert and I would sip Johnny Walker Black and watch sports on the “telly,” all the while, trying to avoid the eyesight of Pat and her mother, Lovey, a name short for “Lovina.”
Then there were the trips to visit relatives in Aberdeen, Scotland, Pat’s birthplace—a beautiful area bordering the North Sea. We sometimes navigated meandering dirt roads in the Highlands near the clouds, delighting in the fresh air there amidst the purple hue of heather. Another treasured memory: Pat sitting on the ground with her arms around her knees, a gentle breeze brushing across her stylishly coiffed, silky auburn hair. Her hazel eyes emanated love, humor, sensuality, and sincerity. A beaming smile on her creamy white, squarish face with a lovely duchess nose created the perfect portrait for a photoshoot. She angled her head with a sparkle in her eyes and said in a classy Aberdonian accent, “How’s this?”
I can still visualize Pat years later, on the pier near the apartment in Emeryville, stretched out on a lawn recliner reading a novel. It thrilled me to know she was in her element and enjoying it immensely. I can see her now: while Pat savored a bright, sunny day, a gentle breeze whisked through her silky hair and across her face.
Another jewel in the box, albeit a slightly sad one: our temporarily parting after my tour of duty in London was over. Clad in a heavy woolen overcoat, Pat stood on a snow-blanketed train platform in Corby, waving goodbye amid falling snow-flakes, as Beetle-Bomb began chugging down the tracks taking me to London. That’s when our two-year courtship in the U.K. had ended.
When I made it back to the states, I immediately proposed marriage by phone, and she was to join me in America when my time was up in the Marines.
Then tragedy struck.
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