I'll Be Seeing You

My parents (Mama and Papa) were opposites that attracted, something that doesn’t always work for everyone. Married in post WWII Portland, Maine in 1946, they had a boy (me) in 1947 and another boy (Chris) in 1948. Papa took an electronics job with Stromberg-Carlson and proceeded over the next 5 years or so to do the job, with hundreds of others, of building local telephone offices throughout the Southwest and South. During this period, Chris and I had time to have Diphtheria while in Jefferson City, Missouri and Chris to have his tonsils removed in Hobbs, New Mexico as well as a couple of operations to correct his eyes. The four of us lived in 37 states for short durations until I was old enough to go to school. A month of first grade in Oneonta, Alabama and two months in Tampa, Florida, before Mrs. Nelson’s class, in 1953, at Sunset Avenue School, in West Bridgewater, MA. the place my heart will always call home.

Mama was uneducated in the traditional sense, having only completed the ninth grade, but was one of the brightest persons I’ve ever met. She was brilliant in assessing people and had an intuition of what someone’s needs were, often putting them before her own. Mama loved with no shame, loved down and outers, and the people that others despised or would avoid. I can't number the times she would begin a conversation with perfect strangers. She somehow could sense pain or need, it didn't matter to her, she was interested in that person, and it seemed to me that she looked right through the outward person and into their soul to see if she could help somehow. I admired and loved her, and my friends loved her too.

Papa was educated, one of the most cerebral men I've ever known, a voracious reader and loved analyzing stuff. He was a student at Bridgewater State, even when he was near the end of his life. Both my parents were athletic, when we were small, Papa played on the Wetzel's soft ball team until Chris and I got old enough to play, then he was a coach. He was the youngest of 9 children and you would have thought he'd be familiar with the tactile part of parenting, but all he ever knew about touch, he learned from my mother.

I know they had some problems (which marriage doesn't?) most of my memories of them are loving ones, 2 folks trying to raise kids on never enough money (“two American kids doin' the best they can”). Papa would worry about the lack of money; Mama would teach us it was enough. He would say we can't afford it and she'd hand us a dollar and shush us.

Clearly my parents were different, but united when it came to us. My mom was more the physical enforcer, while my dad would verbally assault, when we did something wrong, but both were quick to forgive.

Music was a bond for them, before TV, which we couldn't afford, they often sat and sang songs from their old days. Mama would play the ukulele or harmonize to anything my dad could sing. Papa could recall the lyrics and mama the melodies to (as I saw it) every song ever written. After I was married, they once wrote down as many songs as they could remember. The list was extensive, sorted by Day of the week, Colors, Moods, you name it they had a class for it. When my brother Chris married, Mama and Papa weren't there to see and share his joy, I did, in their place. I can never hear "I'll be seeing you", without bursting into tears. The Jo Stafford rendition was Mama's favorite and Chris had it played at his wedding. Yes, even big 74-year-old men cry, it's not for the loss, but rather the love from two such as these. Just sayin’

"I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you"