Life Is a Funny Fickle Thing

Life is a funny thing. A fickle, funny thing. Time ticks by. Second by second. Moment by moment. Everyone is always chasing something in life. Fame, fortune; health wealth and happiness some say. But what is a life? How do we measure a life’s successes? Is it the time spent creating a life saving measure? Is it the family you have built and helped to grow? What is a life, that is the question.

***

Life for me began one fall day in 1937. Five months earlier was the Hindenburg disaster. And the Golden Gate Bridge opened. But during the year I was born, was the “recession within the depression” as economists have called it. One of the worst economic downturns our country has ever seen. To say I was born into poverty would be an understatement. Hell the whole world seemed to be in poverty the day I was born.

You see, I was the youngest of 7 children. The last boy born to my parents. You’d think being the baby of the family I would have gotten away with most anything. And mostly I did. Except when it came to my father. He was a farmer, running combines from Kansas to Washington and all across hell’s half acre and back. When he wasn’t running combines, he was drinking. He was a helluva drunk. Had a temper like the dust devils on the prairie. Relentless on those hot summer days when his drinking got the best of him. That’s probably where my anger started. Where my fight instincts kicked in. I only ran when I was little, but I soon realized that only made the beatings worse.

My mother on the other hand, was as kind and gentle as the fresh flowers blooming after the first spring frost. She held a strength and perseverance to her that only those spring flowers had, strong enough to break through the frozen ground yet delicate enough to sway in the wind. As I sit here and ponder on my mother, God rest her soul, I have to laugh as I think back. You see mother wasn’t scared to give us kids a whopping when father was gone, but as a young lad, I knew the way to avoid those. One sunny summer day, remember it as it was yesterday, I had forgotten to lock the gate to the goat pen and the goats were out eating mothers flowers. Oh boy she was in a frenzy. As she hollered at me to get in the house I knew I was in for it. But, that was the trick with my mother, get her laughing and she couldn’t whoop me.

I ran into the house and bee lined straight for the kitchen. As mother was chasing me I started running circles around the table. She was hot on my tail, around and around we went. Just out of her reach, I kept running. When I started to get tired I knew she’d be ready for a good laugh. I threw my hands up and yelled “time out!”. Gasping for breath my mother would get that smile she only seemed to ever get for me. And then she’d start laughing. The whopping would never come.

***

As I sit back now, shy of my 80th birthday, I know a lot in my life could have been different. I could have treated people better, lied less and loved more. I could have done better, been better. Oh how the regrets have sunk into my soul these days. Deep and penetrating like a winters cold seeps into your bones. The kind that takes days to warm up and shake. Life could have been so much better. Don’t get me wrong, I am blessed and thankful for all I have been given in my life, but I can’t help but ponder. What if I could turn back time? What if I could rewrite my history? What would I change? What would I do differently? Where would I be now if I could turn back time?

***

“You have two choices son.” Judge Mattheson stared down at me from his high and mighty judicial chair.

I stared back at him unsure what he meant. Pondering what got me here to begin with. After years of watching my father hit my mom and siblings, even me at times, I grew up with an anger that raged. Fights and trouble followed me everywhere I went. I presume that is how I ended up back in this court room, a fight down at the local bar that sent four grown men to the hospital, and thousands of dollars worth of damage that someone had to pay for.

“On the road you are headed young man, you will find yourself in one of two places. Prison or a grave. So I am going to give you two choices that will hopefully keep you out of either of those places. Option one, you go to prison. You’ll serve a 5 year sentence and 5 years on probation when you get out. Or, option two, you enlist in the United States Army for 5 years. Maybe those grunts can sort you out. If you choose the later, and complete your 5 year military contract, you will be free and clear. But, if you don’t complete it, or get yourself into trouble, once you are out you will still serve 5 years in prison with 5 years of probation to follow. The choice is yours young man. What will it be?” Judge Mattheson sat stoned face and utterly solemn. Staring down at me as if he could read into my soul.

The Army didn’t seem so bad. They taught you how to fight didn’t they? Getting paid to fight didn’t seem so bad did it?

“Well Judge Mattheson, I guess I’ll opt for the Army sir.” Shit, what did I just do? I thought after those words escaped my mouth. What had I done?

“I will let the recruiter know. But let me warn you young man, if you do not show up when you are meant to, you will go to prison.” Judge Mattheson signed the paperwork and sent me on my way.

The day had come. My bag was packed and I was headed out. Mother cried something fierce. She was terrified of what would come of me. Hearing about all of those things going on in the war she was nervous and afraid. But I had to keep my head up and had to make my bus.

“Hurry up private! My grandma moves faster than you and shes 90! MOVE! MOVE! You think those VC are going to take it easy on a corn field rat like you? Think again private! Now move, double time!”

Basic training was hell. But I finished. One of the first things I’d ever truly finished in my life. Never did graduate high school, but I finished this.

***

After the war I’d felt lost. After living life in total direction for five years, finding what I was meant to do or should be doing was tough. I felt like a prairie tumbleweed, just drifting across the plains from place to place with only the direction of the wind to carry me.

See, the war changed me. I had loved men like they were my brothers and I had watched them die right in front of my eyes. I had seen women and children that had been blown up. Mutilated and bodies mangled into unrecognizable heaps. There are things in war that one never wants to see, but yet we continue to see them long after the war is over. Nothing could drown them out, or make them disappear altogether. No, only numb away the pain and memories. For a short time.

As I pulled up a bar stool at the end of a hole in the wall bar, in some small town no one knew the name of, I saw her. Her dark hair flowed behind her as she moved. Her green eyes were piercing. Such a deep emerald green a man could get lost in their pools for days. I felt her soul, and her presence. She could draw a man to her like a siren of the sea, or like a moth to a flame.

***

“Who’s this Dad?” my daughter asked as she picked up a long forgotten photo. She held the photo, worn on the edges in her hands. Flipping it over looking for a date or a name.

I felt a smile slowly spread across my face. My heart fluttered as I took the photo from it and looked into those deep green eyes. Millie. Millie Jane. I’d thought of her often throughout my life. But that summer from back then, that summer was ours.

“Dad? Where’d you go?” Jane asked as she sat holding Millie’s photo in her hands.

“That pumpkin, is Millie. Millie Jane.” I said, still lost in the memory of that summer.

Jane sat and stared at me. I could see the wheels turning in her mind. Her expression changed from curiosity to an understanding. Yet, I could see her fighting with an internal struggle. She seemed to somehow know, but didn’t want to ask. I felt the need to tell her. To tell her everything that was once lost to time. Lost to suppressed memories.

“Millie was the love of my life pumpkin. The one I let go when I shouldn’t have. She was my sun, my moon, and my stars all in one.”

“But Dad, I thought mom was the love of your life. Wasn’t she?” Jane asked with a look in her eyes that tore at this old man’s heart strings.

“Oh she was. But sometimes, if a person is really lucky, they get two. One that comes and goes with a force like a tornado and one that is tried and true. Your mom was the tried and true pumpkin. She found me at my worst and brought out the best in me. But Millie. Millie was different. She was the fire in my soul. They one who challenged me to be my brightest. Millie was the tornado.”

***

I sat and watched as she pulled tops off beer bottles and slid them across the bar to thirsty patrons. Smiling in a way that only an angel could while she handed out the devils amber colored liquor. I was mesmerized. Who was this girl? I felt a tug somewhere deep in my soul that I had to get to know her.

“What can I get ya doll?” she asked.

“Uh. What?” I stuttered, lost in my own thoughts of who this angel was.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked leaning onto the bar top in front of me. Her eyes green and full of fire, or sparkle, full of something. I could feel myself getting lost in them the longer I stared.

“Anything cold will do. Kokanee if you got one. Please.” I did it. I managed to talk to her.

“Coming right up. Kenny quit harassing the poor girl!” She hollered at someone as she walked off to the cooler.

That was the first time in my life I had ever been dumbfounded by a woman. I had always had a way with the ladies, but something about Millie Jane, something about her, sent my heart reeling. Pitter pattering to the beat of a new drum. A feeling I wasn’t quite sure I would ever be able to pinpoint.

That night in the bar, Millie and I connected, on a level I didn’t even known had existed. When she kicked all the other patrons out at closing time, I offered to leave but she insisted I stay. We ended up talking about anything and everything. Life, family, our adventures, hopes and dreams. As we talked I helped her wipe down the tables, sweep the floors, and take out the trash.

“What do you say we grab a bite to eat? I know this little diner up the road that has the best apple pie and hash browns.” Millie asked as she put away her apron and grabbed her bag.

We walked up to the little diner, slid into a booth and kept talking. We talked until the sun came up.

***

Only a few weeks had gone by since I first laid eyes on Millie Jean. Our lives had entangled in more ways than one. We shared adventures, laughs, and love. A love so deep it was unbearable. The kind of love that makes your whole body ache when that person is away. The kind that makes your heart skip a beat when you hear their laughter. The kind that is never fleeting, never ceasing.

I felt myself getting further and further connected to Millie. Like a part of me would never be whole again if she wasn’t in my life. And that terrified me. I could feel myself turning into my old self. A part of me that no one knew, that even myself buried deep down. I could feel the flight starting to brew deep down inside. The flight that made me want to forget everything, tuck tail and run. It was so strong, that pull to run that I knew it was a matter of time.

***

Jane brought my wandering mind back to the present.

“Who was she dad? Like, who was she to you?”

“She was the fire in my soul pumpkin. The one I let go when I shouldn’t have.” I sighed a heavy sigh. One filled with longing and regret for the words I had just spoken.

“Why’d you let her go then?” I could feel the hurt in Jane’s voice as she asked the question she didn’t want to ask.

“I had to.”

***

As she lay there sleeping, I wondered if I was making the right choice. How could I leave her? She was my sun, moon and stars all in one. She was that once in a lifetime love that I knew I’d regret for the rest of my life if I left like this. But I had to go. I could feel myself spiraling to the young man I used to be. Back to the young naive boy that Judge Mattheson had given two choices to so many years ago. Prison or the Army. I thought back to the young boy, not a man, that thought he could fight his way out of anything. I could feel it coming. The anger, resentment, and hate. The hate for who my dad was, and me for becoming anything like him.

If I didn’t leave now, I’d drag Millie down a road she didn’t deserve to go. I had found myself in trouble before, but nothing like I was in now. I had to run. And I had to leave her behind. I tried to convince myself that I loved her and that was why I was doing this to her. To spare her of her inevitable heartbreak that I would cause later.

A few weeks before Millie and I met, I was lost and broken. I’d spend my nights in back rooms of bars playing poker for money. Trading everything I had for the rush I felt during the war. The rush of beating someone who couldn’t see it coming. The rush of defeating people. But one night it took a turn for the worse. I lost. And I lost bad. I’d bet money I didn’t have and wagered it against a man who was notorious for not letting people get away with it. And this time, I had more to lose than I was willing to gamble.

I shoved a few changes of clothes into my old Army bag, pulled up my boots, and headed towards the door. When I reached the door my heart was aching. Threatening to shatter in that moment into a thousand pieces. I turned around and looked at Millie sleeping peacefully. As much as I loved her, as much as she was my sun, moon and stars, I had to leave her behind. I wouldn’t let her get tangled up in the mess I created. I felt a tear slip down my cheek, tightened my grip on my Army bag, and walked out the door.

***

Life is a funny, fickle thing. Filled with laughter, heartbreak, and regrets. Memories of the good times and the bad times. Memories that haunt you when you’re old. What we’d give to turn back time. To relive a moment, or to change the course of our lives. If only, if only, we could turn back time.

***

“So you left her behind because you got into trouble with some bad people? You just left her without a word as to why?” Jane stared at me shocked. The look on her face made me feel like I was a monster. How could I have done that to Millie Jane?

I sat there with my head hung down, fighting the tears coming to my face. I could see the hurt my daughter felt when she’d learned I just left Millie, alone and behind like a forgotten sock. I had thought for so many years how I wished I could go back and change what I had done. Had I only thought better about betting against that man. Had I never even set foot in that small town. How I wish I could go back and tell Millie the truth, beg her to run away with me and start fresh somewhere else. But, what was done was done. And all I could hope for now, was that she made it out okay in life. I prayed everyday that Millie Jane found someone to love her, in the way she deserved. If only I had made a different choice, life would have been different.

If only, if only, I could turn back time.