Smoke Signal

There was a six-year period that my mother lived with my family.  This was an extremely hectic time for me because I was working full-time, going to school full-time, and raising my children full-time.  Adding a smoker to our non-smoking household drove stress levels beyond imagination.

My mother had been an avid smoker long before I was born and kicking the habit was a topic she refused to discuss, even when she was diagnosed as having COPD.

When she first came to live with us, we had to set very clear parameters on her smoking practices.  From the get-go, she had to smoke outside, and for the time-being the front porch had been sufficient.  We soon discovered, though, that she was ignoring the ashtray and putting her cigarettes out directly on the wood panels of our porch and flicking smoldering butts into the mulch of my flowerbeds.  In an effort to keep our house from going up in flames, we moved her designated smoking area to a picnic table under the trees about 15 feet from the house.  During inclement weather, she had the choice of waiting to smoke or smoking in the rain.  I can picture her now with a cigarette in one hand and an umbrella in the other.  

Smoking was a priority in my mother's life.  Whenever she was invited to go somewhere with us, her first question was how long will we be gone?  What she was really asking was how long do I have to go without a cigarette?.

One evening in May, the year Morgan was in second grade, I convinced my mother that she could go for two hours without smoking in order to join us for Family Night at school.  I thought she would enjoy getting out of the house and seeing her granddaughter's presentation.  A potluck dinner was on the agenda, and we were to bring two bottles of soda and a loaf of garlic bread.  Now, as a sidebar, it's relative to this story to understand that I worked in this school and that my church met in this school every Sunday.   

As we made our way to the cafeteria, I realized I had left the drinks in my car.  My mother very quickly volunteered to retrieve them.  This should have been a red flag but since we were running late, I gave it little thought.  In the meantime, my husband was coming directly from work and meeting the rest of us at the school.  He pulled into the back parking lot just in time to see my mother duck back inside the building.


About 10 minutes later the evening began with self-serve lines at the salad and drink tables.  Within minutes, Morgan rushed over to me and whispered something.  I asked her to repeat it because surely I misunderstood.  Again she said, "There is smoke coming out of Grandma's purse."  In a panic but being as discreet as a person whose mother's purse may be on fire can possibly be, I made my way across the room to meet her at the salad table.  Through gritted teeth I asked if she had a lit cigarette in her purse.  My mother's addiction dictated that she save even the smallest cigarette.  If there was a flake of tobacco on it, it was still smokable and saved for a later time.  She was thrifty--I'll give her that.

We made our way to where her purse was stationed.  She opened it up and out bellowed a  black swirling cloud that seemed to me to be as large as the mushroom cloud I see in pictures of Hiroshima.  I grabbed the purse in one hand and my mother's hand in the other and headed for the door.   When we got outside, my mother reached in the purse, pulled out the flaming butt, and finished smoking it.  All I could do was slink back inside the building and pray that nobody noticed this fiasco.  Either everyone was being polite or God had blinded them to what was going on.  It appeared that the only people who noticed were the three of us involved.   

My mother had almost burned up my place of employment and worship with one cigarette!

I was far from happy when it happened but I'm able to laugh about it now.  It's actually a story that I enjoy telling because it really depicts the tension of that era.  This was just another ordinary day in the life of the Revels household.

By the way, years after this event (when I could finally bring myself to talk about it), I asked Morgan's teacher if she had heard of the Cigarette Fiasco of 2003.  She had not!

LIfe Goes On 

Picture courtesy of http://dailyphalanx.blogspot.com

My husband and I settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina on October 1, 1991.  Ft. Bragg is where I transitioned into life as an Army wife.  

We had married earlier that year but I did not considered myself an Army wife because I was already in the Air Force Reserve.  That seemed to define me more than my marital status.  

Before making our way from California to North Carolina, I had made arrangements to transfer from the Public Affairs Office at Travis Air Force Base to the PA office at Charleston, AFB.  With that transfer came lots of paperwork and appointments.  I had to reenlist in order to have enough time left in the Reserve to be accepted into the unit at Charleston.  Before I could do that, though, I had to pass a physical.  Not a problem, just make the appointment.

Then, October 16th arrived, the day of my appointment.  My husband had just returned from training in Georgia.  His timing was perfect, by the way.  I had lived the first two weeks alond in our new house and he had avoided all of the unpacking and furniture arranging to arrive to a fairly settled home.  That was fine, though, since I was able to put things exactly where I wanted (but I would have done that anyway).  

That morning, George was elbow deep in pancake batter when the phone rang.  I was surprised to hear my aunt's voice on the other end and she was relieved to hear that I wasn't alone.  She asked to speak to George and, a little puzzled, I handed him the phone.  When I saw him lean against the door frame that connected the kitchen to our dining room, the alarms resounded in my ears.  I struggled to keep it together, to keep emotions at bay, and not to jump to conclusions.  But I knew.


My Aunt Bettye was the involuntary designee to tell me that wretched day that my father had died.  Impossible.  I had just spoken to him the day before.  He was planning to come for Christmas.  It was the first holiday that I would have been driving distance from him in over seven years.  All of that came rushing at me as George hung up the phone and tried to console me.  


It was a dark, stormy day as I stood in the yard watching my husband load the car with suitcases bound for Tennessee.  I thought of earlier that morning, when everything in my world was still normal, of the dream I had where my father rubbed his hand across my face. 


This turn of events on that fateful day spiraled me into months of depression.  So often in my childhood I had felt like it was my dad and me against the world. I needed him.  I couldn't live without him.  Yet, here I was being forced to do so.  I prayed daily.  Hourly.  Please let me have him in my dreams if I can't have him in my world.  


Toward the end of December, the dream came.  He didn't speak in my dream.  I did all of the talking, nothing unusual.  He was parked at the top of a hill in his yucky-yellow-colored Datsun.  I was a teenager sporting braided pigtails, dressed in softball attire, and waiting near the ballfield for my ride.  I spotted his truck at the top of a hill and jogged up to meet him, a bat in one hand and a glove in the other. I hopped into his truck and began chattering incessantly.  I complained of my stomach hurting and with one simple motion, he reached over and popped the button off of my pants.  My stomach instantly grew to the dash and I remember feeling instant relief.  Then I awoke.


This dream came to me about two weeks before my doctor's visit.  I needed to get back on track with transitioning to my new Reserve unit but I was waiting until I felt better physically and mentally.  The depression was subsiding slowly but continued to affect my health.  I was sluggish, just going through the motions, and all I wanted to do was sleep.  By accident I happened upon an off-post medical clinic designated for military members and their families.  Without giving it a second thought, I turned around, checked in at the front desk, and began my hour-long wait in the lobby.  I wasn't sure why I was there.  Something told me that I needed to be there.  I needed to feel better, to pull myself out of this slump.  I needed help doing that.  I had tried too long to do it by myself.  

It was January 6, 1992, my husband's birthday, when the doctor walked into that office and began a series of routine questions, questions that came after blood had been drawn and analyzed.  Then it came.  The question that rocked my world: "Is this your first pregnancy?"


I realized then that God blessed me by allowing my dad to deliver the news of my first child.  And with this news came an entirely different path that I never planned on traveling. It wasn't that I didn't plan on children--I didn't plan on leaving the military.  I had no choice, though, or at least I couldn't choose taking the chance that the day might arrive where military responsibilities would hinder parental responsibilities.  

It was January 6th that I became an Army wife and not begrudgingly.  I realized that I was many things and that each role played a part in the person I was going and growing to be. 

Carving Castles

I have never given my parents enough credit for encouraging my creativity.

When I was four years old, my father was sent to Greenland for a remote assignment that didn't allow for our family to join him.  For that year, my mother, soon-to-be-born brother, and I lived in a cozy two-room house on Chester Levee Rd.  It's amazing what I remember from that time in my life...a time with very little sadness.

Every month a package would arrive from Greenland filled with ceramic images that my father had created during his spare time.  I recall helping my mother tear into the boxes and pulling out endless amounts of figurines.  But, that's not what sparked my excitement.  What I couldn't wait to get my hands on were the blocks of Styrofoam that my father used to cushion the contents.  For days I would use a plastic knife and carve windows and doors, motes and towers, stalls and stables.  I was in Styrofoam Heaven.

For what it's worth, thank you, Dad, for those monthly packages, and thank you, Mom, for giving me the freedom to create, build, destroy, rebuild, and carve castles.

Rachel and Major Johnson

 

Blogging Inspiration 

While I love to write, it's been a while since I've had, no taken, the time to do so.  Finally, the motivation I need to put my fingers to the keyboard has arrived!

I begin my first post with announcing (again) that my daughter, Rachel, joined the Air Force on May 31st.  I'm extremely proud of her and, even more so, I delight in the common link we now share.  

Throughout her childhood, she's been subject to tales of my Air Force antics and has sat through countless retellings (yes, I noticed the eyerolls but chose to ignore them).  Now it's different.  She's interested.  She's asking questions.  

Since Rachel was old enough to talk about a career, I've plugged the military, specifically, the Air Force.  I've always known she was college bound and I've never done anything to discourage that path but over the past year, Rachel has realized that "living on her own" is a challenging feat.  I'm just glad she discovered this while she still occupied the room above mine:)

Now she waits...for a job, for a departure date, for the next juncture in her life.  

I wait, too, to see what direction my daughter's life will take.