LJ Idol Week 7: Where I'm From
She was born on a cold February morning in Battle Creek, Michigan. She was blond and blue-eyed and gorgeous even as a child. She was the apple of her parents’ eye and the sweet, kind child they had always dreamed about.
But she was sickly. They spent Christmas the year she turned five at her bedside in the hospital, hoping the pneumonia would go away and their child would live.
Her father made a decision then: He would move the family to California, where it was sunny and warm and snow that blocked the streets was never a thing.
•••
He was born on a sunny morning in May in West Layfeyette, Indiana, four years before her. He was the oldest of three and the boy his father had insisted his wife have.
He was an adorable-looking child, but under that smile was a playfulness and a terror his parents didn’t expect. He was sent to the principal’s office the first day of kindergarten. He locked his brother in the dryer. He poured his mother’s perfume out a window and took off part of the paint on the side of the house as he did so. He set his bunk bed on fire.
He was smart and he was hard-working - when he wanted to be. Which wasn’t much of the time. He went to college and found parties more fun than class.
Until he realized he was going to fail his classes. Until he realized he was going to be kicked out of school. Until he realized he was going to be drafted. Troops were being sent to Vietnam. He knew what was coming.
The draft papers showed up in his mailbox the same day he went down to the Navy recruiting office. He showed the man in charge his draft papers.
“I was here yesterday,” the boy said.
“Yes, you were,” said the man in charge of recruiting.
•••
On the other side of the country, she grew up an entirely different way. She was an only child, the center of her parents’ world. She was smart and kind and compassionate and empathetic.
She graduated from high school and went to nursing school to be an RN. She wanted to help people. So did her best friend Sharon. They went to school together.
It was Sharon who suggested the weekend getaway. A chance to go hit the slopes. They packed their bags, headed up to Mammoth Mountain, checked into a small lodge with just a few guest rooms and a kindly old man who was in charge.
They spent their days skiing all the courses, from the diamonds to the bunnies. And they spent their nights talking and drinking and laughing.
The last night the kindly lodge owner invited them up for a dinner with a few other guests. They agreed to go.
•••
The boy had a week of leave. One week and then he was shipping out to Vietnam. The Navy had realized he was intelligent. They’d sent him to learn new languages, including Vietnamese, so he could communicate with the locals. He was also learning engineering; they had found he was good with numbers.
He was stationed in San Diego, but he loved skiing. He packed up his Porsche - he had always loved cars - and headed for Mammoth Mountain, to stay at a lodge he had been staying at for the past year whenever he could get away.
“There are a couple beautiful women here this weekend,” the old lodge owner told him when he arrived. “You should meet them. I’ll invite you all to dinner.”
He walked into dinner later that night and saw her - a blonde girl with hair to her waist and a beautiful smile.
They sat by each other at dinner, talked all night, exchanged phone numbers. He had a feeling about this one. He didn’t know then she had a feeling too.
It was Valentine’s Day.
•••
The boy had six days left of leave. The girl lived three hours away from him. He stayed with a friend so he could see her. They spent the whole week together, talking and laughing and sharing their innermost thoughts. They spent the whole week falling in love.
He took her to a party the night before he had to ship out, turned off the car but didn’t open the door. Instead he took her hand.
“I don’t want to ever let go of you,” he said. “I know this is sudden and I don’t have a ring, but will you marry me?”
The girl looked at him, tears in her eyes.
“Yes,” she said, and there was no hesitation.
•••
He left the next morning. They wrote letters back and forth. He called when he could. But the girl was nervous. He was everything she had been looking for, but times were weird. They had met a week before he was to be gone for nine months. Maybe she had just been a distraction. Maybe he hadn’t meant it. She looked down at her empty ring finger and worried more.
Two months after he had left, a package arrived in the mail. Inside was a ring. Platinum band, a beautiful emerald surrounded by diamonds.
“I picked it out myself,” the note said. “I hope you like it. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she wrote back immediately.
•••
They kept writing letters. He kept calling when he could. She planned the wedding and he chimed in when possible. He arrived back in the States in December, healthy and happy. Three months later, on St. Patrick’s Day, she walked down the aisle to the man she loved and the man who loved her.
It was the happiest day of her life so far.
•••
A little less than three years later, on a chilly evening in January, the woman stood in the kitchen of the little house they had saved up to buy in a city on the outskirts of Los Angeles. She was making her husband’s favorite meal. He had just gotten a promotion at work. She grilled the steaks, mashed the potatoes, opened the bottle of wine.
Before she could finish, she felt it.
“My water broke,” she told her husband.
“What?” he said. “But my favorite dinner!”
He was grinning, though.
He grabbed the bags, they got in the car - the same one he had when they met - and sped down the street.
Twelve hours later, at 5:06 in the morning, the woman gave birth to a seven-pound, eleven-ounce baby girl.
That baby girl was me.
Fun facts: My parents were married for almost 28 years before my mother passed away. Sharon, my mom’s best friend and who was with her when they met my dad, is now my stepmother. It sounds weird, but it’s really not. And the ring my dad sent my mom from Vietnam is on my right hand. It’s been there since the day she passed away.
Thank you for reading! If you would like to read some other amazing entries, please go here! If you would like to vote for me or anyone else, voting will be up on Tuesday night. I will post a link when it's time.