Hard Times are Relative

I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year. There’s practically zero debate on that topic. Even 2020 won’t argue with me. Sure, there’s always hope and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, albeit a fluorescent light that makes your shoelaces glow in the dark. It’s just that the hits keep on coming. And, I find myself saying all the things that women my age swore we would NEVER say, you know, old people stuff. The other day I told my husband that I was sure glad my father wasn’t here to see this. Facepalm. That’s definitely something old people say. But, it’s true! I can’t fathom my sweet old daddy trying to wear a mask to get into the Dollar Tree or hearing that Luby’s is closing or trying to enter through the wrong end of a Walmart. Then again, he did have a tendency to surprise me.

Ted Stilwell was born at home in 1927, seven years after another pandemic, with no running water. I know this because, once Ellis County passed a mandate that home barbershops had to have plumbing in order to receive a business permit, my grandfather, JB Stilwell, picked the fam up and moved to Andrews, TX. By then, Daddy was in high school. That’s a lot of years of nighttime trips to the outhouse. He wed in 1944 at 17, the first time. Although he’d been accepted at Texas Tech, making him the first Stilwell boy destined for a university, the war decided differently. Marrying young Norma meant, if he died in the war, his sweetheart would get his benefits. Clearly, that didn’t happen. I’m here telling you this story, after all. But, he did see some things you don’t want to see. After wearing out his welcome as the Army barber and then the piano player, he shipped out to Japan to see some wartime action. I wish I’d taken better notes. I think they headed for Okinawa, initially, but the tale culminates when they were all sent below deck and kept there for several days. They ran out of food. They ran out of supplies. At some point, they got an all clear and realized they were off the coast of Nagasaki, post bomb. Dad talked about walking around in the outskirts of the aftermath. He was sent home via Cali and talked of walking again - for miles and miles and miles, trying to get anywhere where a bus might run. Eventually, he would make it home to Andrews again, to see his son for the first time. My dad lived through an ugly war. He never made it to engineering school.

The young Stilwell family of Ted, Norma, and little Randy Ray stayed in Andrews, TX, for a bit. While I’m fuzzy on the details of something I was deemed too young to know, I gather a daughter named Nicki Gayle was born in 1947. My mom once told me she died of SIDS eleven days later. My father left her one morning, co-sleeping with his wife, only to be summoned home later that morning. While a second son, Sandy, would arrive around 1950, the consensus is that Norma, who is currently 92 & resides in Midland, never recovered from the death of her baby girl. While I’ve met Norma, nicknamed Smoke for her gorgeous prematurely gray hair, several times – she’s is an actual hoot, these meetings were fleshed out for me on the 8mm reel to reel films my father left behind. Smoke is impeccably dressed in a June Cleaveresque shirt dress with a voluminous skirt. Her short hair is coiffed just so. She is wearing pearls and kitten heels. Her head is always cocked back at a flattering angle. She is perpetually mid-laugh, the kind of laugh where abs are involved. And, though the image is in shades of gray, you can tell her lipstick is red. My dad lived through the loss of a child and the marital demise that often brings along.

In the words of Texas country singer-songwriter Jason Boland, hard times are relative. Daddy lived through many more unfortunate circumstances. Both of his sons fought in the Vietnam War. He divorced Norma in the mid 60s. He divorced my mother in 1985. He divorced another woman, whose names escapes me, in the early 90’s. He divorced Anna around 2000. He had other long term relationships that meant the world to him, including his reconciliation with my mom around 2012. He ran successful business and lost a few, too. He watched his parents decline and pass. He chided me for my perceived reckless acts, like home births, leaving Texas for a while, and marrying young. And, between all of this there were good years and awful years. There was my divorce and my cancer treatment. There were a few familial incarcerations we’ll gloss over. And, most memorably, there was an evening at Medical City one night. I walked out of a set of PICU double doors and announced that my daughter was gone. There were hundreds of people, literally, scurrying around, screaming, crying, carrying on. In that storm, one man sat, still as a Texas summer day. I sat beside him, my head on his shoulder, and we both cried silently. “It’s ok, sweetie. Your old dad is here.” Come to think of it, Daddy would’ve handled 2020 like a champ. It’s time we all got it together.