I rushed in the door and threw my purse and keys on the couch. I opened the fridge and started piling onions, chicken and vegetables on the kitchen counter.

My husband came in to chat as we always do at the end of the work day, but my mind wasn’t in the conversation. My head was thinking about what I still had to do, what I had to do the next day and if there was any way I could get chicken to bake faster than chemistry allowed.

I think most people have a transition time between the office and home. Since I have a long commute, I use that time to call my mom or listen to a book on CD.

I try not to take my irritation out on other drivers because they didn’t do anything to deserve having an aggravated woman blow her horn at them for a small infraction.

Many days, though, I find myself riding home in silence with the windows down, trying to de-stress before I get home.

But those techniques didn’t work this afternoon, and I could practically feel my stress meter registering in the red zone. Sensing I wasn’t in the talking mood, my husband went outside for a few minutes and then stuck his head in the back door.

He said I should get my camera and come outside. The sun would be setting soon, and he thought it would be a pretty sight.

One more thing, I thought to myself, as I lowered the heat on the chicken and threw the cutting board into the sink. I found my camera bag underneath a pile of unread magazines and newspapers and yanked it out of the bag.

I walked outside, camera in one hand and looked at the sky. Clouds and blue were still visible, and I wasn’t happy that he’d called me outside to see a sunset that wasn’t even happening yet.

“Have a seat and wait for the sunset,” he suggested.

I plopped down on the chair, camera on my lap, my fingers drumming on the chair’s arm rest. I had a thousand things to do and here I was, wasting time waiting for the sun to set, a sight I’ve seen hundreds of times in the past.

But watching the sky slowly start to turn from light pink to a darker pink, I could feel myself relaxing a little bit. I leaned back in the chair and looked around our back yard. There were still flowers blooming, hardy hold outs of the summer season.

I hadn’t noticed how tall the new trees we planted in the yard had grown. There were little white flowers in the lawn, blooms I hadn’t noticed before.

There were songbirds chirping somewhere close, and the wind rustled the leaves in the bush near my chair. That caused me to notice a small lizard on a thin branch, he hoping I wouldn’t notice him, me hoping he’d stay put and not jump on my chair.

And then, almost before I knew it, the sky had turned from light pink to deep crimson, and I raised my camera and snapped away. With each click of the shutter button, I could feel the stress diminishing, just as the light in the sky was fading.

Sheepishly, I knew I needed to appreciate the quietly gorgeous way Mother Nature was closing her eyes, telling us the day was over and the sun would return in the morning.

That sunrise, the perfect bookend to a sunrise, brought with it the promise that every day is a chance to start over.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

I was spending the weekend with my mom. She’d gone to bed early and I didn’t want to make a lot of noise. I looked for something to read and found a spiral binder – “Personal Log of A.J. Bauerlin.”
A.J. “Bert” Bauerlin was my mom’s boyfriend for over 10 years, and we loved him dearly. Bert first entered our family when my sister and her family moved next door to him in Martinsville, Va. “Mr. Bert” was a second grandfather to my niece and nephews, and we always heard stories about their next-door neighbor’s kindness and handiness.

A few years after Bert’s wife, Mary, passed away, my mom went up to Martinsville for a visit. She and Bert hit it off, and they began a 10-year long-distance relationship.

Every night at 10 p.m. without fail, Mom’s phone rang. It was Bert and nothing could keep my mother away from the telephone.

On holidays, Bert sent my mom flowers and every year, they’d travel to Bert’s naval reunion. Sadly, each year fewer and fewer veterans attended, but even at the age of 90, Bert was still going strong.

In 2004, Bert decided to write down his memories of his service in World War II. As was true to his nature, Bert dictated his thoughts into a recorder in a logical manner and double checked his memories through newspaper clippings and official online resources.

Mom had mentioned how proud Bert was of the memoir; so when I saw the binder, I pulled it out and began reading.

It was amazing how organized Bert’s writing was, and I found myself reading late into the night. I took the book home and not only saw the war through Bert’s eyes, but life back in the 1940s.
Bert talked about the prices of homes and cars and his childhood. He remembered the day he and his father were listening to an Eagles football game on the radio.

In the middle of the game, the announcer said they had an important message from the president. He told America about the attack on Pearl Harbor that morning.

As Bert put it, the “sleeping giant” had come awake; and by the time he was 16 and a half, he made up his mind to join the U.S. Navy. He’d read countless tales about pirates, and he figured the seven seas were for him.

On his 17th birthday, Bert enrolled in the U.S. Navy, lived through boot camp and attended signalman’s school. Bert was assigned to an L.S.T., a ship that carries guns, ammunition and about 600 soldiers.

Over his time in the service, Bert saw primitive cottages in Anchorage, ate with a family in Australia, lived through terrifying typhoons and stood on the deck as kamikaze pilots came within 100 feet of where he was standing, guns blazing.

He sailed across the seven seas, crossed the Equator, lived in fear of enemy submarines, and celebrated on the day the Japanese surrendered. From the bridge of his L.S.T., Bert saw Gen. Douglas MacArthur wade ashore in Leyte.

One night, he sounded the alarm when a kamikaze plane was coming straight for the ship and probably saved the lives of everyone on the vessel.

Through Bert’s words, I learned so much about the life of a sailor, the pranks young men play to take their minds off the real threat of death and of one man’s desire to protect his country.

I reluctantly finished reading Bert’s memoirs, and I wished he was still alive so I could thank him for his sacrifices and for such a well-written accounting of those three years.

So to all veterans, thank you for your service. Thank you for putting your life on the line to protect those of us who often take liberty for granted.

And to Bert’s children and grandchildren – you have an outstanding legacy in your dad. I’m lucky to have known him.

 

In every phase of life, there’s perks. At some businesses, that translates into free coffee. At others, a free parking spot close to the door. At others, the perks are a paycheck every two weeks.

Childhood has its share of perks, but we didn’t realize we held those cards until much later in life. The best perk childhood offers is ignorance of the meaning of mortgage payments, repairing a plugged-up toilet and going to sleep every night with the reassuring knowledge someone else is in charge.

But along with the perks came the powerlessness of having little power over your fate. For instance, breaking one of mom’s favorite possessions. Doesn’t matter if said knick-knack came from the dollar store or a garage sale, the minute a child breaks said item, it becomes Mom’s favorite followed by “this is why we can’t have nice things.”

We all remember that sick feeling in our gut. Worse was when Mom said “Just wait until your father gets home.”

For hours, our stomachs would be in a knot because we knew the wrath of the all-powerful father would come down on us like Thor’s hammer.

Then I got to be a teenager, and the perks I thought I’d have handed over to me, simply because I had the word “teen” in my job description, vanished. I thought I’d be able to sleep until noon, talk on the phone and then go back to sleep.

Instead, adult chores invaded my life, just as it did all other teens. There’s mowing the grass, babysitting the younger siblings and the worst, taking out the garbage. The perks of being a teen suddenly didn’t seem so wonderful.

And then we headed straight into adulthood. We thought we wouldn’t have to worry about homework, research papers or figuring out what to do with the rest of our lives.

Instead, we found out adults worry about paying the electric bill, cleaning out dusty air conditioning filters and figuring out how to get three children to a soccer game, baseball game and swim practice in one evening.

That’s over and above the free perks of getting gum out of a screaming child’s hair, removing the skunk stink from the family dog’s fur and disposing of mice, roaches and snakes that find their way into the kitchen.

And the adult perks never end. Adults hover over their darlings from the time they’re born until they reach the self-reliant age of about 15 because a parent who doesn’t pay attention finds themselves in heaps of trouble.

You finally reach retirement age and think that’s when you’ll have it made. They’re called the Golden Years, after all, so life should be a breeze.

The kids are grown and gone, the dog’s old enough to prefer sleeping under the dining room table to taking a walk in 100-degree weather and the trash generated by two people isn’t worth taking out more than once a week.

And what about those perks? The Golden Years perks involve hours in front of the computer to figure out how to file for Medicare. And then there’s sitting in a doctor’s office because of high blood pressure, tests to check your cholesterol, sugar levels and that pesky pain in your hip.

But there are positive perks – the unconditional love of grandchildren, not caring if you burp in public, being bold enough to argue politics and religion and, best of all, seeing the children you hovered over for all those years grow into responsible, respectful adults.

That perks beats free coffee and parking any day of the week.