DESPITE THE DESPAIR OF WAR,

TRUE LOVE DID BLOOM AGAIN

An Original

Almost the entire world was locked in war in the year of ‘44. It was not the happiest of times for many Americans on the home front.

Almost sixteen million of our nation’s young men and women had donned the uniform and were dispatched to far away places, many of them tip-toeing on a thin line that separated life from death. The families of those gallant service people nervously awaited every communique that emerged from the war zones, hoping that hostilities would finally wind down before Christmas arrived.

The war, however, did not wane. It continued with all of it’s fury, ignoring holidays as such.

The year of ‘44 promised to be the saddest Christmas that a war bride named Sally would ever encounter. Her husband, Tom, was somewhere in the Pacific theater of operations. She had no idea of his whereabouts, except for one sly comment he’d slipped by the censors in his last letter home -- a letter that had arrived several weeks prior to Christmas day. He was, he’d cautiously confided in his brief note, at a “staging area in New Guinea,” an island that Sally had never even heard of prior to the war.

Sally had been lucky the previous year because she spent Christmas day with Tom. They had been married in June of ‘43, just days after graduating from high school. They had, in fact, been childhood sweethearts from the puppy love stage back during their Junior high school days; an affair of heart that survived all the way through high school. But they both knew, when school let out, that Tom would soon find himself marching to the beat of war drums, and not the drums of his high school pep band. They dared not wait, so they tied the knot before the unpredictable war drove a wedge between them that would mean waiting until the war was over. It was a sign of those times.

Tom was called to duty in August of ‘43 and finished his basic training in a timely enough fashion to catch a “delay enroute” furlough just a few days before the Holiday season bloomed. He spent the week between Christmas and New Years with his bride prior to embarking on his overseas assignment. But, that was 1943 and it was now 1944, a new year that promised to be a different story in the ongoing saga of Tom’s and Sally’s tale of love and war. Like so many other wives and mothers, Sally found herself engaged in a guessing game over Tom’s whereabouts. She was sorely afraid. She felt forsaken and alone. But, she was anything but a isolated case, even though she felt she was. There were thousands upon thousands of equally frustrated sweethearts, wives and mothers across the broad expanse of America’s countryside.

On December 24th she paced the floor, anxiously waiting for the mail carrier’s arrival, only to be disappointed when the gray uniformed postman trudged right on past her house without a delivery. She was living with her parents until Tom was to come home from the war. That was also a sign of the times.

By mid afternoon she was so profoundly depressed that she knew she must do something to shake-off the willies that plagued her, lest she go insane with worry. She slipped her heavy, winter coat on, pulled a stocking hat down across her brow and tucked a scarf into the space between the coat collar and her bare neck. She would, she decided, so outside and sit on the porch swing for a spell to gather her wits. But, after sitting down and rocking back and forth a few times, her eyes took notice of the front window on the house across the street. She spotted the service flag dangling from the center window sill; a banner displaying three service stars -- two blue, one gold. She was suddenly melancholy when she considered that Mrs. Jones, who lived in the house, was also very much alone this Christmas. All three of her sons were off to war, one of them taken away from her forever when he was killed in action. One of Mrs. Jones sons would never come home for Christmas; not this year, nor next year, nor any year thereafter. With that thought in mind she re-cooped her giddy sanity for a moment after considering how lucky she actually was that Tom was still alive and well.

Almost mesmerized by her momentary meditation, she hadn’t noticed the man approaching her doorstep until she heard his footfall on the wooden planks of the porch floor. She glanced up, took notice of the Western Union courier’s uniform, then let her glance slide down to his hand that was holding a yellow envelope. Her breath snagged in her throat. She tried to clamor to her feet, then reached out a hand to grasp the porch railing, her body trembling with fright. She knew, without being told, what the envelope contained and in her moment of stress she wheeled about on her toe and tried to run into the house to escape the inevitable -- not even realizing that the bearer of the unacceptable message was a classmate of hers’ and Tom’s just the year before.

The courier reached out and grabbed Sally’s arm as she tried to wrestle herself past him. He gently tipped her chin up with his other hand, looked her straight into the eyes, and said, “I’m sorry, Sally. I am SO sorry I must deliver this cablegram!”

Sally screamed “NO-O-O-O-O! NO-O-O-O-O,” trying to pull free of his grasp, then fainted and fell, her head striking the porch railing during her tumble onto the floor.

Sally’s father and mother, hearing her screams, darted outside onto the porch,. They were aghast at what they encountered. Sally was cradled in the courier’s arms. He was vainly trying to revive her, but she responded with but a gurgling gasp for air, remaining her her unconscious state. And then, Sally’s father glanced at the lads left hand, spotted the yellow envelope clutched between his fingers He, too, screamed, ‘NO-O-O, not Tom. NO-O-O, God! Not today. It‘s Christmas, God.” He knew without explanation, just as Sally had, what the envelope contained; a blunt message from the government that began with the solemn words, “The War Department regrets to inform you..............,” and that it would not be a message of glad tidings such as was delivered to the shepherds on the first Christmas near Bethlehem so long ago.

Sally and her parents only went through the motions of Christmas in the year of ‘44, without the customary joy that usually accompanied the holiday. A few days later they replaced the blue star flag that hung in their front window with a gold star banner. The Christmas of ‘44 left a scar on Sally’s memory that time would not too easily erase. For Sally, like many others, it was a sign of the times.

A few months following the war’s end a young man rang the doorbell to Sally’s home and when Sally gingerly opened the door a uniformed soldier introduced himself as “Tom’s best buddy. I’m Frank. I guess he probably mentioned me in his letters home, . . . didn’t he?”

She nodded in the affirmative and invited him inside.

He had stopped by on his way home from the army, he said, to pay his respects to Tom’s widow and to tell her of Tom’s final moments when, as he lay dying of his wounds, implored of Frank, “Write to Sally. Please Frank. Tell her I love her.” Those were, Frank mournfully recalled, Tom’s last words. “I had my arms around him, holding him close, when he sighed his final breath,“ Frank confessed with tears welling-up in his eyes.

Sally, too, began to cry. Frank caressed her, gently patted her back with his hands and tried to console her, saying, “It’s ironic, Sally. I had my arms around Tom when he died and now I’m trying to comfort you with those same arms. That’s why I never wrote, as Tom asked. I knew I needed to wait and deliver his plea in person.”

It was, as things turned out, a tearful visitation for both of them. But, Frank finally had to take his leave, explaining to her, “It’s been a long war and I’d like to go home and see my kinfolk.”

The two newfound friends that fate had brought together were destined to meet again. Frank and Sally become pen pals in the days ahead. They kept in touch on a regular basis. Then one day, in the autumn season of the year of ‘48, Frank came to call on Sally in person once again. The two began to date and soon fell in love with one another.

If it could be said that Sally’s story had a happy ending, the Christmas of ‘48 would best describe it. She and Frank were married on Christmas Eve of that year, exactly four years following the tragic news of Tom’s death in the year of ‘44. Once again, Christmas resumed its glitter, rekindling Sally’s belief that, perhaps, there is a Santa Claus after all -- bringing with it a refreshing meaning to Christmas that only a war widow, who for four, long years had dreaded the season’s approach, could appreciate.

A person might say it was a story with a happy ending but I prefer to think of it as a tale of a new beginning. Sally and Frank shared almost forty years of wedded bliss prior to his death in the year of ‘88 -- sharing a common bond that few people would understand; the memories of her first husband and recollections of his best buddy. That, too, was a sign of the times.

* * * *

A happy ending or a new beginning? What would you say? Perhaps it was a little bit of both.