A SHORT STORY
I wake early, not moving while my brain sheds the last vestiges of sleep. Remembering what day it is, I carefully push back the sheet and in the predawn light quietly get out of bed, leaving Mark, my husband and night owl, softly snoring.
In the kitchen, I turn on the kettle, spoon coffee into the French press, and slowly pour in the not-quite-boiling water. Today is my birthday, but it is also Friday December 7, 2012, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Rather than retrieving my usual coffee cup from the kitchen cabinet, I go to the living room, to a table holding framed family photos. From behind a wedding picture of my parents I retrieve an off-white ceramic mug reserved for this one day of the year. Returning to the kitchen I push down the plunger and pour the fresh coffee into the white mug. Through the window I see the first pink blush of daylight on the mountain peaks south of our home. Wrapping my hands around the heavy mug I absorb its warmth and think of Jim, my dad. Even though I lost him to cancer some 7 years ago, I almost expect the phone to ring and on picking it up hear dad boom “how’s my birthday girl?”
My thoughts drift back to 1997. That year mom asked Mark and I over for a Sunday dinner to include a cake with candles celebrating my 50th birthday. A week earlier their friends had taken mom and dad to their club for his 75thbirthday, but this Sunday would be our private family celebration of dad and I both reaching milestone ages.
Our exchange of small gifts at these joint birthday meals were by this time an expectation, though for me it always carried some degree of stress. Finding a present for a man who always purchased for himself whatever he needed was irritating, if not outright frustrating. On top of that, he was not above saying, and meaning literally, “you shouldn’t have bought it.” Despite casually searching for months I found nothing in catalogues or in the usual stores. In mild desperation, I dropped by a small antique store in a town just down the road from our place on the off chance I might find for him something . . anything . . to bring a smile to his face.
On a low shelf in a far back corner, a small bowel caught my eye, then drew my hand. It was smooth, undecorated cream-white heavy porcelain china. I loved its simplicity, but it was too small and narrow to be a soup or cereal bowl. Mentally searching for something to justify the fifteen dollar price tag, the proverbial light bulb flashed on in my mind. Earlier this year, on Father’s Day, mom and I jointly gave dad a bone and silver handled shaving brush. He admired the gift, but suggested his plastic shaving soap cup would not do justice to such a fancy tool. Looking at the object in my hand, I realized this could be the perfect shaving soap cup to match his bone brush. I happily paid in cash without haggling, and in return the shop owner wrapped the small bowl in a gift box and tied it with hemp string. I left the shop pleased with my find and a small hope that my find would bring him, if not gushing joy, at least a bit of pleasure.
On Sunday afternoon we arrived at my parents early enough for Mark and dad to enjoy a beer and mom and I a glass of wine before dinner. It was a beautiful afternoon so we moved outdoors to the patio. After exchanging our latest news and gossip, mom said “I’ll go first,” and handed me an envelope. Inside was a “Happy Birthday” card and four tickets for a traveling impressionists art show she knew I desperately wanted to experience.
“Thanks, mom. Now its our turn.” I pulled out the small box and handed it to Dad with a flourish, “It’s been six months, but here’s the second half of your Father’s Day present.” I watched him expectantly.
Dad lifted the box, judging its weight. “Second half? That shaving brush you gave me is doing a fine job. In fact it’s an absolute pleasure, but I don’t think it needs any accessories.” Hearing those words, my heart sank. It seemed that, at best, my gift would only be politely accepted.
In his usual fashion, dad untied the hemp string and carefully unwrapped the paper, setting both aside as carefully as they were the actual present. He slowly opened the box, and froze. His face darkened, and he slowly pulled the mug from the box. He turned the narrow bowel over in his hands several times without saying a word. As I saw tears, real tears, gathering in his eyes, he stood, saying “excuse me a moment.” He wrapped both hands around the cup and walked to the rose bed in the back corner of the yard, staring at the object in his hands. His chest spasmed. He was sobbing! What had I done?
I stood to go to him, but mom stopped me. “Don’t. Let him be.”
“What’s the matter?” I pleaded.
“I don’t know, but I think he wants to be alone at the moment.”
We made small talk until dad returned with red, but dry eyes. He looked me and said, “Thank you for this wonderful gift. I probably need explain my reaction.”
“I’m sorry we upset you, but if it’s a private matter you don’t need to explain.”
“Ann,” he looked at mom, “I don’t think I ever told you this entire story, but I think it’s time I shared it. You remember my best friend that enlisted with me, Harold?”
“Of course. I knew you both in High school. You were known as the ‘double trouble twins’. I only wish both of you had come home from the war. Thinking of his grave, somewhere down there in the wreck of the Arizona, still makes me sad.”
In all my years growing up and since, dad never talked about his years fighting in the Pacific theater of WWII. Now he sat down next to me and began a story. “Harold and I joined the Navy together after high school. We told people we were doing our patriotic duty, but in reality it was just two teenage boys looking for a bit of adventure and excitement. After training, we both managed to snag assignments with the Pacific Fleet on the battleship Arizona. He was a cook’s assistant and I was general seaman. We joined the crew in time to escort a small convoy from Hawaii to the west coast, and on return we tied up at Pearl, on battleship row.
I had the port side mid-deck watch from 2 a.m. on that Sunday, 7 December 1941. It was barely sunrise and the morning was chilly. Harold appeared, as he had before, with a hot mug of coffee to get me through the last hours of my watch. We chatted briefly before he had to return to the enlisted mess a couple of decks below. One minute I was enjoying my quiet Sunday morning with coffee, and the next minute we were under full attack by seemingly hundreds of Japanese planes. It was chaos. I’ll take to my grave the noise, the flash of explosions, and the smell of . . well, the smells. I stayed at my station, calling incoming dive bomber and torpedo plane attacks to the command center. I felt several bombs hit us, and black smoke billowed from fires burning fore and aft. I couldn’t see the fire raging below the forward deck, near the #2 gun turret.”
Dad went silent, composing himself. When he began speaking again it was barely more than a whisper.
“The fire eventually reached a powder room. With a blinding flash, the explosion lifted the ship and that section of deck disappeared. I was momentarily stunned, and when I recovered I was in the water, apparently thrown there by the blast. I looked back at the Arizona, belching flames and black smoke as she began sinking. The galley where Harold worked was close to the #2 turret. I instinctively knew he was gone.”
He paused, raised the white mug to us, and said, “None of you know what this really is, do you?”
Mark, Mom, and I looked at each other and shook our heads, reluctant to guess.
“This is a vintage Navy enlisted watchman’s mug. It’s thick and heavy, to hold the heat, and with no handle you can wrap your hands around it for warmth. This is exactly like the one Harold brought me coffee in that morning.”
He paused again, but we waited for him to continue, afraid to break the spell.
“Somehow a small skiff made it through the burning oil and debris to rescue survivors. When they finally pulled me aboard, I realized I was still gripping the watchman’s mug Harold brought me. Unconsciously, I had never let go of it through the attack.”
My dad pointed to a scar on his forearm. I had asked him about it before, but he always said something like “just an old injury from my Navy time,” and changed the subject. Now he finally explained. “I was bleeding pretty badly from this shrapnel wound. One of the sailors was trying to wrap a pressure bandage around my arm to stop the bleeding. In the process, he took the mug from my hand and tossed it overboard. It was an expeditious, not malicious act, and I assume it’s still down there with the Arizona itself.”
I gasped. “Dad, I so sorry.”
Dad looked at me and then mom.
“It’s ok. It really is ok,” dad reassured us as he set the mug on the patio table. “I witnessed and experienced a lot of suffering in that war, but it’s important I not forget and I hold on to those memories. Maybe it’s time, probably way past time, I let myself talk about it.” He sat back in the chair, “I never needed that mug to keep Harold’s memory alive. I think of him more days than not. Still, this is a gift more precious than you could possibly realize, and I cannot imagine that any man has ever received a more meaningful birthday gift.”
In a spontaneous moment of silence, we all stared at the mug in silence, thinking of the day 56 years ago when Harold and too many others became the first casualties as war opened in the Pacific.
Three years after dad died, I came across the mug in his office bookcase behind a wedding picture of he and Ann. With mom’s permission, I brought both home. In the years after, on my birthday, the anniversary of dad’s first sharing the story, I carried out my private ceremony of remembrance with this mug.
My coffee has cooled enough to drink. With the first sip I remember dad. Though I never knew him, I take a second sip for Harold. Then I take more sips and think of the 1,177 men and boys on the USS Arizona for who that Sunday morning in 1941 was their last moment alive on earth. I eventually finish my coffee and raise the white watchman’s mug in silent salute to all the sailors who risked and gave their lives in that terrible war.
Through the window I see sunlight spreading across the foothills. The sky is cloudless and deep blue, promising a beautiful day. I wash and dry the mug and carefully set it again behind the wedding picture. I will be older in a year, but the memories will remain the same. My children are grown with families. I think it’s time for me to pass to them the mug and the story of their grandfather and his friend, two boys who saved the world from fascism and tyranny.
(This story and image are Copyrighted. They cannot be copied or otherwise used in any manner without the express permission of the author, John L. Floyd.)