While in
Florida for spring break with Perri, we visited my Aunt Helen for lunch. Three
years younger than my mother and now a spry 90-year-old, she still complains
about being the middle child and the "abuse" she suffered as a
youngster at the hands of my mother (the eldest) and her youngest sister,
Miriam.
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| Aunt Helen, 1943 Pensacola, Florida |
"I
had a terrible temper when I was younger," she told me and Perri. She
relayed the story about being teased by the other two while they were all
cleaning the house. "I got so angry at them that I threw a chair and broke
the leg. Of course, Garie told on me and I got in trouble."
As the
eldest, my mother (Garie) was the only one who got the opportunity to go to
college. Aunt Helen decided she had enough of being picked on. "I decided
to run away from home and join the Navy. When I told my parents, they said I
couldn't do that, but I told them I was 21 and I could. Nana said they would
never take me because I had crooked teeth." But after a physical exam, she
was, indeed, accepted and was stationed in Pensacola, Florida.
"I
was trained to work with the pilots who photographed strategic positions during
the war. I also did secretarial work and wrote training manuals. One time, my
boss brought another officer into the room to show him how fast I could type.
The other officer said that when I finished my tour with the Navy that I should
contact him, that he had a job for me. It turned out he was a professor at
Princeton. But when I got out, I never contacted him. I wonder what would have
happened. Maybe my life would have been different."
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| Aunt Helen in her dress blues, 1943 |
"Do
you still have your uniform?" Perri and I asked. "No, when we got out
I was so glad to get rid of it and not have to wear it again." She told us
of wearing her dress blues for special occasions, while most of the other girls
wore dress whites. "I couldn't afford the whites," she said. "My
parents saw a picture of me in the blues, while almost everyone else was in
whites, and asked why I wasn't in white. I told them that I couldn't afford the
whites."
A few
weeks later, she said, a package arrived from up North. In it was a white
uniform that her father (a tailor) sewed. "He did all that for me without
even having me there to measure anything out," she reminisced. "I was
very close to my father."
Aunt
Helen always wanted to go to college, but thought she never could because she
didn't have the high school language and science requirements. "Because I was a veteran, however, they accepted me," she said. Unfortunately, she
didn't enjoy her first round of classes so stopped. "I wonder what would
have happened had I tried a different class, if I hadn't given in so quickly," she said. "Maybe my
life would have been different."
Throughout the afternoon as Aunt Helen reminisced, she ended each story with "maybe my life would have been different if..." She's probably right; her life would have been different...if she had followed her passion, if she had not played it safe, it she had not chosen the path of least resistance, if....
So, the lesson here is to have no regrets. We can't go back and have do-overs. We can, however, choose to be daring, choose to try the road less travelled, choose to dream and go for it, choose to be happy with our paths in life.
