LETTERS FROM MY DAD: JIM AND I

The September 12, 2011, issue of People featured an article on “The Children of 9/11” describing ten kids who were born after their fathers died on that terrible day. The red headed freckle face sweetheart, Lauren McIntyre, on the cover holds a pendant with her father Donald’s picture. Inside, Jamie Gartenberg Pila also wears a pendant. Her father, James Gartenberg, is shown in an inserted picture with a University of Michigan hat. He was honored, along with other U of M graduates who perished on 9/11, before the Notre Dame/Michigan on September 10, 2011. The stories are poignant, told from each child’s point of view and their mother’s. I devoured the stories, hung on every word; remembered nine years before when People ran another feature called “Small Blessings” just after these same children were born. People is not alone, there are moving stories every night on national news of veterans’ children, camps and trips for them to heal, features and foundations. I applaud the attention; understanding firsthand how very important it is to know, even though you are different, you are not alone.

In the early 50s Jim and I had each other. Our widowed mothers married brothers, themselves World War II veterans. Imagine the chances, the coincidence! But wait, Jim and I thought it was strange and unusual? Looking back, with so many war widows and returning servicemen it probably wasn’t so unusual or as strange as we thought. No one told us. Networks were non-existent. Grief groups for war orphans were unheard of. There were no camps, no trips to Disney World, no People covers. Just Jim and I, good friends, almost cousins, bonded by sorrow.

We never talked about our dads. Perhaps it was guilt. Our step dads were wonderful caring men who loved us, accepted us. Perhaps we thought it would make them feel bad? A pamphlet buried in my mother’s papers is called, When Sorrow Comes (copyright, 1944.) It starts with seven “Don’ts”…don’t think your case unique, don’t give yourself to excessive grief, don’t retell your sorrows, don’t complain… and perhaps the worst, “Don’t resign yourself to sorrow and feel it will continue.” Sorrow does continue. It is always with you. James Tate’s poem, “The Lost Pilot” is dedicated to his father who was born and died the same years as my father. He writes eloquently and much more truthfully, “I feel as if I were/the residue of a stranger’s life, /that I should pursue you.”

But for Jim and I, we had each other. We sipped Mogan David wine at Christmas together. We had Thanksgiving eating frenzies together. We romped down Lake Michigan dunes together. We were in the same high school graduating class. There was always a bond. Jim died as a young father himself in a horrible auto crash. I mourn his passing. We still have much to talk about. To pursue.