My Legacy of Fear

In our house on Evanston Ave, in  Muskegon, Michigan, where I was born, the oldest of six children, in 1939, we grew up to the sounds of silence — no stereo, no television, no laughter, not even a chiming clock — except for the milkman’s clatter in the wee hours. The world felt quiet back then…, real quiet, as fierce battles raged across the fields of Europe.

My world is a fearful place

In the evenings, my folks turned their ears to the wooden RCA radio enthroned on the red and chrome kitchen table, listening to the voice of Edward R. Murrow for breaking news from the front — for news about Uncle Irvin who was entrenched with the medical corp. in the dense dark woods of the Ardennes Forest. As I hovered about eavesdropping on the hushed voices of my family, I swallowed their fears, their angst, and their forebodings into my heart — and colored my world gray.

For six years, from the German invasion of Poland to the final Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri, air raid sirens, gunfire and correspondents’ voices pierced the uneasy atmosphere in our home. During the day, my mother, trading her ration coupons for eggs, sugar, and butter, baked rice puddings and apple pies while listening to the play-by-play broadcasts of the Detroit Tigers. “Strike three, you’re out!” the voice of the sportscaster rang out.

Towards dusk when the “Muskegon Chronicle” arrived, the neighborhood quieted as the “eyes” sitting in the barbershop silently sifted through its pages, scanning for the names of fallen fathers, sons, and friends from our east Muskegon neighborhood. Saturday nights the normal silence was broken by raucous sounds of laughter, lubricated by the beer my fishermen folks used to break the tension.

Sunday mornings came, the house stayed silent — “hush children, Dad has a migraine.” No one went to church, nor even mentioned His name. But at night, before falling to sleep, my mom knelt beside my bed and taught me to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord, my soul to take. God bless my brothers, my mother and dad and my Uncle Irwin. Amen.”

In mid-December, 1944, the dreaded telegram arrived: “We are sorry to report that Private First Class Irwin H. Ames was killed in action in the Battle of The Bulge,” it read. Nineteen thousand other men died that day too. A friend, who’d grown up in Germany, remembers the day her grandmother got that same news too. She recalls saying to her grandmother, “Don’t feel bad, Oma, lots of other neighbors got the same thing too.”

Grandma’s bitter heart

I’d just turned five, much too young to comprehend the depths of my Grandmother’s  agony, shattered dreams, and broken heart as I listened to her anguished wails reverberate throughout the house, and steady sounds of her alarm go tick-tock… tick-tock… tick-tock.

She wouldn’t see ever again the dashingly handsome uniformed soldier with blue eyes smiling down at her from the framed photo beside her bed. His last letters home from Paris would need to last her a lifetime.  Finding no solace for her grief, Grandma turned to tea leaves and séances, trying to make sense of her loss.

As I grew up I didn’t really like to be around her. She wasn’t the type of grandmother who enveloped a child in the safety of her loving arms; rather, her tongue was sharp, her words derisive, her laughter harsh. Now… just now, I suddenly understand, her broken heart had never healed. She’d found no Grace from above, and in her loss, she’d become a bitter, unhappy woman. Today, that faded yellowed-paper and Grandma’s photo of her fallen son live on in my boxed memories—an antiquated cedar chest, holding collected remembrances of my gray world.

The ancient promises of God are still available today if we choose to link up with them, to go to Jesus Christ, and receive his healing grace.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Ps 34:18).

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled (Hebrews 12:15)

Question: What emotional legacy are you carrying?