by Katie Butler Johnson
There’s a quote by Kierkegaard on the dedication page of the Jodi Picoult/Jennifer Boylan novel “Mad Honey” that resonated with me. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Now that I’m approaching my mid-80’s I have a lifetime of memories and ample time to review and reflect on them. When I do, I often see them differently today than I did when I lived them. The passage of time between the making of a memory and remembrance of it often changes the understanding of what was really happening.
I was born in 1940. My father had gone to Annapolis and served for a number of years in the Navy. He mustered out of the service in the early 1930’s, attended law school and was a young attorney recently hired as an associate in a Manhattan law firm when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
As it did for most families, World War II changed our lives. I was just a toddler when my father was furloughed from the law firm, returned to the Navy to be deployed overseas. He was essentially absent all my early years. He’d show up periodically when on leave but was mostly gone from 1942-1946.
At first, he was stationed in the Atlantic - then the Pacific. Both times he served as captain of a destroyer escort. His task was to carry troupes and supplies safely across the ocean. He had to shoot down enemy planes attacking his ship and dodge torpedoes aimed towards it. His last orders were to lead the troupe invasion of Japan. If the US hadn’t dropped the bomb, he would have been killed and I never would have had my baby sister.
When I was a young child, I didn’t understand any of that. Four years is a long time in the life of a child. He missed those bonding years. I knew I had a “father” from pictures and rare and brief visits. But I definitely didn’t feel I had a “daddy.” I didn’t get to know him.
When he returned to us and the law practice in 1946, he had to spend time to recover from the trauma of war as well as spend long hours at the law firm to renew and build up his practice. He wasn’t around home much. Now I understand it all as an adult looking back on it. He didn’t choose to be gone. And when he returned, he was overwhelmed processing his war experience and scrambling to build his law practice to provide for his wife and by children. Mom was always the one who was present in my life. In contrast to my experience of having a war time father and not a daddy, my youngest sister, born in 1950, had a much different experience. She got to know, grow up with and travel with a Daddy who was always present in her life.
They say you’ll know when he’s the one. And I knew. He was a grad student and I a college senior. We married young and I finished college as a married student. Our first child arrived a week before our first anniversary. Two others came shortly after. By the time I was 25, I had three little tow-headed angels aged 3 and under. It was challenging just keeping up with them.
Little ones are physically exhausting, but it’s when they hit the teens that my emotional exhaustion kicked in. I’d lie awake conjuring up things to worry about that never happened. According to the National Institute of Health’s Library of Medicine 91.4% of things we worry about never happen.
Looking back on my life, remembering the challenges, if I had it to do over, I’d want to be their parent again. I’d want to be able to help guide them through their childhood and be present as I am in the adult lives. They are 3 humans I’ve cherished ever since they were born. And then, at 42, to do it all again, to have that bonus baby, my surprise package, my 4th? Friends didn’t know whether to say congratulations or offer sympathies. It’s definitely congratulations. He’s been just what he was born to be – my surprise package who’s always been full of surprises.
We may not be able to live life backwards, but we can revisit moments of our lives through our memories. You won’t be able to change anything, but you may have a much clearer understanding of what things are when you see the whole picture.