Richard really impressed me the first time I met him. I already knew a great deal about him through my sister-in-law. Like me, Karen was (and is) proud of her family’s accomplishments, so I was already aware that Rich was good in sports and academics, and I’ll never forget how thrilled Karen was to see him graduate from Boot Camp after he joined the Navy. Richard was also on a rifle team and performed challenging drills at the graduation ceremony.
It was on Thanksgiving Day in 1996 at Karen’s that I was shocked to meet Richard the man, instead of Richard the kid brother I had imagined him still to be. I don’t know why. I guess I always just thought of him as fresh out of high school and the salt sea air.
It was easy to see that time had been good to Richard. He’d finished his three years in the Navy, enlisted in the Reserves, and was attending NMSU to obtain a degree in Civil Engineering, thus the poor guy was this-close to semester exams and still managed the four or five hour drive to be home.
It was his stillness that invited my attention as I watched Richard within the confines of a crowded kitchen. His head was only slightly bent over a calculus textbook the size of Stonehenge's best. I remember noticing his hands upon the dining table. They looked so clean and almost translucent against the dark maple. Surgeon or scholar, those kinds of hands.
"Uughh," I said and then pressed him for other superlatives relating to the math family.
His mood was concentrated but not stressed, and I could tell he enjoyed the equations. Though our noise level entertained him somewhat I think, he focused on his work, regarded our play. We are people who love to send nonsense and knowledge of some sort back and forth across each other's faces, and faithfully asking Karen over and over, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”
After she assures us once again that there really is not, we sit down, happy she's got it all under control, pick up where we left off, and leave Karen to finish the turkey Gary swears she's undercooked. She re-promises my brother, same as turkey-time before, that no, it's not undercooked, holds up her right hand, vows she’s not trying to kill all of us in this one single meal. The only thing to be heard above all this is the game cranked up on two televisions.
And just over there across the way a little, is Richard, who continues to sit in peace, to study, to smile when he gets asked, "You doing okay, Richard?" from my lips and from my son’s.
Aaron liked to talk too.
Richard was happy to be.
He must get it from his mom. She reads the same still way.
4 comments:
I remember those years that Rich was still in school. Holidays were always like this, him studying, us partying! But all that studying was well worth it. He always enjoyed seeing Zach and Aaron at these gatherings. I miss so much when Zach and Aaron were little.
me, too...but new little ones now, huh?
Thanks De'on...and thanks for posting all the Seabee information and the history the Seabees have as part of the Seabee/Marine Corps team.
I would often remind my Seabees, 'Although we will rebuild, and make things better for the Iraqi people, we are a Marine support unit; they come first'.
I remember that so often, I would see all the 19, 20, 21-year-old Marines walking around camp...just kids. And although I really only knew Aaron the few times I would see him at times like holidays, I would watch the young Marines, think of Aaron, and feel like I knew him. I would think back to when I was a young Seabee on active duty, Aaron could have been one of my crazy buddies.
Thanks, Rich. I plan on contributing the article you wrote about Aaron while you were over there.
And I will write a narrative about May 3, 2004. That one I'll have to spend some time on.
And Rich, there's not a doubt in my mind you would have been great buddies ...and no doubt, Aaron would have sworn you were his cousin. You were and would be, family.
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