It's Veteran's Day so I was looking for a World War II photo of my father. He was from Brooklyn, but after enlisting, was briefly stationed in Pueblo, Colorado, where he met and married my mother, a few months before he would go to Europe. I usually look for war-time photos in the album mom kept, beginning with their courtship and marriage in Pueblo, including photos that he sent back from overseas. But today I also looked in the boxes of my dad's photos that my cousin Rori sent me last year, photos that he had kept with him for years. I was really looking for photos of Europe today, so nearly really passed this one over. I had seen it before, and from other photos in my mom's album, had concluded that my father must have been stationed in Florida right leaving for Europe. Before casting this photo aside, I turned it over to see if it was dated, and to my surprise, on the back found a love letter to my mother, written in Spanish.
My father studied Spanish in school, and he loved it. (When I was a child, he later would read me articles in the Spanish Reader's Digest, and became the go-to person for Spanish-speaking customers in our family furniture store in Pueblo.) Did my mother know Spanish? No, maybe a bit of French. But I am sure that she loved the fact that he spoke Spanish. But I know she loved my father enough to find a way to figure it out.
Well, I fell in love with this letter, so I am posting this. This wasn't at all what I was looking for today, and I was thinking it might not be the best choice for Veteran's Day. But courage in war is about putting what you love on the line. My father found love shortly before leaving to do his bit against the Nazis in World War II was ironic, potentially tragic, and somehow raised the stakes for loss. My parents didn't know the future, and the fact that my father he found love on the road to war made his path all the more courageous, if you ask me.
People live on in what they pass along, how they are remembered. My father passed on his love of music, his love of languages, and most important, his kindness and openhearted nature. And his courage in the face of tyranny, an example I think about more and more. His memory is always a blessing for me, as was his life.
So here is the text of his letter in Spanish and in English (my translation):
"To Ruth
Para que tu puedes recordarme. He buscado las palabras para escrtir qui, pero sin exito. Tu tienes un corazon de oro, y nuestros mentes viajar par il mismo camino, que nunca estoy tan feliz como cuando estoy contigo, y el salido de tu compania es con mas dolor que perder el diente Esta no basta. Tu sabes lo que quiero decir.
Sinceramente,
Hy"
"To Ruth
So you can remember me. I have searched for the words to write, but without success. You have a heart of gold and our minds travel the same way, that I am never so happy as when I am with you, and leaving your company is more painful than having a tooth pulled. This is not enough. You know what I want to say.
Sincerely,
Hy"
