A Heart's Tender Tribute

A week later he was back and came to me first, since he and I had talked earlier. I sent Caroline ahead, and together we went to Kathrine's apartment. She had been holding up well, courageous and full of hope, but I could see her anxiety, and hated what I felt coming. She knew the moment she opened the door, and broke down in tears.

Caroline and I spent the evening with her. Until the early morning hours I was on the sofa with her in my arms and Caroline curled up at my side.

It was well after midnight when she told us. Her throat was raw and her sobbing had drained her, but she found the strength from somewhere to tell us. She and Jake had known for about a week before he left. They were expecting a baby. She smiled in the dimly lit room, and seemed to recover a little. She and Caroline hugged and my wife asked me to carry her to her bedroom. They stayed the night together and slept in late the next day.

The two girls in apartment #3 left that summer for the mainland and their families. Kelani, too, had left for her family on the Big Island, so there were just two of us left... well, one and a half.

By July Kathrine was glowing with the beauty of a young girl carrying her husband's baby. I had never seen such a thing, but she was gloriously radiant and sweet, and just glowing. I can't explain it, she just was. She was stunning! One evening about then Caroline curled up next to me in the darkness and confided to me tenderly that she wanted my baby. There were a lot of words and thoughts left unsaid... but her eyes and her caress and her whimpers were full of love and hope and fear and wanting me never to leave her alone, and giving her a baby would help her keep me close.

By October the two mothers-to-be were both glowing and radiant, and enjoying the experience and their deep friendship for each other. Only one of them, however, had her husband close at hand.

Caroline was very conscious of her friend's loss, and willingly shared me with her sister. Kit was frequently at our place at Caroline's invitation. They sewed together, often with some neighbor ladies, and almost always went shopping together. Caroline's more slender figure was a thrill to me beyond measure, even as the baby began to show. We would sometimes go out to dinner together, the three of us, and to movies, and other things. I knew where the boundaries were and stayed within, and Caroline never questioned me. I often hugged them both and we would dance, and go for walks on the beach, and snuggle on the sofa and play board games together, but I knew that, even with many long and intimate conversations with Kathrine, she herself had drawn a line. She was a one-man-woman, and it seemed only a technicality that he was not coming home... she kept him alive in her heart just the same. She was a remarkably steady and faithful girl in that regard; I was proud of her.

In 1943 I was a father, twice over it seemed. The two little girls were born not quite five months apart. The two mothers supported each other with great kindness and affection, both leaned on my shoulder, and I was pleased to be their hero.

Still, when my squadron deployed in November for the South Pacific, Caroline was anxious and fearful, and cried in my arms the night before, but just as brave and loyal as Kit had been that previous year.

-- --

That's been now several years ago. After the war I was transferred to the naval air station at Sand Point in Seattle. We found a duplex not far away, and now the two girls are in high school. Neither of their mothers seems to have aged much at all. They are remarkable women and an honor to the men they married. Once at a school event for the kids some fellow tried to put the make on Kathrine. Caroline alerted me to what was happening and I was watchful. Kathrine handled it just fine. Modest and friendly as always, a beautiful woman simply can not hide. She was pleasant and gracious, but he got the message.

I wish Jake could see his Kit now. She has never thought of herself as a 'Navy wife,' but is pleased always to acknowledge that her husband served their country in the Navy. I took the two out to dinner at a nice place last week, and I saw it again. The young waitress asked her about the little eagle-and-three-chevrons pin on her dress, and whether her husband was in the Navy, explaining that her own fiancé was a sailor at Sand Point.

With gracious words Kathrine explained carefully, and with feeling, that the pin was the rating badge of her husband's rank -- Radioman First Class, United States Navy. It was in that moment, from her words and manner and tone, as were Jake himself there together with us. I had seen that before with her; as were Jake just momentarily away from the table and would be right back to her.

Some while later, on a warm, sunny afternoon, I had just arrived home from work. Caroline kissed me, handed me an icy Ginger Ale and suggested I relax a bit on the back porch, and I wondered what was afoot. It was a Thursday evening in the fall of 1960. Our daughters both had dates with a couple of fellows the next evening and both homes were all a twitter with excitement. They were no longer little girls, but blossoming young ladies, and even a casual observation confirmed that. I had come to treat the two of them about equally, both as my own daughters, and relationships were good, I think. Parents everywhere were experiencing all kinds of problems with their children, but such seemed to pass us by.

Moments later she appeared, Jake's daughter, just as pretty as her mother had always been and, like her mother, feminine and modest. She was a darling of the first magnitude, and we were very close.

She was trying hard to be a grown up young lady, but was a little anxious, I thought, probably about her date. I was right, as it turned out. Our conversation soon took a turn that showed me what was on her mind. She paused a moment, and I sensed the wheels turning in her head. I could wait, and let her work out what she wanted to say.

"Uncle Charlie," she began hesitantly and with a timid, trusting voice, "would you tell me some more about...."

Her throat caught and she was silent, but I knew then where her thoughts were. The girls had often related the stories of the fun we had together that fall and winter we were all together in Hawaii, the cook-outs, the beach excursions and swimming in the surf, hiking in the hills above Honolulu, laughing and enjoying life. Her mother had more than once told her about how tender and sweet and kind her father had always been with her, and how he inspired her to always try to be her very best for him, because he was good and generous and loving.

"...tell me something more... about... my father?"

Just as I had thought, wanting to... to feel close to him somehow, I supposed; whether, for instance, the fairy-tale-like image of her mother's sweetheart could be real, and... perhaps, whether another like him might be out there somewhere.

Sometimes, in her deepest feelings, this sensitive girl was as vulnerable and trusting and sweetly feminine as her mother had been back when Jake first met her that evening on Waikiki.

So I told her what I had never told anyone before, about that evening when he and her mother had walked on the pier together... how it had changed Jake forever. He almost couldn't wait to tell me about her that night after our watch, sitting on the seawall, about the girl that had turned his world upside down, how sweet and reserved she was with him, and how they had walked on the beach together that evening, and just a few days later their lunch together that afternoon, and kissing her, and how she inspired him to be the very best person he could be.

We were quiet for a long moment, and their daughter was lost in her thoughts, little tears of emotion twinkling in her pretty eyes.

"Yes," I offered after a time, and with conviction, "he is out there somewhere. Don't be too anxious, and don't hurry things along too much. He'll find you one day. When he does, he'll treat you like your dad treated your mom... and then, you won't have to ask anybody, you'll know in your heart that he's the one.

"Your father would be very pleased to see you growing up so beautifully, just like his sweetheart. He would want me to let you know, too, that... that he loves you very much."

We had heard the chimes softly in the background calling us to dinner, and I had said about all I could muster without my own emotions overwhelming me.

She rose demurely, with a grace and poise well beyond her few years, paused a second, and spoke softly, "Thank you very much for telling me that." She wasn't quite sure how to conclude things, but as I stood, she stepped into my arms for a hug. It was then I noticed the little eagle-and-three-chevrons pin on the collar of her blouse.

It was that brief exchange that afternoon that has motivated me to write their story. Jake would be just as pleased now with his Kit as he was then long ago in Hawaii, and very much so, too, with the darling young lady who is their daughter.

He and his Kit had had only those few months together.