Yours Truly 2016 / Cascadia College / Bothell, WA | Page 35

I say I’m not sure what I want to know.
5.
When my mother visits, we become a four-generation family living under
one roof because my husband and I share our home with our youngest
daughter, her husband, and their two sons. Always my mother wants me to
help to organize photo albums and reminisce over family stories. For
example, that her brother left high school to serve in the Marines for four
years during World War II. That her mother went to work at S&W Cannery
and eventually worked up to supervisor of a crew of women who processed
carrot juice for pilots to improve night vision. And the neighbor boy she grew
up with, Bernard Robinson, killed in the same war when his plane was shot
down.
My mother tells me that when her brother returned home he got married,
bought a house, found work, and raised a family. He never spoke of the war.
It was the same way with my father when he completed his service with the
Navy. What would Dad and Uncle Claude want me to know, if they had
spoken?
6.
I remember that I never said he was my boyfriend. Friends, I’d say. We were
friends.
And maybe that’s why it’s possible, tonight, after all the years, to say,
I remember.
Yet, this morning I wondered what more I might have done.
I did sit on the back of that motorcycle with him, arms around his waist, in a
gesture of longing.
What I did is I took the ride with him to the ocean.

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