Sometime last century, No. 4

It’s been a while since I did one of these, but she’s on my mind these days.

I can remember like it was yesterday the first time I ever saw Terri. She wasn’t the first girl who ever sat in the Dodge Dart’s passenger seat when my brother picked me up from school during my fifth grade year. In fact, a couple of the former ones had been good friends of hers. It was a small town, after all. But somehow, she seemed different. I’m sure all his girlfriends were nice to the little sister who was encroaching on their time with David, but this one seemed more…real. Nice without being gushy. (I never did well with gushy. Still don’t.)

Her hair, in the style of those California girl times, was bleached this color. Seriously! It was long and straight, falling just to her shoulders. She would prop her elbow on the back of her seat, and whenever her fingers caught in her hair and ruffled it, the most divine scent would waft toward me. And her clothes were wonderful. In fact, maybe she was a little like the Barbie dolls I had just begun collecting. A life-sized Barbie doll who loved to laugh and could be not only David’s girlfriend but another big sister for me.

I might have some of the occasions mixed up, but as I recall, the first time she ever came to the house as The Girlfriend was on Thanksgiving. My mother had just had surgery but was determined to lay out the traditional feast. That may have been the year the turkey wouldn’t get done no matter how long it stayed in the oven. But it was definitely the year we knew David was getting serious about Terri.

Another time, on a Sunday, she spent an afternoon with us. Before I went to church that night, she took the time to sit with me and put my hair up in some older girl style–definitely something my own sister would never have done, because those were the years when I was the bane of her teenage existence. (Her name for me was “The Snitch,” and I deserved it.)

In due time, Terri and David graduated. He went off for his Air Force basic training. Our family moved to Alabama. And that December, we went back to South Carolina for David and Terri’s wedding. After a few days, they came to Alabama for a wedding reception, and then he was shipped off for an eighteen-month tour overseas. Terri went back to South Carolina, and sometimes she and her little sister, Jerri, would come visit us.

I have a ton of photos of her, of course, but this may be one of the earliest of just the two of us. I was around thirteen or fourteen, and her hair was back to its natural color.

Then David came back to the States–a lot of their classmates weren’t so fortunate. As family legend has it, miscommunication kept David out of Vietnam. My father was slated to go there, so the Air Force sent David to Okinawa. Meanwhile, the Army had information that my brother had been ordered to Vietnam, so they sent my father to Korea. Sometimes crossed signals are a good thing.

For a while after his return, they were stationed in Denver, then David left the Air Force and they moved to Alabama. Terri was pregnant. These were the days before you could find out your baby’s gender before it was born, so we all followed her lead and referred to the baby as “Goose.” Sometimes Lynne still calls him Goose.

Leaving the hospital with her new baby.

Newborn Daniel with Terri’s mother, Frances.

From the day he was born, I felt like I’d been given the most amazing gift. For the first few days of Daniel’s life, Terri and David stayed at my parents’ house with him. One night Daniel struggled to see me, too young to keep his head up but trying so hard that I swooped him out of the bassinet and held him so we could gaze at each other. I can still hear Terri saying, “Look at him staring at you. I feel more like he’s yours than mine!”

It wasn’t true–they were a great mother and son from the beginning.

Terri and Daniel.

Daniel and David.

Daniel with my parents, “Oompah” and “Grandmother Dear.”

Daniel with his Aunt Jerri and his grandmother Frances.

There were struggles–like so many couples who married too young with a war going on, Terri and David eventually divorced–but to this day, she says that Daniel never gave her any trouble.

Well, mostly. 😉 Daniel on the far right with his cousins Josh, Sarah, and Gina. Bunch of miscreants.

Daniel the kid.

Daniel the teen.

Terri always remained a vital part of our family: a sister to Debby and me, another daughter to my parents. She was in both my weddings.

Terri and Debby primping in the bathroom together on one of countless holidays when we all gathered at my parents’ house. There’s a twin standing in the background. That bathroom was huge!

Terri and my mother had a great relationship apart from the daughter-in-law/mother-of-my-first-grandchild thing. That friendship was a rock for my mother after my father died; they even lived together for a while.

Wherever Terri lives, I have always been sure of a safe harbor–a place where I can be me and know I’ll be loved and accepted–not to mention given good Southern cooking, the loan of books to read, lots of lively conversation, and a bed to sleep in. I have watched her cope with some of the same challenges that I faced when my mother got sick; Terri’s mother Frances died the beginning of this month after many years of living in Terri’s care. And I realized by the way my brother and sister reacted to the news that despite all our years of living scattered far and wide, and regardless of all the changes we’ve been through, we are still solidly the family we became on the day she and David said their vows.

Or maybe even that first day she came with him to pick me up from school. I love you, Tut.