Month: August 2023

The Day FDR Died

A friend wrote tonight with the notion or perhaps fact that 99 percent of everyone born between 1930 and 1946 has died.

I wrote back to say:

I suspect 85%& of that 1% remainder are under 85, or some such, which would be us. Though we know we were born during the war, I doubt any of us remember it, not really.

I think the first thing I remember is the day FDR died, I would have been 3 years and 11 months.

I don’t remember that he died. At that moment I had no idea he existed, much less who he was or what that meant.

Bur I remember my Mom weeping, standing at the window in the living room or our apartment looking out, weeping.

And I remember a feeling of alarm, asking what was wrong because – because little boys will be, are pretty scared when their Mom cries like she did just then. What did I do? What could I do to make it better?

I think she took my hand and told me “A wonderful man died, a wonderful man is gone…” 

I would not have, could not have know, what died meant.

Yes,  that may be me putting words in my memory. Still, I think, I am certain she said that and I know that she cried and, for sure, that that she cried so is why I have the memory. 

Did I know it was April 12, 1945? Of course not. I didn’t know the year or that there were years, or the day or the date. 

Time? Time was now. Time was morning, afternoon and night. Time was waking up. Time was supper time, bath time, bedtime. 

Today was today, the day before was yesterday, the next day would be tomorrow and  for me that was time then and all the time there was – or that I needed.

But I have kept the remembrance all the long time since  and, because I know and have long known the date and about the man, I know why she cried and I know the day and time she did. 

And that helps me place the memory not just in time, but in my soon to begin to be remembered life and to have certain memory of her from that moment forward.

I have been remembering ever since.

Now, in these late years, we approach the edges of memory.

Ours will end.

Then – then it will belong to others.