Remembering the Iowa 2012

Every year, on this day, I remember.

I remember sitting at my desk in the Washington Hilton.  

And then the phone rang.  And it was my brother Jason’s friend Leslie, watching CNN back in Houston.

There was an explosion in one of the turrets on the USS Iowa.

The terror & fear I felt with that phone call have never left me.  I remember wanting to be home, to be with my mother & sister Janet & brother John.  

But I couldn’t, so I called someone & asked for help.

A someone I met while working on a George I inaugural ball & its flowers.

And so, because of that someone & her son (who was with Naval intelligence) & flowers for an inaugural ball for a man who did not get my vote, I learned that my brother Jason was not listed among the missing on the Iowa.

Although I could not be with my family during this time, I was able to call my mother & tell her that her youngest child was alive.

That day changed my life.  

It taught me not to take anything for granted, to respect connections, to hold onto family.

And to respect the privilege & joy & wonder of living.

Today I remember the young sailors my brother brought to my Foggy Bottom apartment on Virginia Avenue & the men who did not leave the USS Iowa alive.

As I will every year.

Remembering John. . .because of his daughter

 

As my niece Felicia Marie Ettinger sailed with the USS New York, I take time remember her father, my brother John.

I usually get nostalgic about John near in anniversary of his death.  But this year my Alpha Son Nick married his Lady Jane in February & I knew John would have wanted me to focus on that particular joy & wonder.

Not on regrets or loss.

Felicia came to see us before she returned to prepare for her deployment.

And brought my mother flowers.  Yellow alstromeria.  

We talked about everything & nothing.  About how she felt about being one of a few women aboard a ship & about the young men who were vying for her attention & about her mentors & her drive to prove herself.

And about Navy men who did not believe women belonged in the military.

We talked about identity, how some people perceive her as not Mexican because of one side of her parentage, others as Mexican because of the other side of her parentage.

It is a conversation we have had over the years – cruel comments that she looked too white.  Not Mexican enough. 

I never think of her as either – she is simply our Princess.  Beautiful & sweet & kind.  A bit of a temper, which I admire.

She is bits & pieces of both her parents.  And she is her own amazing young woman.

She said:  I am most definitely Ettinger.

I think she is most definitely Felicia Marie, the very best of her maternal Castillo heritage & her paternal Ettinger heritage.

And I think of what I told her earlier:  Your father brought me flowers both times I gave birth.

Alstromeria.

Her mother’s daughter.

My brother John’s daughter.

Our Princess.  Ser marinero de seguro, poco.