I was wearing mint green “baby doll” pajamas, the kind that have the matching shorts and flowy, crepey short top that shows them off.  They were popular then, like the Brady Bunch and harvest gold kitchen appliances and shag carpet were popular.  I was 5 days into being 11, all gangly legs and cats eye glasses and still growing into my teeth.  Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James was number one on the radio.  I knew that because my babysitter loved it and I always wondered what those words meant and thought they sounded very grown up and mysterious.  And love was the answer.

We were at my grandparents in Springfield, IL celebrating a family birthday trifecta; mine, my mother’s and my grandfather’s.  We did it most every year.  I was an only child so I loved the feeling of being more surrounded by family than usual.  My grandparents’ house was simple, earned from the hard, steady work of my 6th grade educated grandfather and his wife.  Every summer I’d walk behind my grandpa as he tended to the small garden beside his house.  I can still smell the tomatoes and the soil and see his gnarled up hands from arthritis reach out for the smallest of weeds.  It reminded him of his early days, a husband and a father, working on another man’s farm to make money.  These summer visits, I’d sit under the big tree in his yard on the cheerful colored metal lawn chairs that felt cold on my skin.  I’d listen to his stories and run my toes through the thick grass that felt like carpet and wonder how he got it that way.  And I’d imagine what he was telling me in pictures in my mind.  The screen door of the kitchen hissed open and shut as my grandma came out to join us, tucking her ever present kleenex in her house dress pocket.  These times felt like childhood and it filled me up full.

July 20th was on a Sunday.  We’d been to church that day and I sat next to grandpa and listened to his shakey voice belt out the hymns he loved.  We’d had relatives over in the afternoon.  I went to bed that evening content.  And only marginally aware of what else was going on in the world.  At 10:00 p.m.  my daddy burst into the room to wake me up.  The first man on the moon was about to step out of the lunar module and he wanted me to see it as it happened.  I went into the living room, chilly from crawling out from under the covers and curled up sleepy on the couch.  My dad was so jazzed, so excited, so present in the world.  He stood amazed at life.  I barely remember going back to bed or if I fell asleep and was carried back.  But I woke up the next morning and smelled sausage and coffee and looked forward to the day.  And the beat went on.

Yesterday, I took my daughter to see First Man; the movie telling the story of Neil Armstrong.  We gripped each others’ hands tight and thought we couldn’t breathe when things went wrong in the rocket.  We learned that Mr. Armstrong had lost a little girl a few years before, and he thought of her as he stood in the moon dust.  And as I sat in that dark movie theatre, a wave of emotion washed itself up onto my shore and I was surprised by my tears.  The memories flashed and disappeared into the next with that whooshing sound from the movies when things warp by in your mind too fast to hold onto.  My July 20th, 1969 collided with Neil Armstrong and a silent snapshot abruptly halted my mind.  It’s my dad, standing in front of the t.v., dressed in his black pants and white undershirt, turning from me to the t.v. screen and back again, excited to share the man on the moon with me.  And I suddenly realized what a treasure that night was for us all.

Thank you,  Mr. Armstrong.  Thank you, dad, for waking me up for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz01MkVczjY