April 5 is Easter Sunday and a day for family,
Easter services, and celebration. We will greet people with Happy Easter wishes
and pause to remember why we are celebrating.
This date holds a different significance to me. On
this day in my personal history, Sunday, April 5, 1970, Jim returned home after
his tour of duty in Vietnam. We celebrated the day annually and though during
the hustle-bustle of the Christmas season, we once forgot our anniversary, we
never forgot the homecoming day.
Jim and I married in December during his R&R
and my biggest fear was that something would happen to him before his scheduled
return in May. It was good news when we learned that due to troop withdrawals,
he would be coming home a month earlier.
Excerpt from Indelible (unpublished memoir
about Jim):
Jim’s
parents and I arrived at the Kansas City airport hours ahead of time. It was
April 5, 1970, and Jim was on his way home from Vietnam. He was supposed to
come home on the fourth, but after an anxious day waiting for a call that
didn’t come, his parents and I had spent a restless night worried that
something had happened to him on his last day in Nam.
The
next morning, he called. He explained that the airport was under attack the day,
and they wouldn’t let the planes leave. “We kept saying, just go!” After eleven
months of expecting to be blown to bits at any moment, he thought the odds were
better to just get the hell out of there.
We
stood outside waiting for the passengers to disembark. I was wearing a long
psychedelic patterned polyester blouse over a short royal blue pleated skirt.
The blouse covered the baby bump.
A
crowd of people awaited the plane and the arrival of loved ones. From our
excitement, they knew we were there to meet a returning soldier. Airport
personnel let me go out in front of everyone and across the do-not-cross line.
Jim stepped off the plane and pushed his way past the other passengers to grab
me up in his arms. He was home at last!
Years later when Jim was in the special care unit
of the nursing home, I always remembered the date and tried to make it special
in some way. I didn’t remind Jim of the date because I was afraid that he would
be upset.
Sometimes, I couldn’t help but be depressed although
Jim had risked his life for his country, he was confined behind locked doors
because of a brain disease. I broke him out on a regular basis. We went for
walks in the park, to DQ for chicken strips or milkshakes, to our home, drives
around town, and later, walks in the facility’s hallway and wheelchair rides
around the parking lot.
In the midst of Easter celebrations, I will
remember the day as Homecoming too. I am the only one to remember the joy of that
day in 1970 and how good it was to have Jim safely home.
Copyright © April 2026 by L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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