Cold triggers memories of battles old and new
I complain about the cold a great deal less than my neighbors do. I have a different measure. I spent most of the winter of 1944-45 outdoors during the Battle of the Bulge.
Each year memories of those distant years move closer, crowding out the present. These days I can't remember why I went to the kitchen, but I can remember the night I lay on the hood of an Army truck in an ice storm using my forearm as a windshield wiper.
I remember seeing a circle of GIs the first day we got near the front, and when I edged into the circle I saw they were all standing around a tiny can of Sterno with its strange blue, short-lived flame. I remember the warmth of the winter sun and the fear of the moonlight that exposed us as we fought in the Ardennes. I remember how grateful I was to find a great square pile of steaming dung that I could cuddle up to for warmth.
Combat taught me how quickly the human animal can adapt to an unnatural act: running toward machine gun fire because the barrel rises when fired and it is safer to mover closer, where the bullets might fly over your head, than move away, where you might be more vulnerable.
Our physical feats still amaze me -- paratroopers stepping out of an airplane, going days without sleep, the adrenaline rush that propelled us up a steep river bank under fire.
Even more amazing was our mental ability to adapt to cold, fear, loneliness. Except in the movies, infantrymen keep a distance between each of them as a defense against mortar fire or an arching grenade.
Then I hear Minnie Mae's curse of rage and frustration seconds before the familiar thump of her fall, the second of the day. She has spent years longer in battle against Parkinson's than I spent in combat. She has had no furlough, no leave, no possibility of an armistice or truce.
I watch her cooking dinner with admiration and terror. She staggers about the kitchen with a series of handholds that are so familiar I hardly see them anymore.
They are all self-taught, the solutions a human has found to an increasing lack of balance. She has adapted and so have I, since holding hands, still a sign of affection, is also a necessity for Minnie Mae to cross a sidewalk or get to the john just down the hall.
As in other wars, the mental adaptation is a challenge. We have to prepare for the future while not dwelling on it. We have to deal with Minnie Mae's belief that I changed all the clocks in the world, which is what has put her in a different time zone than everyone else.
She has to adjust to the changing limits of her world, and so do I. I had cooked before we were married 52 years ago, but after that, the kitchen was her domain; now we both have to decide how much I will "help," as acts that were once done with physical ease and without confusion have become part of an exhausting and often chaotic world.
These days the changes seem to be marked more by weeks than years or seasons, but when I stand back and watch the movie of our daily life, I am impressed with how well we have adapted to a cruel reality.
I fear the next test but am confident that when the next change takes place, we will find some way to live with it. As I did so many years ago when I fought cold, fear, and enemy fire in a world in which we were surprised to survive.
