The absolute last thing I expected to hear when I spoke to dad on the phone was that Charles had died. I knew he was old, absolutely, but Alma's health was failing more quickly. I didn't even give thought to when I expected him to go...so I guess he was at the bottom of the list of "Expected upcoming mortalities," behind Alma and Uncle Bob.
But it was quick and I am incredibly thankful. Charles loved to be the center of attention and in some "dry humor" kind of way, I think this was exactly what he would have wanted. He had a meal mom had cooked and was sitting, playing cards with his wife, mom and dad. No hospital. No dragging him back. Everyone around him stopped and saw him leave this world. His shoulder hurt and he was gone. His faithful old heart just stopped.
He would have been 92 in September. He was born in 1916.
Let us milk that: He was born in 1916. He met Alma when they were kids (she was eight and he was ten). He moved away but, in his own words, "Never forgot that little girl." He asked her out by slipping up to the back door of her workplace and saying, "I thought you'd like a cup of coffee after work or something?" He married Alma on December 7, 1940. You know, Pearl Harbor? That was their first anniversary.
He was in the army. He enlisted several months after Pearl Harbor. He went in thinking he'd sign his paperwork and have a couple of days to say goodbye before shipping out. He left to enlist and didn't come home for three years; he was whisked away. He was anti-aircraft. He shot planes out of the sky for three years. He marched from North Africa to Italy, Italy to France, France to Germany.
He came home safely and started a company, hauling/dump trucks, and took care of Alma. Her health has always been fragile, she had
rheumatic fever and a damaged heart as a result, and he treasured her. She never held a job after they got married. She never got a driver's license. He took her everywhere and anywhere she wanted to go. Ever. He took her out every day so she wouldn't feel housebound.
I came along after he'd retired, when he was still spry and in his seventies, so I know of his life of leisure. He took her to Florida every winter, in an airstream trailer he pulled, because the warmth was better for her heart. He took her fishing on a boat he bought her. He took her on month long vacations in every one of the 48 contiguous states. He kept the land her grandparents built a homestead on, the land her
great-grandparents claimed after traveling across the plains in a covered wagon. He tended the land and fields, took her into the forests on that land whenever she wanted to find inspiration for her painting. He spent untold hours at art and craft shows letting (revolutionary at the time) and helping Alma sell her paintings. When Alma's sister was widowed, she moved in with them. He paid for her health care until she died in my home. She was in her nineties, as well. He never said a word about the burden or expense of an Alzheimer-cursed sister. I think every thing he did was for Alma. He simpered over animals, though I never saw him with a pet, and he adored every pet I ever had.
Early in his life Charles Smock chose the path he wanted his life to follow--Alma's.
You can't tell Charles' story without telling Alma's. They entwined their lives so completely that you can't separate them. He lay his allegiances at the foot his partner. And so they lived for the 67 years they were married. They were together till the very bitter end, when his faculties had left him, and Alma loved him. She loved him when he'd gotten lost in dementia--when he spewed hateful things out of confusion, she heard whispered pledges of love. He spent so long loving her that nothing could drive that from her mind, not even him. She was his life and he was hers.
And really, isn't that what we all want? What we hope for? To find that person that will love us until the day we die? No matter what?
He found it and he spent
his whole life with that person.
I am sad he's gone and startled that it happened so very quickly...but I can't
truly mourn a life spent so happily.
May we all have that happiness.
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