Navy days

Lyle Harris (L) and Lloyd Harris (R)  1943 or '44

The three Harris brothers from Chattanooga, Jimmie, Lyle, and Lloyd, were all in the Navy at the same time.  Maybe Jimmie took this picture at some point when the three of them met on a break?  Carlene thinks this was taken in San Diego or New Orleans before Lyle shipped out and before my daddy got his uniform.

After a super-healthy, but too-short life, my daddy was admitted to the hospital for stomach pains fourteen years ago.  Eight days later, July 30th,  marks my saddest anniversary ever, the day he died in Intensive Care from pneumonia caused by aspirating fluids during emergency surgery.

He was eighty years old and my parents had been married for 57 good years.

It's a wonderful thing to be the daughter of a man who never raised his voice, a man who loved telling jokes and making quips, a man who always had his arm around one of us--as well as anyone else he liked.  Like me, he always took a nap after lunch.  "I don't care if the President walks in, I'm taking my nap!" he said.  But if the President had walked in, he'd most likely have woken up to say, "Hide the pie!" even if there was no pie to hide.

Mike and I are playing the music he loved and dancing.  He's never far from my heart.  I wish he were here in person, though, to meet Mike.  I wish he could see this waif of a little house he and Carlene bought for me when I was newly single, a house now filled with bright colors, music and memories of him.  I wish he could see how tall and full the crepe myrtles he planted have grown, bright pink and beautiful.