Somebody's Darling

My Dad, Harold Lafleur, won the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart in WW II. During the Battle of the Bulge 93% of his company were killed or wounded during 3 weeks of almost constant fighting.


Marie la Coste was born in 1842 in France. She moved to Savannah Georgia with her parents. Her fiance, a Confederate officer, was killed in combat early in the war. Marie began to visit wounded soldiers. One day in 1863 she saw a young man brought in who was not expected to live. That experience prompted her to write the poem, "Somebody's Darling". Although she never expected to share it the poem was published in 1864 and became an instant favorite. Later it was rewritten as a song lyric and set to music. It is recorded and performed to this day and often performed at memorials and other gatherings to honor those who have served their country. Knowing of her personal loss makes the words all the more poignant.


SOMEBODY’S DARLING
by Marie Ravenal de la Coste

Into a ward of the white washed walls,
Where the dead and dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.

Somebody’s darling so young and brave
Wearing yet on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow;
Pale are the lips of delicate mold -
Somebody’s darling is dying now.

Back from the beautiful blue-veined brow
Brushed all the wandering waves of gold;
Cross his hands on his bosom now;
Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from it’s fair mates take;
They were somebody’s pride you know.

Somebody’s hand has rested there;
Was it a mother’s soft and white?
And have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in the waves of light?

God knows best! He was somebody’s love,
Somebody’s heart enshrined him there.
Somebody wafted his name above,
Night and morn on the wings of prayer.

Somebody wept when he marched away,
Looking so handsome brave and grand;
Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay;
Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head,
“Somebody’s darling slumbers here.”

"We'll be friends forever!"

When Donald, my youngest child, was 2 1/2 I built him a bedroom in the eaves of our house in Nashville. He's slept in our room prior to that. He never really liked sleeping alone and so I would lay down with him at night till he fell asleep and then I'd go back to my bedroom. During that time we acquired a toy cassette player and some children's cassettes. One of them was, "The Fox and the Hound", by Disney. In the story a young fox, Tod, and a young hound, Copper, meet in childhood and the story follows them to adulthood when their different lives leave them estranged from one another. When they are still youngsters the fox asks the hound, "We'll be friends forever, won't we?" and the hound assures him they will. The final scene in the film shows the fox, now wild, with his mate on a hill above the farm where the hound lives. The final words of the tape version are the narrator saying something along the lines of, "You could almost hear the voice of a young fox telling a young hound, 'Copper, we'll be friends forever." Donald loved this story and we would listen to it every night. One night he turned to me and he said, "Dad, we'll be friends forever." It was one of those wonderful moments as a parent. Well if you know us you know that Don and I are indeed still very close friends.
While I was at Disney I came upon a shop where you could have different characters from their movies drawn by a Disney artist. They also allow you to personalize the drawings. In the catalog of hundreds of different pictures you could choose from was one from, "The Fox and the Hound", of a young Tod and a young Copper. I had the artist draw it and then put the words above, "We'll be friends forever." Best souvenir I think I ever bought.

Quantifying things that suck

This past week I've had some serious drama at work, my basement flooded and my roof leaked (we had 10 inches of rain and 70 mph winds). It has been trying. But when I compare it to the sadness and loneliness I live with daily it all seems very tolerable. At one time stuff like this would have put me over the edge emotionally but I just took it in stride. We had some water leaking at work too and someone said, "It could be worse." I immediately replied, "Yeah, it isn't cancer." Everyone looked puzzled but I knew exactly what I meant.
There is a song that Fantine sings early in "Les Mis". A couple of the verses really speak to how I feel most of the time. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and every year I would buy Mary, Donald, Lisa and my mother-in-law something Irish-ish to celebrate. Now it is just another day to terribly miss the love of my life and the apple of my eye.
Sorry this note is so depressing.


I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Middle of the night, again

Ever since I was in my 30's I've had disturbed sleep. Prior to that I slept deeply and without disturbance. Occasionally I would have those times when I just could not sleep because I was so excited about something and just had to tend to it. That happened even when I was an adolescent. The pattern I suffer with now is different.
My normal routine is to watch TV or surf the internet in the evenings till I get sleepy, generally between 11 PM and midnight. I fall asleep and wake around 6:30 or 7 AM. But when I have stuff cluttering up my brain I can't fall asleep or I wake up at odd hours and can't fall back to sleep. What stuff, you might ask? Work related drama, home renovation issues, my PhD work and the rise and fall of my sadness and loneliness at the loss of my wife of 29 years in late 2007 to breast cancer.
Tonite is a perfect example. Had trouble falling asleep and here it is 4:15 and I've been awake almost an hour. Not sleepy in the least. Had trouble sleeping last night. At 55 I can't go without sleep like I once did. Oh, a single bad night isn't impossible to compensate for. But string a few of these spotty sleep pattern nights and I'm close to worthless.
My weight does not help. I'm close to 300 lbs and I'm only 5' 11". My grief accounts for close to 1/3 of that and I hope and pray I'll get back to my "normal" weight one day. But I have sleep apnea and weight exacerbates that.