Karen Jones - Forgiven

 

Good evening. In early November of 1968, I had just returned home from my high school powderpuff football practice, worn out, but with enough energy to corner my dad and ask him to come to my football game that weekend. My dad did his usual. He shook his head no and walked out of the room. But this time I followed, and I said, "Dad, do you realize you've never been to any of my school functions for my entire life? I really want you to come to my game. This is really important to me." And he shook his head, no. [chuckles] And I started to cry. I never cried. I was tough, and my dad knew it, but he was tougher, and he walked out of the room.

 

So, the weekend came. As I was running out the door to go to my football game, I said to my dad, "Are you going to make it?" He muttered, "I'll try." So, on the football field, I'm looking at the bleachers in the crowd, and I'm scanning like a raptor. I see my dad. My heart soars, adrenaline is flooding my body, and I play like I've never played before. My name and number 88 echo over the loudspeaker over and over again. 

 

And right around the second quarter, it had turned dark and cold and started to snow. I look in the bleachers and my dad's gone. I look down the sidelines and he's walking away. So, I sprint down the field and I said-- I'm yelling, "Dad. Dad, don't leave." He stops and turns around and looks at me with this vacant, hollowed stare that he always had and walks away. I don't remember any more about the game. It was a blur.

 

When I got home that night, I do remember that my dad was passed out on his chair with his best friend Jack Daniels next to him. I covered him up with a blanket and I went to bed. I never thought about that [chuckles] until I was writing for my dad's memorial. And every thought I had, every memory I had of my dad was painful and disappointment. So, I called my older brother and I told him I was struggling. He said, "Yeah, I am, too." And at the end of the conversation, he said, "You know, Karen, Dad was only 16 years old when he entered World War II." 

 

I knew my dad had fought in the front lines of the Battle of the Bulge. So, I typed Battle of the Bulge into the search engine, and I learned that my dad fought in a battle that was 40 miles wide and 60 miles deep with 500,000 German soldiers and 600,000 American soldiers. And he fought through Christmas time with very little relief, very little supplies. And there were thousands and thousands of casualties on both sides. My dad smelled, heard, and saw things that to this day I can never comprehend.

 

And then, I read what John Eisenhower wrote, a great historian. He wrote, "In the crucible of the battle, a possible allied defeat was transformed into a victory. And it broke the back of Hitler's war machine. And those that served and accomplished this great feat deserve to be recognized in America's great. America's great." And I started to cry. I weeped for a long, long time. I thought about that night at the football game [chuckles] and how it had started to snow and it turned cold, a trigger for my dad's PTSD.

 

And the crowd, my dad hated crowds. He must have had his fill of those 500,000 German soldiers and 600,000 American soldiers. And noises, the cheering of the crowd. My dad was really sensitive to loud noises. So, thinking about that night, I realized that both my dad and I at 17 were on a battlefield. [chuckles] Me fighting for my dad's love and my dad fighting for his life. The difference was I was dodging players while my dad was dodging bullets. We're both teenagers. In the cold snow, I went home to a warm bed, not realizing that my dad had slept on the ground in the cold snow for many months. 

 

It took me a long time to realize that my dad had stepped back onto that battlefield for me that night. It must have taken a lot of courage for him to do that and a huge heap of love. I don't have any bad memories of my dad anymore. They're gone from my cells, and I think it's transformed from the memory of that game. Thank you.