I was born on June 6th, D-Day. Not just any D-Day, but the D-Day. That makes us both 80 years old. I think there will be fireworks.
I entered this world at 2 pm in the afternoon. It was 11 pm in France and my father had hours earlier, set foot on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France with his piece of the Evacuation Hospital tent that was to be constructed behind front lines.
He had waded through hundreds of dead bodies in bloodied water only to be ordered to withdraw onto a large floating barge just off-shore that was set up as a makeshift medic station. The army had brought another barge alongside where the dead were shuffled so the medics would have room to care for the living. My father was one of the medics who helped the wounded and toe-tagged many of the deceased soldiers.
Meanwhile, my mother, a young eighteen-year-old was engaged in her own personal battle—childbirth. She huffed, puffed and pushed her first child into the world.
I was born in the Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital in Glendale, CA. In the late afternoon of that day, my mother looked out of her window in the maternity bungalow onto a whimsical zoo that had been set up some two decades before to entertain those in the Sanitarium wing while they detoxed, relaxed, and rejuvenated from the stress and abuses in their lives. Large cages sat on manicured lawns surrounded by beautifully kept gardens. There were macaws, parrots, monkeys, including a pair of acrobatic chimpanzees who regularly spit on observers, and a mysterious black panther who paced back and forth in his prison. An elegant long-tailed peacock strutted about on the lawn. The zoo was intended to distract the wealthy from their frayed nerves as they strolled and healed.
When she regained her composure that afternoon, my mother noticed that the hospital hallway was aflutter with excitement. Her mother was a department head administrator, so she thought everyone must have heard that she had just given her mother her first grandchild. At first, she smiled, feeling proud. However, she soon realized that the commotion was over the horrific reports beginning to trickle in from The Battle of Normandy where thousands of U.S. troops, their allies and enemies died that day.
Soldiers in colossal numbers died and were wounded on D-Day. Soldier’s children were born in higher numbers that day due to the soldier’s drive and desire to leave a part of themselves on this earth before they departed for war.
So many souls left this sphere that day. So many souls entered this sphere that day. I was one of them.
