The Family
He only family that I have ever called my own as my long-time military buddy, his wife, and his children. There was one child that was special to me. His eldest daughter, Jessie, had inquisitive and piercing blue eyes and a rapacious appetite for facts about life in general and my private life. She wanted to know my feelings and desires and every detail of my life on Saint Francis, especially my home. Her piercing eyes focusing on me, combined with her incessantly touching my hands, was often embarrassing. Simple handholding became gentle stroking on the back of my hands and arms.
When she was little, she would always jump into my lap and talk nonstop for what seemed like hours but were just excruciatingly long minutes interrupted only by her parents’ injunction to “let your u
