ABSTRACT

Growing up in a military family, we were always aware of the possibility of loss and the risks in the world, to my father in particular. Military children are always alert to every military training event and to the news on television, radio, and in the newspapers. One is aware that the events in the news may touch your own family and that it has touched the families that your parents know. Born in Heidelberg, Germany, shortly after World War II while my father was assigned there, I heard of the effects of war as seen by my parents and my older sister as a part of the family stories—the unexpected good events and the losses and destruction. My parents taught us that people were always good; events could be bad, evil, or even deadly. But the challenge was to find how to understand the person from across the ocean or across the street from his or her vantage point. Both of my parents suffered losses in childhood, and I marveled at how they had made their lives and dedicated them to values close to their hearts and histories.