World History

with my then 78 year old mother. Dad passed away in 2000; he had been in the Army Air Corps and was training as an engineer. Then in 1943, he caught scarlet fever, that turned into rheumatic fever and damaged his heart valves, and got him a medical discharge. (Tough guy, to survive for 57 years with a damaged heart - that ended up as the cause of his death. But I digress!)

What really got to me was listening to my Mom talk about the war, for the first time that I really remember. About the young men who trained near her home, on Seneca Rocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Rocks), to prepare for the assault on Italy. About some of Dad's friends who were in the assault on Normandy, and about the one friend who didn't come back.

It was sobering, and emotional, and a wonderful way for me to get to know Mom as a person and not just my mother.