A Deadlier Time

“Echoes of a deadlier time”

That headline in the Dallas Morning News was followed by a subhead: “Swine flu fears are fading, but specter of 1918 epidemic still haunts health officials.”

My grandfather, Lyle Worstell McDonald, died in the 1918 flu epidemic. One death among millions. All I know about Lyle McDonald was that he had red hair and played the trombone in the Rockwall band, and my mother adored him.

We can speculate about what might have happened if Lyle McDonald had survived. That would be pointless. What happened, happened. All we can do is see what came afterwords.

At age 10 my mother lost her father, and my grandmother lost her husband. The death of the young man – he was barely 30 – was an event over which no one had any control, and it shaped the rest of their lives.

The young widow, with only a sewing machine and few skills, became dependent on relatives for the rest of her life. My grandmother had “her girls”, nieces she cared for. She felt rewarded when the three became happy, successful women, and each achieved long, happy marriages. As for herself, she lived to be 89. She never remarried.

My mother grew up totally lacking in self-confidence, believing she was ugly and unattractive and doing good deeds as if that was the only way she could prove her worth to others. Would she have been different if she had a father to encourage her, to recognize her beauty and charm? She had two devoted husbands, my father for 55 years, and Tom, whom she married at age 85! She had a sweetness which charmed everyone, even as an old woman.

We mourn lives cut short: My grandfather dead of the flu. He never saw his daughter marry that good man, my father. He never saw his son become a successful engineer. He never knew his grandchildren or great-grandchildren. But the women survived.

We mourn young men killed in wars we never should have fought in Vietnam and Iraq. Fathers who will never know their children. Boys so young they never had the opportunity to become fathers. But the women survive. They always do.

What makes a successful life, anyway? I know what it is NOT. It is not making a lot of money or having a prestigious career. Everyone needs a decent income to provide a home and food and clothes. It is nice to have a washing machine, air-conditioning, and a dishwasher. Other than that? A family? Maybe not. We need other people to love and be loved. Those people are not necessarily our biological parents or our spouses or our children