{"id":1047,"date":"2021-08-06T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therabbithoel.com\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2021-07-29T20:18:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T00:18:24","slug":"fifty-years-ago-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therabbithoel.com\/?p=1047","title":{"rendered":"Fifty Years Ago Today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCan you be a brave boy for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you\u2019re an eight year old boy there\u2019s really only one answer to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We were standing in Grandma\u2019s kitchen. It was usually a busy place, especially when there was family visiting. And there was a bunch of family &#8211; my aunt and uncle had brought Grandma\u2019s cousin Elanor from Germany out to visit, so they were there, along with their kids. There were other relatives there too. I don\u2019t really recall who, exactly. But it was a pretty full house that night. The place should have been full of noise and laughter, and the kitchen should have been full of people. Earlier that night it had been. But now Mom and I had the room to ourselves. Strange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It had been a chaotic evening. Dad had gotten sick, or something, out on Grandma\u2019s porch, and the ambulance had come to take him to the hospital in Fort Madison, about 12 miles away. That had happened once earlier that summer, and I ended up staying at Grandma\u2019s for a month while Dad was in the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now here we were again, and I figured I would have to stay with Grandma again. But this time her cousin was there too, so I was thinking I would have to spend a month with this imposing German woman who spoke no English. It would take a little courage, for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCan you be a brave boy for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I looked into Mom\u2019s face. Her expression was like nothing I had ever seen. Her eyes were red and puffy, and everything I saw screamed \u201cdistress\u201d in a way that even an eight year old could recognize. I suddenly knew that this was going to be a lot worse than living at Grandma\u2019s for a while. But I was still an eight year old boy, and there was still only one answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYes, mama.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe lost Dad. He\u2019s gone. It\u2019s just us now.\u201d We held one another and wailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And with that, the life we had known came crashing down around us. It was up to Mom and I to build a new one and move forward. I couldn\u2019t be a little boy anymore, and Mom couldn\u2019t be a housewife. Could I be brave enough? Could Mom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Somehow we managed it. I really can\u2019t sum up how hard it was to keep my promise. I can\u2019t imagine how hard it must have been for Mom. But we managed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Time heals all wounds, but the deep ones always leave a scar. Mom and Dad are both gone now, but not a day goes by without thinking of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"629\" height=\"561\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therabbithoel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/mom-dad-and-i-1970.jpg?resize=629%2C561&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1048\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therabbithoel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/mom-dad-and-i-1970.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therabbithoel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/mom-dad-and-i-1970.jpg?resize=300%2C268&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therabbithoel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/mom-dad-and-i-1970.jpg?resize=768%2C685&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><figcaption>Easter, 1970, at Buck and Billie&#8217;s in Fox Lake, IL.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCan you be a brave boy for me?\u201d When you\u2019re an eight year old boy there\u2019s really only one answer to that. We were standing in Grandma\u2019s kitchen. It was usually a busy place, especially when there was family visiting. And there was a bunch of family &#8211; my aunt and uncle had brought Grandma\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Fifty Years Ago Today\n\u201cCan you be a brave boy for me?\u201d\n\nWhen you\u2019re an eight year old boy there\u2019s really only one answer to that.\n\nWe were standing in Grandma\u2019s kitchen.  It was usually a busy place.  But now Mom and I had the room to ourselves.  Strange.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","tag-family-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fifty Years Ago Today - Down the Rabbit Hoel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cCan you be a brave boy for me?\u201d As an eight year old boy, there\u2019s only one answer to that. We were standing in Grandma\u2019s kitchen. 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