To get to the funny, I have to start with the serious.
My dad has Parkinson’s disease, something he possibly contracted from exposure to contaminated water at Camp LeJeune. This is heartbreaking on many levels, not the least of which is Camp LeJeune’s role in our family history.
Located in North Carolina, Camp LeJeune is a short drive to one of the many islands that make up the Outer Banks. Through his duty at Camp LeJeune, my dad discovered what an amazing vacation spot the Outer Banks can be for a newly wedded Marine and his bride.
Our family vacationed there every year when I was growing up. And let’s be honest. I exist because of Camp LeJeune and the Outer Banks. We all know I was conceived there.
Hey. If I have to forever have that image in my head, so do you.
The good news is this exposure means my dad is eligible for veteran’s disability. The bad news is I’m the one handling his application. And that’s where the fun begins.
In clearing out Willie and Indy’s house, my dad and I located his Marine Corps paperwork. I was given temporary ownership of these documents, with the directive I was not to lose, damage, or alter said paperwork in any way. Obtaining replacements would be a Sisyphean effort.
I sort of did lose them for a bit, but that’s a story for another day.
Arriving home with my treasure, I carefully tucked the papers away in a special spot on my desk. I would like to say here that my grandmother owned a desk with secret cubbyholes. When she died, my aunt got the desk, my mom the desk chair.
A desk with secret cubbyholes is pretty badass. I called dibs on both the desk and chair. When everyone dies, they’re mine.
Happily, although Willie didn’t die her need for the chair did. It now resides in my dining room.
The desk is still with my aunt. I don’t want her to die, but a desk with secret cubbyholes would be pretty awesome for sequestering 70-year-old paperwork.
Once Willie and Indy were all moved in, I went to work on applying for Indy’s disability. First, I needed access to Indy’s online military benefit portal. But Indy doesn’t do the internet. To gain access I needed Willie.
I made an appointment with my parents. That sounds ridiculous but if I don’t do it that way – and remind them I’m coming – I will never catch up with them. Especially Willie. She’s like a shark. If she stops moving, she dies.
So one fall morning, after dropping the kids at school, I picked up some Starbucks and let myself into Willie and Indy’s apartment.
Willie, of course, wasn’t there.
She’s coming, Indy assured me. She’s coming.
While I waited, I asked Indy if he could hook me up with the WiFi password. His military password. Some water.
I got the water.
Willie swept in, took her coffee, and proceeded to fill me in on her morning when all I really needed was the WiFi password.
Willie has a password vault, a tiny electronic device where she can log her passwords. The vault itself – in an ironic twist – is password protected. Willie pulled up her WiFi password, then explained Indy’s military password wasn’t in the password vault. It was with Indy’s military pension paperwork.
Because a WiFi password is definitely more valuable than a password granting access to a Marine’s entire military history, financials, and social security number.
As Willie pulled the file, she asked why I needed access to Indy’s military portal. For about the one hundred eighty-fifth time I explained I was applying for Indy to get disability through the military.
Willie rolled her eyes and told me he already receives a retirement pension.
So for my one hundred eighty-sixth explanation I went into detail.
Camp Lejeune is home to 170,000 residents – Marines and Navy, active duty, retired, civilian. Between 1953 and 1987, the base groundwater was chemically contaminated. Exposed Marines, Sailors, and their families, living on base for 30 days or more, are possibly at risk for certain diseases. The military pays for the medical costs of these diseases.
Well, Willie said, in that case David needs to apply.
David is my brother, and unarguably Willie’s favorite child. My brother was Army, not USMC or Navy and therefore never stationed at Camp LeJeune. During the dates of contamination he either didn’t exist or was under the age of military recruitment. He also has exactly zero of the diseases caused by the water contamination.
Keep in mind I still didn’t have Indy’s password.
For my one hundred eighty-seventh explanation I included the key information that my brother is in no way eligible for disability benefits. But Indy is, so could I get that password?
Willie proceeded to rifle through her paperwork. Here was a document stating Indy’s monthly retirement pension amount. Did I need that?
No. Just the password.
Oooh! A document about the Camp LeJeune water contamination?
I have that, I told her. I just need the password.
Here was an illegible copy of Indy’s initial USMC paperwork. I definitely need that, don’t I?
Nope. I have the original document and it’s totally legible. I just need the password.
She continued through the paperwork. Did I need Indy’s social? His Medicare card? My brother’s baby hair? A picture of bigfoot? The Holy Grail? Amelia Earhart?
And this is where I tell you everything happens for a reason. I told myself that every day when Willie was sick. I wouldn’t know it that day, or the day after, but someday I’d know why she got so sick. Why she nearly died.
It was so, when I ask her for a password fourteen times, when she offers me ninety-two pieces of paper I don’t need, when she again makes something that’s not about my brother somehow all about my brother, I laugh. I laugh until my sides hurt and Starbucks comes out of my nose. I laugh until Indy laughs. I laugh until Willie laughs.
I laugh, when before I would have killed her and stuffed her in a secret cubbyhole.
I applied for Indy’s benefits. And when the mountain of paperwork came in, Willie and Indy turned to me for help. They didn’t understand what the paperwork said, but I did. They hated to rely on me for this, Willie said. They hated to burden me. But this was my show and they needed my help.
Which is funny because they’re not a burden when they can’t interpret paperwork I generated. They are a burden when they’re not home for a meeting I scheduled and won’t give me a password I need.
I pointed that out to Willie, but she still thinks they’re a burden. She even gave me an envelope, stuffed thick, my name written across the front in Willie’s insect-like scrawl. For days I didn’t open it. I knew what it was. A letter from Willie, telling me how much they hate burdening me, but how grateful they are to have me.
Hey, I’d be grateful to have me too if I made me on a warm afternoon in the Outer Banks.
It was a letter I didn’t want to read. Willie and Indy will never be a burden to me. They were nice to my first boyfriend, the one with all the tattoos. They didn’t freak, even though Erin and I went to South Street and pierced our navels. They let me live, even though I stayed out all night with the pearl necklace Indy gave Willie on their wedding day, the one I promised to have home by ten, midnight at the latest.
Indy doesn’t know about the pierced navel, by the way, so shush. Or tell him, if you have popcorn handy and you want to see me removed from the face of the Earth by the guy who brought me to it.
On an unmade bed in 1970’s North Carolina.
I hate that I know that story.
I would give anything for things to be different. To have parents I feared instead of feared for. To have parents that protected me instead of needing my protection. To just have parents.
My fingers buzzed with the things I couldn’t change as I opened the letter. I gently unfolded it, lay it flat on my plain desk without a single secret cubbyhole in its facade.
Willie had typed the letter, the date at the top. I began to read:
Wendi – here are your lava cakes and the
recipe. Lots went wrong, but they did come
out tasting delicious. However, there is no
lava in the lava cake. Here’s what I did that
did and didn’t work…..
I skimmed the rest of the letter. Eight pages. Chocolate. Ganache. Butter-flavored Pam. Daddy ate one. When they tell you to remove the lava cake from the pan after it cools for only ONE minute, DO IT!
That’s it? Nothing about them being a burden? Me being wonderful? Me being their favorite child ever? This is what I was going to put away in my memory box? Show my kids someday? Cry over?
I mean, let me get this straight. I can’t get a password. I can’t get a touching note from my mother. I can’t even get lava cake with lava in it. But my brother can get disability benefits for a contaminant he wasn’t even exposed to?
Does anyone want to help me confiscate my desk? I have something I need to put in a secret cubbyhole.