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Anniversaries, and who we were

Tex

Senior Registered
September… always September.

It is always complicated. Throughout my life, from a health point of view, mid-September is a myriad of pains, illnesses, and uncomfortable situations.

It is as if spiritual memory has its marks on that date, and this year has been no exception. After a week marked by incomprehensible pains, phantom illnesses, and general malaise… Then, one day peace came. This year I was not aware of the date. I only became aware of it a few days later.

With John, a few days ago we visited our old Parachute Brigade. I have always had an invisible connection with him. We were born in the same city, almost 15 years apart. In 1971 he jumped out of planes at the same airfield that I did between 1983 and 84. My last jump was in September 84, when a car accident almost killed me, after my 18th birthday. My last jump was in the third week of September of that year, around the 17th of that month. After that jump, a time of darkness and depression came to me, lasting years.

This weekend, John returned to visit his city, and we met to chat for a while, over a coffee. After coffee, we left, and almost without thinking too much, we passed by the air field. He had not returned to this place since the early 70s. I had not returned since 1984.

It was a trip back in time. I saw myself again as a 17-year-old boy, in the places that were mine in those years. The places where I folded the parachute before jumping, where we prepared the jumps, the place where we boarded the planes. The moments of debriefing with the instructor, evaluating the jump we just made.

It was a strange feeling… as if I had been granted the grace to see again, for a very brief moment, a day of my life in that distant 1984.

Two days later, traveling to a nearby city, while driving accompanying my friend Robert to the doctor (Also him a former paratrooper in the late 70s), talking to him I had a moment of true astonishment, when I became aware of the dates.

September 21, 2024, when we went with John to visit the Parachute Brigade in our city, exactly 40 years after that last jump I made in September 1984, exactly 80 years after that September 20, 1944, when my friend Daniel, after jumping for the last time over the skies of Holland, gave his life.

I do not believe in coincidences. Sometimes we are so distracted that we are not able to see the common thread. In this case, it was enough to "do my best" helping a friend who needs a driver, taking him to the doctor. That simple act to help other, and a random talk, for a brief moment created a space of consciousness, when the dates aligned, as if we were back at the door of a C47, ready to jump out of the plane. A moment when a "light" appeared between the underlying clouds, allowing the alignment of the launching and the landing zone.

All this was like going to visit Daniel in Margraten, in Holland, together with my present day comrades, to pay my respects on the cross of his grave. There we left three invisible coins on that cross. It is an old military tradition, when you go to visit one of your fallen comrades in combat in the cemetery, to leave a coin on his tombstone. My coin was a "quarter". It means that he was visited by someone who fought alongside him, and who was with him at the time of his death. To be precise, I died with him 80 years ago on the streets of Son. Today, I remembered him with my former brothers in arms. We just returned to his place, even if physically we are more than ten thousand miles away from The Netherlands. After 80 years, Dan is still, in essence, part of my current self.

PS:
John, a 17 years old skydiver in 1971
Robert, an 18 y/o paratrooper in 1979
Myself, a 17 y/o skydiver in 1984
Daniel, a 17 years old paratrooper of the 101st, who died in Holland in 1944
 
This is impressive to read, Tex. Thanks to people like you, I live in a free country today. I'd like to thank you for your sacrifice in the past.

This is another realization of how interconnected we all are. You gave your life, and many of your comrades, for an ideal and for a future for the generations to come. People you didn't know by then. Nowadays it is so 'normal' to live in peace. I mean, here in the Netherlands. I am well aware that this is absolutely not the case for so many people who live in war zones at this very moment.
 
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Tex! As someone who's had lives in WWII, I find your story a compelling read. ^_^

September… always September.

It is always complicated. Throughout my life, from a health point of view, mid-September is a myriad of pains, illnesses, and uncomfortable situations.

It is as if spiritual memory has its marks on that date, and this year has been no exception. After a week marked by incomprehensible pains, phantom illnesses, and general malaise… Then, one day peace came. This year I was not aware of the date. I only became aware of it a few days later.

For me, the anniversary is late May and early June every year and fades off about mid June. From a health point of view, for many years when my memories first surfaced, I was getting a myriad of pains, illnesses and uncomfortable situations. I literally couldn't go anywhere without pain. The first year's anniversary, I spent most of it curled up in bed crying because the pain was so bad (like it was when I was wounded). It was all my wounds flaring up again in all the same places. I look back and see that it was foolish of me to try and "continue living life" by going to work etc, etc during these anniversaries and as the years wore on, I learned to honour myself and my past self during them. Once I did that, they became easier and easier. It was almost like my past self's cry for help and when I didn't acknowledge them, I was effectively not acknowledging myself as a soul.

From my own experience, I am under the impression that we do have spiritual memory of certain dates. While almost 7-8 years later the dates do not affect me as much as they used to, sometimes if I am not careful it does creep up on me. I tend to focus on healing the root cause where the pain of my injuries originated from and then worked forwards (yes forwards not backwards) from there. In the earlier anniversaries, I sometimes subconsciously held certain parts of my body where I was wounded because that's where I felt the pain. I'd instantly snap back to the present and think "why am I holding myself like this?" and let go.

This year (2024), was the first year that I'd truly felt peace from the anniversary. I'm not sure if it was because I was actually staying in the city where it happened and I allowed myself to explore all the places so I could grieve and heal, or whether it was from previous healing, I still don't know. But what I do know is that for whatever reason, my soul is still firmly connected to some historical events and anniversaries, that I have intimate memories of them and no matter what people say, it's important that I honour no one but myself and that the truth of what happened and what I endured is etched in my soul and no one can tell me otherwise. That the anniversaries are personal to me and me only - no one else.

Eva x
 
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This is impressive to read, Tex. Thanks to people like you, I live in a free country today. I'd like to thank you for your sacrifice in the past.

This is another realization of how interconnected we all are. You gave your life, and many of your comrades, for an ideal and for a future for the generations to come. People you didn't know by then. Nowadays it is so 'normal' to live in peace. I mean, here in the Netherlands. I am well aware that this is absolutely not the case for so many people who live in war zones at this very moment.
Thanks Firefly!
A few years ago, in early 90's, I had opportunity to live in Europe for two years, studying at an international school (postgraduate). We were from all around the world. One of the students, born in the Netherlands (he was one of the youngest at the school) use to treat me as his blood brother. I was amazed. Him and his family, when they came to visit him, treated me as part of their family. At that time I was amazed for his behavior. With the years I realized why (even more, not being an american in my current life). I don't know how we are connected at that spiritual level, but that connection is more than real.
Daniel and thousands more gave their lives for people who were struggling under a huge burden. Today we are invited to learn how build bridges, rather than conquer or destroy them. I think we have a golden opportunity in our current lives to build that reality, even if current circumstances are dangerously approaching to the old known patterns of destruction.
I hope we can see all this once we end this cycle, and after evaluating what we lived, programing our next tour of duty, being builders of peace.
 
I sometimes subconsciously held certain parts of my body where I was wounded because that's where I felt the pain.
Hi Eva!
The current pain of old wounds is a constant for me. I still feel those wounds with all kinds of consequences in the present. Although I am very aware of where they came from and the time frame in which they were generated, today I can still feel the consequences of the explosion in front of us, and the debris wounding me and my comrades. When I was a boy, at six or seven, my father used to sit by my bed, trying to calm a soldier screaming in his son's body. Night after night, screams of despair. Now, that has subsided, but some pain is still with me, and I think it will continue to be here until I am gone.
 
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