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
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
