Excerpts from
the book |
Leslie
Sanders
Son: Gregory P. Sanders
You can't get more hometown than Hobart, Indiana. Gregory Sanders grew up in what his mother Leslie calls a "Norman Rockwell, Cape Cod house on a tree-lined street. It's so flat in Hobart that you can see for miles in the summer. In the winter when those miles are covered with snow, the moonlight is reflected back up to the sky, brightening up the night.
Trains pass through Hobart, carrying coal and iron ore to the steel mills,
and gigantic rolls of steel back out. You hear the trains more than anything
else there, hear their whistles blowing. You quickly learn that you have
to time your day around them if you have to go to the other side of town.
If you miscalculate by 5 or 10 seconds, it can throw your entire schedule
off. When Greg died, the entire town came to a standstill, as 2,000 friends
and relatives remembered this 19-year-old.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.
Mary
Huxley
Son: Gregory P. Huxley, Jr.
Visitors to the Huxley home in upstate New York tell them, "You're living
out in the boonies!" It's deceptive, having 15 houses out in front on the
same street... the Huxley house sits on five acres and has a backyard that
stretches all the way to the Black River, providing a peaceful flowing,
reassuring sound at night. Greggy, as Mary still calls him, used to walk
out the back door, a towel or a fishing pole over his shoulder, and stroll
down to the river for a day of swimming or fishing. If it was a nice evening,
he's just walk out the back door, pitch a tent, and sleep in the large backyard.
The Huxley family often sat out there around a bonfire near Greggy's "camp
site" with their two-story house obscuring the few street lights, allowing
them to sit, listen to the river, and watch sparks rise up to the heavens.
It's a region of the country where it snows six months out of the year.
Mary tells the story of how she once had to shovel a foot of snow off the
sidewalk on Halloween, so she could take Greggy and his brother and sisters
out trick-or-treating. It sometimes snows as late as April, as it did on
Greg's funeral, snowflakes falling gently on the casket of a boy Mary, until
she dies, will remember as 19-year-old Greggy.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.
Karen
Long
Son: Zachariah W. Long
There's something special about growing up on a 47-acre farm in Pennsylvania. The smell of freshly cut hay and corn-you remember that all your life. Every time you see a small boy playing on a farm you pass, it comes back to you. You remember a little boy who used to lie down in the fields after the sun set. A little boy who saw every star that was ever born. A moon that was so bright, he could walk from the farmhouse to the barn without a flashlight.
It's a two-story farmhouse, where Zach grew up, back from the road, with
a tree-lined driveway leading up to the house. Barn in the back, with tractors
and farm equipment well within sight. Zach had toy tractors on his dresser
upstairs, toys that remain there to this day.
....(read more)
.
Amelia
Estrella
Son: Ruben Estrella-Soto Jr.
(en
Español)
He grew up in a very simple house in El Paso, Texas. It was all that the
family could afford after migrating from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Small, but
very sunny...full of bright light from the house's many windows. It had
a front yard for Ruben and his brother and sister to play in...a very quiet
neighborhood populated mostly by elderly people who, as they slowly strolled
past it, smiled at the little children playing in the yard next door It
was a childhood parents long to give to their children.
Five years before Ruben joined the military, the family moved to a larger,
roomier house. Nothing fancy, but on a lot large enough for a flagpole.
On September 11, 2001, Ruben's mother flew a flag from that pole. Ruben
was only 15 at the time, but maybe he already knew. "Mom, what will you
do when they bring you my flag?" "You shouldn't be joking about that, Ruben."
"Mom, my flag will be huge."
....(read more)
Pam
Halling
Son: Jesse M. Halling
Jesse was born near
heaven in Salt Lake City, skiing by the age of four in the mountains above
the city. Up on the slopes you can just smell the air ... crisp... crisp
and clean. It has almost a freshly washed scent to it... a scent mothers
who've lost their sons remember for the rest of their lives. At night in
Salt Lake, as a four- and five-year-old, Jesse would go out on the deck
of his family's house and look at the stars, and dream of flying, turning
his crayons to his paper spread out on the deck, and drawing fighter jets.
When older, living for a time in San Francisco, away from the city lights,
his mother would turn off the house lights so Jesse could be with his stars.
Then she'd fill the house with classical music, and Jesse and his sister
would fall asleep to it. Jesse took Mozart and Tchaikovsky with him to
Iraq where he went to sleep one last night, to be with his much beloved
stars.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.
Jean
Prewitt
Son: Kelley S. Prewitt
Growing up in a strict
Christian home in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, Kelley couldn't have
had a more Southern-upper-middle-class upbringing. His father, acting as
the general contractor, built the family's house, providing everyone with
their a separate bedroom, with a finished basement below as an extra family
room. The swimming pool in the backyard provided a gathering place for other
kids in the neighborhood who dashed across the safe street to dive in, often
challenging each other to see who could hold their breath the longest. Kelley
played soccer throughout his growing-up years, starting when he was five-with
his father as his coach, and his mother, Jean, as his biggest fan, he couldn't
have asked for more. As a career United States Postal Service Worker, Jean
was able to take time off from work to cheer him on at every game. Must
have been fun when they won championships, and mom and dad would drive the
team to another town for a game, allowing them the luxury of sleeping (if
they really got any) in motel rooms, dining in restaurants, and then diving
into the motel's swimming pool, splashing and shouting the whole time. It
was a wonderful life, which, according the United States Army, ended instantly
on April 6 as the result of an explosion in Iraq. This comforting belief
came to a jolting end one month later when, on the day before Mother's Day,
May 10, 2003, a New York Times reporter embedded with Kelley's unit in Iraq
wrote a front-page story detailing how Kelley had actually been hit in the
leg by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), leaving a fist-sized hole, from
which he slowly bled to death over a period of four hours, screaming for
help, comforted by comrades. A slow, painful death. Kelly's mother read
the story as millions of others did. She is no longer a fan of the War in
Iraq.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.
Sue
Niederer
Son: Seth J. Dvorin
It wasn't the first
neighborhood Seth and his mother Sue lived in but their second that will
forever house the love between the two of them. Gathering up what she could
after a divorce, Sue pulled up stakes and moved six-year-old Seth to South
Brunswick, to live in "the house that Seth and I owned." A brand new community
filled with the scent of new trees, new grass, new blossoms, and, more importantly,
the sounds of a neighborhood filling up with young new families, and lots
of other six-year-olds. In many ways, it was a little United Nations, with
its grand mix of cultures. Everybody just hung out each other's home...made
no difference if you were a single parent or married. It was a warm community
where in the summers everybody barbecued. When the winter snow fell, everyone
would grab a shovel, and dig in...ending, of course, in a bigger snowball
fight than the real United Nations had ever had. Everything in Seth's room
was blue, from the carpet on the floor to the window blinds to the paint
on the ceiling. They were in a new house when Seth was called back to Iraq.
Before he left, Sue showed Seth three paint chips. Each of them was blue.
The only modification to the house came from the war in Iraq-an empty bedroom.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.
Rosa
Gonzalez
Son: Jorge Gonzales
(en
Español)
It's quiet in the Gonzalez neighborhood, but not inside the house, never
was, not with six children running around growing up together. They grew
up in El Monte, outside of Los Angeles, in a three-bedroom house...lemon
tree right in front as well as a big nut tree, ripe for climbing by the
children. But it was more fun in Jorge's room, what with the videogame players
hanging from the bunk bed that he and Mario slept in. They even shared the
same crib, one after the other, being born a year apart. Everyone there
grew up together, in the three-bedroom house, which now is home to Jorge's
widowed wife, Jasty, and his one-year-old son, Alonso, there along with
the memories of Jorge.
....(read more)
© TeleSpan Publishing Corporation 2004, All rights reserved.