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Charlie (part 2)
By Sue Crawford   

Last edited: Friday, August 09, 2002
Posted: Friday, August 09, 2002

Things Charlie told me about his life.

Chapter 2

One of the things Charlie mentioned over and over after he was diagnosed with cancer was that after people died, they were canonized, became saints, when in reality they were normal everyday people. They had faults. As did he. So, I won’t try to make you think that Charlie was a saint. I try very hard not to raise him to that level, however it is difficult. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I met Charlie when I was at a point in my life where I didn’t trust anyone, especially men. That is a story within itself, so I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say that Charlie impressed me greatly.

He taught me to laugh at myself by laughing at himself. He told me stories about things that happened to him while in the Navy, that were hilarious. Mostly things that happened to him or he caused. For instance:

For some reason that I don’t remember, he was sent by helicopter out to a ship at sea. Now, you must understand that, one, Charlie was scared to death of heights, two, he couldn’t swim. Yes, I know that you cannot get into the Navy without being able to swim, but he faked it enough to get in, then told himself that he would do his damnedest to keep his ship afloat. He’s a Commander at this point and a lot of men look up to him. He must put on a brave face, right? The way he’s going to get onto that ship is to be lowered by cable. Right!

The helicopter crew wraps a collar around him, tells him to cross his arms and hold on tight and started lowering him down to the rocking, swaying ship below. It looks like a toy to him. He’s so terrified that she squeezed his eyes shut and prayed. He was holding on to the collar so tightly and was so frightened that he didn’t realize that his feet had touched the deck of the ship. What he did notice, however, were men patting his shoulder.

“Sir, Sir, you can turn loose now, Sir,” they were telling him trying to loosen his fingers from the collar.

“Well,” he told me, “there went my pride!”

Men in the Navy know this, but perhaps you won’t so I’ll explain. Men in the Navy spend months away from their families. Usually six months at a time, but sometimes, nine. They entertain themselves the best way they can, and a lot of times it’s pulling jokes on someone. If a man couldn’t take the joke, the ribbing became worse. So, the best thing to do was laugh at whatever prank the men pulled on you and go on. Of course, “Pay-me-backs are hell”, he told me laughing.

He was flown by jet from the Bering Sea to Greece. He had a mission and he felt ten foot tall. He was to take an attaché case to the American Embassy. Code word and all! The fighter pilots asked if he had ever flown over the Alps and when Charlie said no, they veered off. “Compliments of the U.S. Navy, Sir,” they told him. I digress. He was picked up and driven to the Embassy. He walks in, escorted to the person he was supposed to deliver the attaché case to and bravely says his secret code word. The other man looks at Charlie as if he was stupid.

“Give me the damn attaché case,” he told Charlie. “We’re not playing James Bond here.”

Charlie said he felt about an inch tall and would have gladly disappeared into one of the cracks in the floor! Someone had played a trick on him. While it was true that the attaché case needed to get to Greece and being a senior officer he was cleared to take it, he did not need a password.

He told me many stories about pranks played on him, and knowing Charlie, I’m sure there were many he played on other people. One such story is the day he and a few friends took everything that wasn’t nailed down out of their Captain’s room and hid it in the ship’s hole for two or three days.

However, there were times when he took an ass chewing for men under him so that they wouldn’t be fired. One such was a young lieutenant that forgot to open a valve when their ship was taking on fuel. This turned out to be an embarrassment to the Captain because he had gone to school with the Captain of the ship that was transferring the fuel. The lieutenant was sure he would get fired, but Charlie took the blame. As I understand it, after so many years in the Navy, they cannot fire an officer except under very serious conditions, such as murder, rape, being a traitor, etc. So, Charlie told the young officer to keep his mouth shut and let him do the talking. He did. The Captain was irate! Charlie was called everything except a gentleman, but no harm done. The ship was finally refueled and they were off to play war games again.

Charlie was not all fun and games either. He took his assignments very seriously.
He refused orders, slugged an officer and sent one packing because he believed that it was the right thing to do.

He was flown to Southampton, England to work on a ship that was dead in the water. Since I am not an engineer, I cannot tell you exactly what was wrong with the ship, except to say that the screw (like the drive-shaft in a car) was not turning and the excessive heat was melting the metal. He knew that it was the fault of the ship’s engineer. He took the man off the ship and in no uncertain terms told him to get off his ship. He didn’t care how he got transferred off, just do it!

Going back on board ship, he instructed that the engines be turned back on and set at a very low rotation. This was against all Navy regulations, but Charlie knew that if he didn’t do this, the metal would harden and they would never get it going again without major repairs. He and his crew scrapped and cleaned the screw and brought the ship back to the U.S. It took them two weeks, but by the time they reached the Naval base, the ship was in the best condition it had ever been in. For the first time in the ship’s history, it passed the inspection with flying colors. I have two plaques hanging on my wall: one, scrapings of metal from that ship; another, an engineering excellence award . However, before Charlie got those, he was brought up before a disciplinary board. After explaining what he did and why, they changed the rule book and gave him the award. His crew gave him the plaque of melted metal.

The place he talked about the most was Malta. Next came the fjords of Norway. These two places fascinated him. Malta because of the people and their tenacity during the World Wars. The fjords of Norway because of their beauty.

He told me of the ritual he participated in the first time he sailed into the Mediterranean Sea and the first time he crossed the Equator. Some of these rituals are no longer practiced because of safety concerns. He thought the Navy had gone soft when they changed these. “The young men in the Navy today are soft,” he told me.

When he first went into the Navy, the sailors were allowed on deck at night. He loved going out there, having a cigarette and watching the stars. It reminded him of the desert southwest. But that was changed also. Too many mothers complained that their sons might fall overboard. Still, Charlie LOVED the Navy. Perhaps he loved the authority he had. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, he was in control of his destiny. Perhaps he simply loved the work he did. I don’t know.






















Chapter 3

Charlie retired from the Navy on 1 July 1983 and almost instantly regretted it. But, he and his first wife decided it was time. They traveled around the country for a while looking for a place they might like to settle. They ended up in Abilene, Texas. After a year of so of inactivity, in which he told me he felt like the driver of the car, he started looking around for some job to do. He applied for work at Crown Cork and Seal and eventually went to work there. This company makes aluminum cans for companies such as Coke, Dr Pepper, etc. and Charlie was fascinated by the process. He was eventually promoted to Superintendent, which he admitted to me was a huge mistake. He knew nothing about the running of a business. He relied on others to steer him in the right direction. He followed the path that others before him had taken and that was his downfall. His predecessor had taken scrap materials and sold them, putting the money into a fund to reward the workers. Charlie did the same thing and soon learned that this practice was against company rules. Even though he could prove that ever penny was accounted for, he was fired. He never regained his self-confidence. He told me that he begged to keep that job. That’s how much he loved it. He offered to be demoted to engineer, but the company refused.

Over the next few years, Charlie and his first wife divorced. He remarried and, to hear him tell it, lived in hell for four years. He couldn’t find a job and his new wife gave him no peace. He was bankrupted in that short length of time.

As difficult as it is for me to think about all that happened to Charlie, had it not been for those things, I would never have met him.

He finally went to work for a company that was closing shop in two locations and relocating in Arkansas. For this job, he needed to move to Burbank, California. He hated it there. Not the job, but everything else. His wife ran around on him, the two stepsons destroyed much of his things and his wife had him thrown in jail for something he didn’t do. He had been in some dangerous situations before, but nothing frightened him as much as being in jail. His lawyer got him out after three days because his wife recanted. Swearing she had never told the police the things they had on record. He talked to his lawyer about getting a divorce then, but the lawyer, knowing that they would be moving to Arkansas shortly, advised against it. He advised Charlie to do whatever it took to placate his wife while in California and file for divorce as soon as he could in Arkansas, and he did.

Charlie was in a strange city with no one he knew or trusted. Alone, he drank too much, became thin and depressed. He had lost contact with his family and didn’t know how to find them. He knew he had two daughters and a son somewhere, but for various different reasons, he had lost contact. He had assumed that his oldest daughter would stay in touch with him when he went to California, but she didn’t. The address and phone number he had for her were no longer valid. His first wife had remarried and he didn’t know how to contact her. It had been several years since he spoke to his youngest daughter and his son hadn’t spoken to him in more years than that.

Even though I had talked to Charlie over the phone before, I actually met him for the first time on 31 July 1994. I can’t say that it was love at first sight, but I will tell you that I liked him very much. He was sad but funny. He was strong but needed someone he could trust. We built a friendship over the next couple of years and married on 29 April 1996. He didn’t come into my life demanding to be the boss, but rather to help and advise. I worked and he stayed home and took care of everything that I didn’t have time to do. He was a wonder in the kitchen and did most of the cooking. This was a first for me. So was having him stand as soon as company came in, or not eating until everyone was finished. He was the perfect gentleman. Since I worked nights in a nursing home, he had a cup of coffee ready for me as soon as I walked in, and would shortly have food ready for me to eat. Usually as soon as that first cup of coffee was drank.
He bought groceries, tended the dogs, kept the yard up and became involved with the neighbors. He helped one build a house from the foundation up, never asking nor wanting compensation. He enjoyed doing it, that was enough for him.

During the time he was helping build the neighbors house, he began feeling weak. His left leg began hurting so badly that he would have to sit down after a very short period of time. I knew that he had high blood pressure and worried that he was having a heart attack. I urged him to go to a doctor, but he didn’t want to. In October of 2000 I finally convinced him to see a doctor. After several tests, they concluded that he did indeed have heart trouble and advised him to have by-pass surgery.

Early in February 2001, Charlie checked into the hospital and two days later went into surgery for a triple by-pass. He seemingly recovered well and was released in a week. The surgeon told us that as soon as his breast bone knitted back together Charlie would feel better than he had in a very long time. It didn’t happen. I kept taking him back to doctors as Charlie became weaker by the day. He underwent every test they could think of. It wasn’t until May of 2001 that he underwent a liver biopsy. That’s when they found Cancer. They backtracked and found that the cancer was all over his body. The Oncologist told us it was not only in his liver, but lungs, bones and ended by saying, “it’s all over”. His CEA numbers were higher than the doctor had ever seen. Why hadn’t they found it before? Had the surgery spread the cancer? Had it been there all along and no one found it? How could that be? The doctor put him on a very aggressive chemotherapy treatment, but told me that Charlie chances were slim to none.

The good part of this was that Charlie felt better after chemo, when most people felt much worse. For weeks, he would feel good enough to do things around the house. His hair fell out in clumps and he just laughed about not having to waste money on shampoo or worry about shaving. A week or so before it was time for his next treatment, he would begin feeling sick again.
He did not want me to quit my job, so I didn’t. I think he felt as if as long as he could do for himself, he was OK. But, in February of 2002, I did quit. He had become too ill to take care of himself and I was afraid to leave him alone. By this time the chemo had damaged so many of his good cells that he had sores in his mouth, throat and stomach. His feet and legs swelled to the point of almost bursting and he had to have blood more than once. The doctor had been giving him Procrit shots for several months on a weekly basis, but they no longer worked. He added another shot. Nothing was working. He was barely able to walk from the couch to the bathroom, which was only a few feet away. I had to help him. He threw up more and became sicker. I rushed him to the emergency room. They drained the fluid off his body and pumped him full of meds. He seemed to get somewhat better and begged to go home. The doctor told me that he didn’t have long to live, but allowed Charlie to come home since that was what he wanted to do. I believe that Charlie knew he only had a short time to live and wanted to die at home where he felt loved.

He came home on Friday and I set up an appointment with Hospice to come help me care for him. They were to come on Tuesday, April 9th. He died about 4 am that morning.

I not only lost my husband, but my best friend. He was the most understanding person I had ever met. He encouraged me to write and never felt threatened or abandoned when I spent hours at the computer writing. He never suffocated me with attention, nor did he make me feel unloved. Every day or so, during our marriage, he told me how much he loved and admired me. Many times during the time we were married, he told me that he felt more comfortable with me than any place he had ever been. He loved where we lived and took pride in it. Together we built a shop. He built decks and furniture. He built wooden toys, candle holders and other wall hangings. He took an old rocking chair that I had that belonged to my mother and made a replica for me, which I will always cherish. He encouraged me to buy my first computer, then laughed at me because I complained about the trouble I had in learning how to use it. “You’ll get it, just keep trying,” he would tell me. Or: “Take a break and go back to it when you aren’t so frustrated”. He never helped me “learn”, but while I worked on that, he kept my computer from crashing. He did the technical work while I learned the hard way. “You’ll remember what you did better if you learn it on your own,” he would say. And of course, he was right. He insisted that I have every writing tool I needed, some I’m not sure I need even to this day. But, hey, if I do, I’ve got them!

Charlie was quick to anger, but equally quick to apologize. He reminded me of a summer day in Arkansas. The skies may be bright blue one minute and cloud up and storm the next. He would fight for his family, but could never understand stupidity or laziness. When he worked, he gave his all, no matter how long it took. When he played, he did the same thing.

One of the things I did for him was to locate his family. I had searched every way I knew how and kept running up against a blank wall until I had an idea. I remembered him telling me that his wife had remarried and what her husband’s name was. They moved around, he told me, taking care of trailer parks, or some such, but the man had family in Texas. It was a long shot, but what the heck, what could I loose. I had already spent a fortune calling people named Crawford. I lucked out. I called and talked to the son. He was more than willing to give me his dad and stepmother’s phone number. I couldn’t wait to tell Charlie.

By calling his ex-wife, he got the addresses and phone numbers of all three of his children. Then, he started calling. His oldest daughter was overjoyed and cried. She insisted that he come see her. His other daughter wasn’t as happy to hear from him and his son refused to talk to him at all. I honestly don’t know what happened between Charlie and his children, but something had. He thought it was because he had spent so many years away from them while in the Navy. In the twenty three years he was in the Navy, he spent sixteen years, six months and one day at sea. I suppose that would be a legitimate excuse for their behavior, but I doubt that it’s the whole truth. I do know that he loved his children and cried about their lack of attention. He might have received a Christmas card or two from his oldest daughter after we were married, but he never received a Christmas gift, a Father’s day card or gift, nor a Birthday card or gift from either of his children. To her credit, his oldest daughter did call on occasion and he was so proud when she did. His youngest daughter called a couple of times, but before he became sick, she told him that she never wanted to talk to him again. I don’t know what that was about, he never told me. However, she did call just before he died. His son, who had not bothered to return any of Charlie’s calls, called a few days before he died. Charlie was so sick he couldn’t talk. He wouldn’t return my call when I tried to explain that his father was so sick he couldn’t talk. I do know that Charlie felt terrible about that, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He was literally throwing up, unable to talk. He did manage to say hello and that was all.

I believe that the sins of the father are visited on his children and I dread to think of what Charlie’s son will have to endure some day.

If there is such a thing as something good coming from something so bad, it was that Charlie was reunited with his brother and sisters before he died. They all came to Arkansas to see him and it was the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time. For some reason, like his own children, they had drifted apart. He did call and talk to his sister who lived in New Mexico occasionally. He had tried talking to his brother, but every time he called, the two of them got into some sort of argument. But after Charlie became ill, he had a chance to sit down and really talk to his brother. They cried and apologized for things they had done to each other and truly became close before Charlie died. Over the course of Charlie’s illness, his brother came from Texas to visit twice, his oldest sister came three times and his sister in New Mexico came once. They will never know just how much that meant to him. Too bad his children didn’t make the same effort.
I must mention here, that Charlie had a half brother. He was much younger than Charlie and apparently they never got along. I do know that Charlie wanted a clock that he had made for his father and his stepmother, but would never ask for it after they died. His half-brother probably never knew.

I know from listening to his brother and sisters talk that Charlie wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with. I never had that problem, but apparently, it was his way or the highway for most people, including his family. I won’t judge any of them, as I don’t know the circumstances. I can only relate to what I know and that’s not much. All I know is that he truly tried during the years we were together to come to terms with all his family. He wanted forgiveness for whatever wrongs he had done to them, real or imagined.

The one thing that I couldn’t give Charlie was his request to be buried at sea. He believed that the Navy would automatically do this since he was an officer. Whenever I mentioned this to him, he assured me that the Navy would take care of it and that I shouldn’t worry about the cost. Therefore, I didn’t have the money to fulfill this request. He had no burial insurance and we had little in savings. I did the next best thing. I had him cremated and his ashes taken out to sea. I hope he understands and forgives me.
© 2002 by Sue Crawford