August 31—Santa Monica
Feelings. Sacred in that every single one is unique to its owner. And here they come again.
Eighty-five years ago today my parents married. They were ‘one and only’ to each other before that day and for the following sixty-seven years. They were a team, not without their differences, but solid in their respect, commitment and passion for each other and why they were here.
They met on a blind date set up when my mother was at Smith College, by her brother, who was a friend of my father’s at Dartmouth. My father’s name was Telfer Mook, and my mother thought that she was going to meet an eskimo. Very soon after this meeting/date, my mother sailed of for France for her junior year abroad at The Sorbonne. She fell in love with a Jewish poet, this was 1938, and in the midst of their love he was ‘taken away’ and she never heard from him again. She and my father wrote during this entire time.
When my mother returned to the US, Dad was in Yale Law School and mom was accepted as a doctorate student at Yale in art history, with a focus on medieval art…and the rest of their pre-marriage story is history.
My mother’s father was senator of Iowa, and my father’s Yale class was hefty…Byron White, Gerald Ford..and Hubert Humphrey was circling dad…he wanted him to run for congress…Henry Wallace was a friend of the family and behind this…and the idea was that they would live a ‘Washington life’ and help move the world to a better place.
They got married and Dad set up a law practice in Des Moines…always fighting for those with no voice…the poor…the disenfranchised. World War II was happening and called.
Dad’s experience in the South Pacific, on Tinian, changed his life forever in that when he returned home, he announced that he wanted to go into the ministry. He was not an evengelizer, per se, but felt God and through his actions and life work wanted to be of service.
HENCE the White House ball gowns and hand written notes from the Roosevelts, that were just a wee moment in their lives, but a token of what could have been a road but was not chosen, burned in my fire….and so too the briefcase that held diaries and prayers of my fathers…and diaries and prayers of my mother’s…as they went forward in their lives of service to India….at a time when it was TRULY a foreign land.
And they were a team.
Sacred feelings about this day….and joy in my heart for having known these two.