A Little Water Lily At Sea
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by: andrewbeene
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Word Count: 615
My grandfather grew up with Little Lily when my dad’s 11th birthday came. Torn between singing the Star Spangled Banner and staying for good in Los Angeles, Little Lily gave a lot of thought on whether to marry my grandfather or not. She had always loved the sea and the latter had always called out her name. My grandfather always set her free.
The cool November wind blows on grandpa’s face in 1941. Little Lily gave my dad that unique embrace he never knew existed. It’s what my dad called a “mother’s hug.” My dad asked Little Lily of that peculiar embrace every now and then. She gave him the last on December 14, 1941 before leaving for Pearl Harbor. My dad said he saw my grandfather wiping his eyes with the handkerchief Little Lily gave to my father for his birthday.
She enlisted as a nurse and attended to hundreds of half-awake soldiers. At least that’s what she said in her letters to my grandpa. Little Lily told a story of a young soldier whose three-fourths of his body literally got burned because of the Japanese kamikaze plane attacks. The soldier was holding her hand and asked her to save him from death. The soldier died after four hours.
Little Lily recounted, she never got used to dying patients with no other possessions than dog tags, burnt clothes on their skins, and priceless yet scarce voices for their last words. She witnessed a burial at sea ceremony with men and women without any blood relation to the guy inside the coffin. She thought one’s saddest moment is dying with no family to witness your interment.
Her fourth letter to my grandfather shook grandpa’s already weak knees. My dad told me he had not seen the letter until the fifth week of May 1942. Grandpa went out to get his weekly dosage of drinking session with his jazzy friends. Dad took the letter from a box with a red ribbon tied around it. Dad found the fourth letter sent by Little Lily. She said she was attending bruises and fever on an aircraft carrier. She asked my grandpa that if ever Japanese submarines send out their torpedo against their ship and worse comes to worst, she would love a burial at sea in Long Beach with an ash scattering ceremony. My dad said it was the most unfair letter of all.
In 1946, my grandpa was inside our ancestral house in Long Beach. He was unsuccessfully baking blueberry muffins for my father. Twenty nine letters and four years passed, Little Lily was standing in front of my grandfather’s lawn. She stood there with her bags. My grandfather bowed his head and cried. He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief Little Lily gave to my dad for his birthday.
They got married in a Lutheran Church two months later. Another two months passed. Little Lily got diagnosed with cancer. The doctors said it was due to long-time exposure to Asbestos in naval ships.
Little Lily died not long after the diagnosis. My dad said there were no words that ever comforted my grandfather. He gave Little Lily her last wish. Grandpa set Little Lily free one last time. The ash scattering of Little Lily was done by both my grandpa and my dad.
As much as my grandpa and my dad loved Little Lily, so did Little Lily craved for the waters. Her ashes at the sea embraced the shore and the waves. Whenever my dad takes me to Long Beach, he would always say that he feels a peculiar wind like a mother’s hug.
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