QandO

June 07, 2004

The end of an era
Posted by McQ

Nothing like essentially being out of touch for 10 days (some of it my fault). Interestingly, the world survived and moved on without me knowing what was going on. In fact, it was a bit refreshing.

My brother and I spent those 10 days working in my mother's house trying to prepare it for sale. She passed away last October and, well, its not something either of us were looking forward too, but something which had to be done. It was 10 days full of work. We must have hauled 50 garbage bags of "junk" out of the place ... stuff that was essentially worthless, old paperwork, old this and that. And, of course, while cleaning everything out, you come upon things which you have to sit down, sort through and reminisce about.

We found things we hadn't seen in years. Then the hard decision ... keep or toss?

Most we kept with a "we'll make a decision later" comment.

We didn't realize how hard this would be. As my brother remarked, "its the end of an era". In fact, it is. For us, our parents were larger than life. My father spent 36 years in the army from before WWII through Vietnam. My mother also served in WWII in the army in Europe. As a family we lived all over the world, and of course just about anything we dragged out had some meaning. It took us most of a week to work our way through everything.

Finally this last friday and saturday, we had an estate sale. Very interesting two days as, with mixed emotions we saw things from our family disappear through the front door in the hands of complete strangers who really didn't understand their value ... emotional value that is. Monetarily they weren't worth much more than they gave, but they had years of emotional and sentimental value locked away in them.

Saturday night was spent filling a U-Haul with those keepsakes we had decided should remain in the family. A couple of lamps, some furniture, a hand carved Chinese desk and bar, a few pieces of porcelin, china and crystal. Some silver which had been engraved and presented to my Dad when he was a battalion commander. My Mom's Bronze star.

That evening we went to the national cemetary and visted their graves. We are lucky in one respect ... Ft. Smith, Arkansas is a small town and just about everyone knew my folks very well as they were very active in the community. We were able, through contacts among veterans, to secure side by side graves for them in the National Cemetary there in Ft. Smith. So our visit is an easy one. Both headstones are side by side.

My father's says:

COL Gordon E. McQuain Sr.
1915-1994
US Army
WWII
Korea
Vietnam

My mother's says:

CPT Martha McQuain
1918-2003
US Army
WWII
BSM

She was more proud of the fact that she was regular Army (not a WAAC, although that's what she started as) than she was of her rank or her Bronze Star. She got out of the service immediately after WWII and my dad often joked that "the wrong McQuain got out of the service" as it was his feeling, shared by all her sons, that she'd have found a way to become a general had she stayed in. Instead she became the perfect army wife (my dad didn't have to explain the trials and tribulations of being a company commander to her ... she'd been one) and fabulous mother.

My brothers and I were lucky to have had them as parents ... and we miss them, terribly.

As I drove the U-Haul back yesterday, I received a call from my brother who was also traveling home to St. Louis.

He said, "I don't know if you've heard it, but President Reagan died."

I hadn't and it set me to thinking about many things.

It is, indeed, the end of an era.

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