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As I got up to leave, she said: “I wish we had known each other when we were younger. I think we would have been the best of friends.“  Her name is Hazel Brooks and she is 80 years old. We sat next to each other  on my recent flight from Grand Junction, Colorado to Dallas. I had been up since 2:00 am and had planned to sleep, but she and I ended up talking the whole 3 hours. She told me she lost her husband of 62 years this past April – she said they had a wonderful life. I love the story she told me of how they met. She was working in a restaurant in Texas and a lady came in and asked for a table. The lady said she was expecting her son who was home on leave from the war and asked Mrs. Brooks  to look for him – she said he was tall, dark and handsome and would be wearing a uniform.  Mrs. Brooks said he came in, she directed him to the table where his mother sat, and their romance began that day. They married 2 years later. They had three children – two daughters and one son. She also has 8 grandchildren and 10  great grandchildren.  While we were talking, she opened her wallet and showed me  photo after photo – the first one was of her handsome husband in his uniform. She knew the name of each person and age he or she was when each photo was taken.  She also told me where each one of them lives today.  She said she now lives with one of her daughters, who is blind, near Houston.  Her own home is up for sale – she and her husband lived there for  over  50 years.  She said it was hard to move out.   I told her I understood.

She turned to me and asked if I had a husband and I told her not anymore. I told her that he became unhappy after 38 years and no longer  wanted to be married.  She patted my hand and told me she was sorry – I told her I was, too.  She said it sounded like a mid-life crisis to her.  I nodded in agreement.

As we talked, she told me about her life. When she was a young girl, and her father was ill with cancer, the family went in two covered wagons from Texas to Arkansas and back – a trip that took 3 months – so her father could soak in the hot mineral springs in the hope of a cure.  He died a few weeks after they returned home – he was in his early 40s. She also told me about her oldest brother, nicknamed “Son.”  She remembers him being in horrible pain for several days before he died at 16  – it turns out that his appendix had burst.  Her eyes misted over as she told me about her brother and her father, both dead all these years. I thought about my own father, who died at 52. There was no miracle cure for him, either.

I listened as she told me about her crazy aunt – the one who had a daughter who couldn’t stand up straight so she put her on a table and ironed her back. She told me the iron caused horrible blisters and holes in her back and that her aunt then poured kerosene on the whole area, which also brought terrible pain.  I asked her what the family did when they found out – she said they tied the aunt up in the barn. We moved on to another topic so I found out little more except that her cousin grew up with a straight back.

I wish we had known each other when we were younger. I think we would have been the best of friends.