PERFECT MOMENT # 170

Eddie Brokaw in his navy uniformThe graveside service for Uncle Eddie had just concluded. Without premeditation, my son Nicholas took off his suit jacket and grabbed a shovel. I joined in. It did not take us long to move the big pile of soil to cover his coffin. The idea of finishing the gravediggers’ job was a heartwarming gesture on Nicholas’ part. It spoke to how much we cared about this sweet man. The Eddie Brokaw I knew was hardly an exciting or dramatic person. Instead, he had a calming, steady presence, a gentle swell in otherwise turbulent waters. He was so good natured that I never heard a negative word from his lips. In actuality, Eddie had already been through enough excitement and drama for one lifetime. On December 26, 1943, he was napping in his bunk aboard the USS Brownson off the coast of New Guinea. When he awoke, he was naked in the water and covered in oil. Japanese dive bombers had sunk his ship. The shockwave from the explosion had blown off all his clothes. For the rest of his life, he cherished the only object that had stayed on his body and was rescued with him—a flexible metal watch wristband. The clockface had been destroyed, a somber cavity marking where it had once ticked. The flexi-band was there to always remind him how he had been given a special second chance, one tragically denied to 108 of his shipmates. I have no doubt he woke up each morning with gratitude the remaining 22,000 days he had left.

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