Meet Gail

I am a mother of three daughters and grandmother to four grandchildren.  I am also a published author, and the wife of a Marine officer.  My journey through life has been unusual and has given me, in many ways, the sharp eye of the outsider.  My father was killed in World War II, an Army Air Corps pilot flying bombing missions over “The Hump” (the Himalayan Mountains) from India to China.  Born while he was at war, I never met him.   I was raised for the first part of my life in my grandparents’ homes, and I was an adult before I met even one other child survivor of that war.  In an era when the parents in all families went ark-like two by two, my family situation set me apart.

Since I was raised partially by a generation that was even one step beyond that of my parent, I found myself on the outside in other ways.  Once as a young married woman I was at a coffee gathering with women who were my contemporaries.  When a senior officer’s wife walked into the room I got to my feet, without even thinking about it, in the way that had been drilled into me since childhood.  Someone senior to me had entered the room, and I was always to stand when that happened as a measure of respect.  I got a few sidelong glances, and finally someone directed me to the ladies room.  Why else would I suddenly spring to my feet?  The next few years were spent erasing much of the two-generations-old etiquette that had been drilled into me.

I have lived abroad first in Lausanne, Switzerland as a ten-year old, then in Japan as a teenager and, finally, in Beirut, Lebanon as an adult with three small children.  As a result I have absorbed cultural differences from many parts of the world.  There is nowhere where one feels as much on the outside as a foreign country where the language is strange, the food unfamiliar, and even the street signs are incomprehensible, especially in a Middle Eastern country.

It is not always comfortable out here, but it has its attractions.  I can stand off to the side, and watch the world go by through the lens of years of living.  I am now officially an old person in an era that worships youth.  But while I might be out of the fray, I still can say with a slight lift of the eyebrows, ‘Just wait, you will be here someday soon’.  With that in mind I have started this blog so that those interested might be able to see what it is like out here in the upper double digits.  These are my Dispatches From the Front.