Johnny’s Journey: From War to Healing in Hawaii

Chapter 16: Johnny Didn’t Come Marching Home

Foreword: Usually by another writer or friend. Excuse the breaking of tradition. These chapters reveal my struggle with the truths of my family. As a child and later as an adult, I saw the darkness of alcoholism and how it grips every soul within a household. I wished for families like those in a Norman Rockwell painting, gathered at the table with Grandfather carving the turkey, but life shattered that image. AA was just beginning to rise, and the word “enabler” had not yet marked the shadow of alcoholism. Bleeding in a public arena is not pretty.

The island of Hawaii held its charm, still untouched by the war. A year after the conflict with Japan, a few tourists arrived by boat, drawn to its beaches and emerald water. The men and women in uniform returned home, demobilized from the military. Johnny chose differently. He stayed, nurturing the holdings he had acquired over two years. Luck had favored him; he owned land in downtown Honolulu, not the best area, but one that would grow over the years and be worth hundreds of times what he paid. California held no interest, Texas even less. He would again be under the veil of his mother’s demands and secrets. The more time away he had, the more he saw that the extended family of her sisters and cousins was more toxic than nurturing. The arrangement with the old Korean had soured; there would be no marriage to his granddaughter, a relief to Johnny. He would take his chances to either flourish or fail in Hawaii.

Near the end of his first year after leaving the Navy, once again, the missives from home arrived almost daily. They were often the same—repetitive and sharp. Nothing had changed; Sister Aimee’s cures were lost like smoke in the wind. His father did not write, making Johnny feel like he was not there or had no strength to fight. The family had returned to Fort Worth. He now knew that something dire had transpired.

A letter from his sister Norma came with bad news. His beloved dog, Lady, had passed peacefully in her sleep at the age of eighteen. John Henry was not doing well; a depression had set upon him soon after they returned to Texas from California. His leaving a prestigious job and salary and returning to the furniture shop, working for a pittance of his former wage, caused him great stress. He would go days without speaking to anyone, lost in his sadness, reluctantly accepting the fact that he was now an older man and he had left his best life out west. PTSD was not yet diagnosed, but his behavior had all the signs of the illness. Killing another human, even in the ugliness of war, will take a piece of a man, leaving him un-whole and susceptible to the whispers of the Demons that await. John Henry had many to fight.

Johnny’s mother had become a mean, spiteful woman full of hatred for anyone other than her precious sisters in arms; they were all swimming in alcohol for the better part of each day. The reality of life was a concept they didn’t grasp; the party came first, and to hell with the rest of it.

Norma was planning to leave and join her brother in Hawaii but was reluctant to leave their father in his fragile state. Guilt washed over Johnny for not being there for his dog, Lady; she had been his faithful companion for his entire life. He was ashamed that he was more broken up over her death than the tribulations of his parents; they were adults who occupied their own prison. They could deal with it themselves. He wanted nothing to do with any part of their perils. Still, the missives came daily, now more frantic and cruel than ever. He was teetering, trying to stay positive and not give in to the dark web woven by his mother’s disease. It was impossible to fight. In anguish, he gave into her cruelty, hating himself for his weakness. Arriving in Hawaii, a boy, then becoming his own man, now again, a boy dragged across the Pacific Ocean by a three thousand-mile umbilical cord.