Crimson Tide

You’re more than a little worried that this is a blog about my menstrual cycle, aren’t you??

Relax, you’re dodging a bullet today. I’m actually referring to the 1995 movie of the same name, which I just stumbled upon while channel surfing.

I took my Dad to see it when it was out. My father had suffered a stroke during a science fiction surgery several years earlier and as a result was more than a little off behavior-wise. My Dad had been stationed on a nuclear submarine for four years in the late 60s and since Crimson Tide took place on a nuclear sub, he was tickled to see the movie.

I remember that and am happy that I was able to give him something enjoyable on those so very difficult days for him. But my fondest memory was the joy he had during the movie when he would recognize things or explain them to me. Unfortunately, thanks to the stroke’s effect on his behavior, he would yell these things to me and I had to keep shushing him so he wouldn’t disturb the other movie patrons.

And anyone who knew my father knows that was an incredibly strange position for me to be in!

My Dad was very much all about proper appearance and behavior while I was growing up. For reasons I won’t go into now, my grandmother tried to make my father perfect and my father tried to make me perfect. He would have been absolutely HORRIFIED if I had behaved the way he did in that movie theater when I was a kid!

I have to admit, at first I was a little embarrassed… But when I saw how happy he was and when I thought about how incredibly lucky I was that he had even survived his surgery to go to the movies with me, I could care less about how loud he was. This amazing man -- who had survived 31 hours of surgery over a two-day period and emerged blind in one eye, disfigured, and damaged by stroke -- went through it all so that he would have more time with us and so we wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing him. And in doing so, he lost nearly everything that had guided him and been so important to him. He let go for us. I never loved him more than I did then.