Reflections of
Photo by Harry Gerwien
VIE TNAM
H onoring our L ocal V eterans
In Her Own Words: Linda Russell reflects on her life with Robert We received the following personal narrative from loyal Flagship reader Linda Russell about her life with her husband Robert. The piece has been edited for style and length; otherwise, we’re letting Linda tell her story. I met Robert in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1960. He had just joined the Navy after serving in the Army South Carolina National Guard. His mom had noticed how thin he looked in most of the pictures he had sent back to us from his first deployment. She had asked me, when I wrote to Robert, to ask if he was eating properly. Moms always worry about things like that when their babies leave home. He sent back the Fourth of July menu from his ship. I still have the original menu that included cigarettes as a part of the meal, along with a PALL MALL cigarette pack with a sticker with the “Department of The Navy- United States of America” seal on it. I married Robert on Jan. 5, 1963. We headed out the next day towing a small U-Haul trailer with everything we owned to Pensacola, Florida, home of the Blue Angels. Robert was stationed aboard USS Lexington. So began my life as a military spouse and wife of a smoker. Ten months later our son was born. After many deployments, homecomings (trying to keep our son out of the water for both of those) and moves, we chose to make the Tidewater area our home. Of course the smoking continued. I remember once our son opened a whole carton of cigarettes, took a ruler and measured half way down, drew a red circle around all the cigarettes, then tried to stuffed them all back in the empty packs. He had seen the advertisements to do this. Dad was only supposed to smoke to the red line and eventually he would stop smoking. When our son was 11, Robert was nearing retirement age and decided that we should have another baby. The next year, on Mother’s Day, our beautiful baby girl was born. When she was 2 years old, she was diagnosed as a severe asthmatic. Our son also developed asthma later in his life. Robert always blamed himself because of his smoking. Robert retired in November of 1983 and began making up for all the lost time and “fun” that we all had missed while he was away. Later, our children would choose to buy homes in our neighborhood. In the spring of 1990, Robert started having problems with his bladder. He was 51 years old. It was determined that he had Transitional Cell Carcinoma. Over the rest of the year, four cancerous tumors would be removed from his bladder. It was decided that it would be best to remove the bladder, prostate and the cancerous part of the ureters. After admitting Robert into the hospital and getting him settled in, I decided to come home to check on the kids (now 28 and 16) who were waiting for updates on Dad. I kissed Robert on the forehead and assured him that we would all be back early the next morning. As I reached to open the door to leave, I heard him sobbing. I went back and crawled into the bed with him and held him until he fell asleep. Being a chronic smoker, Robert’s lung capacity diminished and, with the lower levels of oxygen in his blood, his muscles tired very quickly. In a few short years, he would require oxygen 24 hours a day. He would be diagnosed with Staghorn Calculus of the left kidney. There were many operations trying to break up or remove the stones; once he was even placed in a medically induced coma for nine days because of a severe kidney infection. Robert was very excited; our daughter announced that she was pregnant with our second grandchild. The birth of our first grandson was in October of 1994. If we would have known how much fun grandchildren were we would have had them first. Ha-Ha. Our second would be a girl and the due date was on Robert’s birthday: Dec. 26, 2004. On the morning of Jan. 7, 2005, I woke to find Robert in pain and his bag mixed with blood, urine and stones. There was an abscess on his stomach. His fingernails were turning blue. He had an infection in the lower stomach, his right side, which burst open when he coughed after checking into the ER. In September of 2005, Robert wanted his nebulizer. He only took a partial treatment and asked for a cigarette. His breathing seemed quieter than usual, so I got up to check on him. Through the window I could see our son coming up the driveway and called to him. As he gave his dad CPR, I called 911. They were very prompt, but Robert had died of a heart attack due to emphysema. We buried Robert on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005. As we entered the cemetery at noon, the Blue Angels flew over us. Later, everyone would ask how I arranged for that to happen. They just happened to be practicing for the air show. Robert and I started our life with the Blue Angels and ended it with them.
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