Gourdeously Green

It must have been, when my parents built our new home at the top of our hilly neighborhood, that the woman of the house was asked to choose between three colors for the interior of her home. Tan, blue, or green. My mother obviously chose green, because every single room of our new home was one value or another of the verdant shade.

But it wasn't just the walls and appliances that were green; so too were the carpets, the draperies, the bedspreads and the furniture slip covers. Everything was green! This was the setting I invited my handsome boyfriend into for the first time, wearing, of course, his green Airman's fatigues!

Sitting nearly camouflaged on the living room couch, my father posed a question to the face that had just separated from mine, "Patrick, do you have a stocking knit cap?" My spine stiffened. A brilliant professor by day, one lacking common sense by evening, I knew in my heart this query could only lead to an embarrassing outcome. "No, Mr. Keily I don't have a hat. Why do you need one?"

My father grumbled, "Elizabeth's mother keeps this house too cold. I don't want a draft to touch my head, I think I'm catching a cold."  As I prayed to disappear, my father did just that. We could hear him rummaging in the kitchen and then his heavy foot falls on the plush green pile that led to his bedroom.

All was blessedly, quietly normal until my Airman suggested we check on my father's well being. My tip toes followed his to my father's bedroom and peeked over his shoulder to see what he was already seeing. I gasped to see not my father's expected head upon his pillow, but a BROWN PAPER BAG! As the shape rose upon it's elbows, I quickly slammed shut the bedroom door as my father's voice came to me from a single slit cut for air, "What's wrong Lizzy?" 

On the day I would marry my Airman, my father drew me close and asked me, "Are you sure you want to marry this boy?" I thought to myself about the distance a lifetime of embarrassing situations had caused between us and how my Airman in green taught me to be proud and to love my father again because he did. I shyly put my arms around my father's waist and answered into his chest, "Yes Dad, I love him."

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