Over there, Over there

Just finished watching a favorite in this house, the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney playing George M. Cohan. It's a movie that always gets me singing, always gets me up and marching and always has the dogs looking at me in a strange way. Remember these lyrics?

Over there, over there,

Send the word, send the word over there--

That the Yanks are coming,

The Yanks are coming,

The drums rum-tumming

Ev'rywhere.

So prepare, say a pray'r,

Send the word, send the word to beware.

We'll be over, we're coming over,

And we won't come back till it's over

Over there.

And what did I do today? There was a sadness in the air. That knowing of not having Jim to talk to, ask about what he wanted to do, walk the dogs with or just be there with me, it was pretty intense today. Several times I could feel my chest tightening and took moments of just sitting and trying to drive the pain away. When this happens there is such a vivid feeling that washes over my body as the grief hits me. The sadness of not having Jim anymore and saying that to myself (he's really gone, he's not coming back) I can feel both the physical changes as well as the emotional ones. I kept looking at things in the house and thinking "that's the last valentines day card I will get from him" and even such things as while going thru bills I found a list for the February bills to pay and it was all in his handwriting. Then thought about that as his handwriting that he said he learned from his brother the draftsman. And Jim's not here to write anything anymore. Squenching my face up and driving this thought out of my head to stop the pain. So, of course then I would say "I have to find something to do" and would clean a little, sort and scan photos and try to keep busy.

And on that subject - I spent a lot of this Fourth of July looking at old photos and scanning them. Talked to my sister in law who said she had a box full of old family pics. She sent me one of Jim as just a little tot of five years old. It was neat to see him that young. There may be more coming. I am just sorry that Jim couldn't see them. He always said that photos of him were lost when he went in the service. I have only seen about 3 pics of him younger than 17.

I did some cropping and tried to make it look nicer, but its a 48 year old photo. Here is both the original version and the cropped one with just Jimmy.

You look at that smile and you KNOW it's Jim.

I sure jump all ove the place in this post. Singing, crying and laughing. Yep, that was about how my Fourth went. Oh and also comforting the dogs as they tried to hide from the thunder, hail, rain and fireworks that hit us tonight.