WWII WAR-BRIDE ....

Recently I was visiting my brother-in-law, Bill, who is in a very nice Senior Citizen Center in a town about 40 miles from where I live. I found him dozing in his recliner, but he sat up immediately when I walked in and greeted him.
"Hi, Bill, how are you doing? You are looking great!" He looked up with a quick smile as his eyes lit up.
 "Well, here I am, ninety seven tomorrow." He said, shaking his head slightly as he pushed a wheelchair aside."Last of the Herman's. We two, are the last of this generation, all of them gone now. Everyone except you and me." He nodded, as he rubbed his right knee.
"All the Herman's?" I asked. "How about in-laws, or your step-brother, Walter?"
"No one left but you and me. Now it's all up to our children, grand-children and their generation. How old are you now?" He squinted at me as he offered me a piece of candy.
"I'll be ninety three in May." I smiled, and unwrapped the mint.
"You come by yourself? You still drive?" I nodded and popped the candy in my mouth.
"Good for you!" Bill slapped his left hand on the arm of his chair.
We chatted and he brought up a few WWII memories. Since I had shared before how his brother, Del, had proposed at a second USO dance and I accepted, the family had been curious how we managed to communicate. "Love, love, love." I'd laugh.
Bill cocked his head at me and chuckled."I still remember when I first met you. We brothers;George, Clyde and I were on a short furlough when WWII ended, but Del was still stuck in Iceland. You didn't speak any English."
"Wait a minute!" I interrupted."I could say Coca-cola, yes, no, dance..." (Now when I think back...we were all a little crazy, especially me, or is it I ?! )
He laughed. "But it didn't take you very long to learn, Clyde teased the daylights out of you and you tried to come back at him!" He laughed again. "But George and I helped you out!" We both grinned.
Then Bill shared with me how he and Ann got married eight days before Pearl Harbor. Like his brothers he enlisted, leaving his new bride. Del fudged about his age to get in. He was a few months to young, only seventeen.
As I drove back home I thought back on our conversation: What an ordeal for Mary, their mother; her four boys in a dreaded world war. (And how in the world was she going to speak to her youngest son's bride, who spoke no English and she, Mary, spoke no Icelandic!)

But then I remembered that she was a fierce prayer warrior. Her boys came home safe and she and I got along famously :-)