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By Bonnie Bartel Latino

Columnist

As I crossed our street in our base housing near March Air Force Base, Calif., I saw a familiar white car. My friend, Pat Phillips, was behind the wheel. I stood by the curb waving like crazy. The more I had gotten to know her, the better I liked her.
“Hey!” I welcomed her enthusiastically as she opened her car door and stepped onto our lawn. She looked pale and had lost weight. “Are you OK?”
Despite Pat’s assurances, clearly she wasn’t. I invited her in, but she said she couldn’t stay, then she blurted out, “I have leukemia. I just came from the base hospital.” Leukemia! In 1971, the word took one’s breath away. Not much has ever taken away my voice, but that word in relation to Pat Phillips was a killer. Although her husband had served in World War II as a Glider-pilot and P-40 pilot, who was now a seasoned full colonel at the top of Tom’s chain of command, she and I were close friends. The Phillips were from Lancaster, S.C., near Charlotte, N.C., and we shared a wicked Southern woman sense of humor. Bless our hearts. I could not fathom a world without Pat Phillips.
Forcing myself to focus on what she was saying, I felt stunned. She stepped closer when I asked if she had told her husband. “No, and I’m not going to. He has so much on his mind, I can’t burden him with this.”
“Pat, I understand being the director of comm-electronics,
including the missile bases and bombers at all 15th Air Force bases is an enormous job.” I took a deep breath, I knew what I was about to say didn’t
approach appropriate for a junior officer’s wife to say to the wife of the senior officer at the head of her husband’s chain of command. Despite that, Pat was a close friend.
I took her frail hands in mine. “You know you can lean on me. But, Pat, the last thing John T. Phillips would want is for you to go through something like this alone. She nodded that I was right. “I can’t let you go through this alone.” She started to reply, but I shushed her. “Listen to me,” I intentionally softened my tone and lowered my voice. “You can tell John T. tonight …” She shook her head no. “Or I can tell him tomorrow. Your choice.” We’ve all read melodramatic novels that say, “The silence was deafening.” But this silence screamed loudly. Finally, I continued. “You know you have to tell him.”
Slowly, she nodded. Tears filled her eyes. “I know,” she eventually said. I begged her to come inside, but she said she wanted to get home and compose herself before John T. came home for supper. I nodded my understanding. I walked her to her car, but I couldn’t let her go without giving her a big hug. “You’ll tell him tonight?” I whispered before I let go. I felt her head nod yes. As we separated, I looked into her eyes. “Promise?”
She opened her car door. “Tonight,” Pat said. “I promise.”
I watched her drive away until her car disappeared around the corner. My heart hurt in a way I had never before felt. Pat was in her 50s. They had two sons, both Air Force lieutenants. I was 23. She could have been my mother. I had never lost a parent. Both of my Louisiana grandmothers were still alive. This was the closest I had ever come to possibly losing someone I loved. I didn’t merely love Pat. I had flat-out adored her since that day we sat across from each other at my first OWC luncheon. We had both snorted loudly trying to swallow our shared laughter at inappropriate “bloopers” shared by an anchor from a Los Angeles TV station. I smiled at the memory that was already a-year-old.
Back inside our house, I stooped down and scooped up Lamb Chop and pulled her to my chest. I would not cry. I would not cry. Suddenly I sobbed so hard, Lambie discarded her purple ball, which she’d had in her mouth, to kiss away my tears.
Taking my little lamb to our bedroom, I crawled onto our bed with her. I replayed her visit in my head. How pale and frail she had looked when she told me her devastating news. A wave of reality washed over me. Lieutenants’ wives never gave senior officers’ wives ultimatums. We had no handbook of Do’s and Don’ts, but I knew I had over-stepped the bounds of military propriety. And yet, I felt I had no choice but to tell her to do the only thing that would bring her comfort–to share her shocking news with the one person she had chosen to share her life.
Where had I gotten the nerve to give her my ultimatum? One that I meant and would have completed if necessary. As I keyboard this column 53-years later, I ask myself again, where had I found the courage to give a senior officer’s wife an ultimatum? I felt a sly smile suddenly transforming my face. I knew exactly where I had found the nerve to simply do the right thing. I didn’t find it as much as I learned at home, school, and at Trinity Episcopal Church in Atmore, Ala., 36502. My relationships back then with Atmore women “Toad” Albert, “Auntie Pat” McKenzie, Gladys Middleton, and Nell Staff, plus teachers Lucy Cunningham, Gertrude Edwards, Albert Kennington, and Juanita Smith had all contributed to make my friendship with this colonel’s wife comfortable enough for this lieutenant’s wife to speak my truth.
My core being knew my husband Tom would support me 100% in what I had done. That gift was as precious as my upbringing and early education.