Michael: Our family’s angel
Growing up, Michael was kind, soft-spoken, long-suffering, charitable, meek, and humble. Everything I wasn’t.
Michael Lee Martines was born October 2, 1970 at what was then called Sandia Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was later merged with adjacent Manzano Base and renamed Kirtland Air Force Base in 1971. Our family was there while our father was getting his master’s degree in Spanish linguistics from the University of New Mexico.
My first memories of Michael are from Colorado Springs where we moved just three months after Michael was born when the Air Force assigned my father to be a Spanish language instructor at the Air Force Academy. In our basement our mother had a long folding table she used for sewing and craft projects. When it was cleared, Michael and I would put blankets around it and turn it into a tent. We (really I!) filled it with our favorite toys and stuffed animals and pretended it was our little kingdom and we were its rulers.
I remember once dancing around our fort singing “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” a 1966 hit song by Gale Garnett.
“We’ll sing in the sunshine we’ll laugh every day
We’ll sing in the sunshine then I’ll be on my way.”
I just remember how fun it was to create our own little world in the basement fort. Michael would go along with everything I wanted to do.
I don’t have a lot of other memories of Michael as an infant and I think that is because I didn’t really like babies. I was always looking up to my older sister Leslie and trying to compete with her. I probably thought babies were uninteresting and boring. Let’s just say I didn’t have any motherly instincts until my own children were born!
But I do vaguely recall feeling jealous and threatened by Michael because he took attention away from me. Everyone seemed to like him more than they liked me. And why wouldn’t they? He was truly angelic. My mom says he never cried as a baby. Though that certainly cannot be true, it is close to the truth. Michael was always content, never fussy. To this day, my mom calls him her “dream child.”
My next memory of Michael was in the summer of 1974 as our family prepared to move to Spain where my dad would serve as an exchange officer teaching English to cadets at the Spanish Air Force Academy for two years. I remember the movers packing up our house, removing boxes, beds, tables, everything. Though I had already experienced three moves in my young life, this was the first one I remembered. I was anxious, confused, and unhappy about what was happening around me.
Our mom let each child save one toy or doll to pack in our suitcases to take on the trip with us. It would be at least two months before we reunited with our household goods. I remember taking Michael and our toys and hiding under the stairwell of the basement while movers packed us out. I thought if we hid there no one would find us and we could stay in our house.
On more than one occassion, after I had broken or spilled something, or otherwise made a mess or gotten into trouble, I tried to pin it on Michael. I knew my parents would punish me for my misdeeds, but judged they wouln’t punish Michael. I thought I was pretty clever to tell my parents that Michael was to blame. I wish I could go back in time to hear those convesations. Was I even the least bit credible? Did my parents buy it? Or did they know immediately I was responsible? Was Michael even old enough to defend himself? The only thing I remember is that Michael never got punished for any of my deeds, but neither did I. So, I guess it worked!
To this day, our family still remembers a hilarous incident with Michael at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana where he learned to ride a bike. It was the summer of 1976. He may have been riding the green Schwinn bike my sister and I both learned on. He was going up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. At one point another child walked in his path and Michael yelled out, “I can’t stop! Get out of the way!” Or something to that effect. He looked really panicked! I think the other child got out of the way and disaster was averted.
Michael was almost three when our brother Matthew was born. They became fast friends. I don’t remember them ever fighting as little kids. As we moved around from base to base they seemed to be a team, always making friends with other sets of brothers at the bases. The most memorable set of friends were Bobby and Shawn at Osan, Air Force Base in South Korea. We lived in an apartment complex on the small base called Mustang Village. I was in middle school and attending school in Seoul, an hour’s drive north. I was very involved with cheerleading and other activities which kept me out of the house a lot. I don’t remember a lot about Michael during those years, only that he and Matthew were also out of the house, a lot, too, running around the base with Bobby and Shawn.
The base was small enough that my parents didn’t worry about letting us go wherever we wanted to. If you want to know more about their exploits on the base as children, you will have to ask Michael and Matthew, because I just wasn’t around to remember what they were doing. I just know they ran around in a pack of four boys everywhere.
When Michael was about 12-years old our family moved to Scott Air Force Base in Southern Illinois. I remember he came home from school with Cs on his report card, maybe worse. Because I never got anything below a B on a report card, and I’m pretty sure Leslie never got anything below an A on hers, I couldn’t understand why Michael’s report card was so different. I don’t know if I asked him directly, or if my mother relayed this story to me. But somehow I remember hearing that Michael’s teacher told my parents his problem was he didn’t pay attention in class and was always looking out the window. When asked about it, Michael said he liked to daydream. I would love to have asked him what he was daydreaming about. And did my parents take any actions to get him to improve his grades? His lack of drive in academics was a total mystery to me. I was very driven to compete in academics.
While we lived in Alexandria, Virginia, I remember Michael playing football in our neighborhood and getting injured. An ambulance had to come to check out his collar bone, it may have been broken. My dad was upset someone called for an ambulance because my dad had to pay for that and he would have preferred to drive Michael to the hospital himself. He recently reminded me that he loved football and played it for many years in his youth. I think he may have been the quarterback.
My final memory of Michael is from Okinawa, Japan, where my father was stationed during Michael’s last three years of high school. I was home for the summer from college and Michael and Matthew were fighting over something. They were yelling back and forth through the house. Finally we heard a door slam and everything went quiet. After a few minutes someone asked what happened. Michael emerged from his bedroom red in the face and angry, “He called me a liberal!” So, being called a liberal was the WORSE thing you could be labeled in our family. That ended the fight.
I have shared that story many times over the years to explain our family’s conservative politics.
Michael served a mission after high school in Houston, Texas. My parents took a picture of him in front of our house before taking him to the airport. That is really the only visual memory I have of him serving. That one single picture. In those days, families didn’t make a big deal of really anything their kids did! It’s so different now. We photograph, record, and post about every little thing they do. Parents just didn’t do that when Michael and I were growing up.
Michael returned from his mission, went to Utah State and then got married.
He has been such a blessing to our family. As he been a spiritual strength to every one of us. He has been a friend and confidant to me during tough times. In times of trouble, he is the person I go to. Michael does not judge or try to solve my problems, he listens and shows compassion and empathy. He is a wonderful husband and father. He is kind, patient, loving, and humble. He is today, the same sweet guy he was as a child.
I am grateful for his friendship.
