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Saturday, March 19, 2005
Grandparents proudly raise Marine son’s kids
By RAY WEISS | News-Journal Staff Writer
ORMOND BEACH — The sound of laughing children fills the house.
Over at the kitchen table, Janice Creamer runs the weekly meeting of a Brownie troop, while her husband, Dennis, stands nearby feeding the family’s old boxer several dog treats.
“We have a deal,” he says, laughing. “I give him cookies and he stays quiet.”
Quiet is something these grandparents rarely experience.
For most of the past 3 1/2 years, they have been raising two of their grandchildren, 7-year-old Kaitlan and 5-year-old Dennis III, while their father, a 32-year-old Marine helicopter crew chief and single dad, has been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
That means rising at a little past 5 a.m. and making breakfast, getting the two children dressed and off to school, supervising homework and scheduling dance classes, T-ball practices and Brownie meetings.
During the day, Janice also watches one of her daughter’s three grandchildren.
“This is his career, and we understand,” said 57-year-old retired police officer Dennis Creamer, who works for Flagler County Emergency Services.
The Creamers aren’t alone: Thousands across the nation are filling in for those at war.
“This is our family, and we have to support our family any way we can,” he said.
Like his son Dennis Jr., Creamer was a Marine. He fought in Vietnam.
From an early age, the couple says their son was interested in joining the service.
“We never pushed him. He wanted to do it,” Creamer said of his son, a sergeant who joined the service out of high school. “His mom wanted him to be an architect.”
Janice, 54, said she made her son promise that he would seek a job “with both feet on the ground,” maybe an air traffic controller or a helicopter mechanic.
“He’s never on the ground. He’s always in the air,” she said, smiling. “He’s the gunner who hangs out (of the helicopter).”
Months of high anxiety — watching cable TV news reports and worrying — lifted three weeks ago when their only son returned to his home base in North Carolina.
“We had a few scares, once when the same type of helicopter he flies crashed, and we didn’t get word for a while,” Creamer said. “It was quiet around here that night. We found out the next morning he was fine.”
Janice added that her son on occasion would call from Iraq warning that they were “going to hear of some stuff going on, but it’s not bad.” Reports of those battles never made the newspapers or TV.
The Creamers avoid conversations about the war around their grandchildren, not wanting them to worry about their father. But they know why he’s gone.
The children cherish his phone calls and his visits when he’s on leave. They proudly show off photos of him in uniform and sleep with the two stuffed animals he sent for Christmas from Iraq.
Then there are nightly prayers at dinner to keep him safe.
Kaitlan opens a heart-shaped Father’s Day card she made that reads: Dear dad, I love you very much. Thank you for supporting us. You are very special to me.
The Creamers don’t know how long they will continue raising their two grandchildren. As a career Marine, their son could get called back to Iraq or another hot spot in the world.
“I don’t know what’s in store,” Creamer said for his son and grandchildren. “It is tough on him being away from his kids. But he realizes that for now this is best for them. They are settled. Stability is important. He wants them to have a normal life.”
Standing by the kitchen table, Janice starts to lead her two grandchildren and the Brownie troop in the Pledge of Allegiance.
“This was our retirement home,” she said, grinning at her husband of 35 years. “But we’re having fun. We get to do it all over again.”