Hello again :)

     It's been so long since I've blogged anything. I'm sorry! Life has been a little crazy. I'm busy with school and work and, oh yeah, I got married in January! I'm loving every second. Soon I'll write a post on that, but for now, I wanted to share a story I wrote a while back. I'm trying to get better about writing again, so here goes! Time to pick up the pen again. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

The Last Letter

            I just hold a few dates and some words. She holds a thousand memories and a love I could never imagine. I am cold, hard, unfeeling. She feels sadness, loneliness, desperation and everything in between. I mark a mound of dirt. She marks a life loved and lost.
            Those in my line of work see a lot of people, but she’s my favorite. She spends hours sometimes looking at me and talking to the memory of the one whose name I bear. She’ll laugh. She’ll cry. Sometimes she just sits in silence. I love listening to her talk.

            The cemetery seems especially cold today. It’s fall and the leaves are blowing across the grounds, like ghosts dancing across the air. It’s quiet until I hear the soft padding of her tennis shoes as she comes across the grass. She stops a moment, crosses herself, and puts her hand on the top of me as she prays. I know she is praying because she mumbles it quietly to herself, the same prayer. “Lord, give me strength.”

            She steps back and sits, legs crossed, in front of me, just like she always does. Today she is wearing blue jeans and an oversized Go Army sweatshirt.

             “Hi, honey. It’s me. I miss you.” She stops and puts her hair behind her ear. A tear falls off her face and the thirsty ground soaks it up.

            The first time she was here, an older woman came with her. She sobbed and laid on the ground right in front of me. She laid her hands on my marble skin and tried to convince herself she was dreaming. The woman just knelt beside her and didn’t say a word. I decided then that humans are the unluckiest of creatures. They must say hello and goodbye too often in one lifetime. There is so much heartache. I, on the other hand, have one silent companion forever.

            I am distracted by her speaking again.

“Today marks three months since they told me.”

 I know this story well. To hear her tell it, one would think she repeats it just to keep the pain jagged and fresh. I can’t understand it.

             “I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I was sitting on the couch with Mom, trying to rock Braden to sleep. There was a sharp knock at the door and Dad answered it. We heard talking from the front door but couldn’t make out what was being said. When Dad started sobbing, we knew. Without anyone saying a word, something broke in me. Perhaps it was my heart, perhaps my desire to live, perhaps both. When the man at the door came inside, his uniform crisp and clean, time itself seemed to stop. I didn’t hear a word he said. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears and my heart repeating the same word, ‘No, no, no, no.’ I remember Mom taking Braden from me, but I felt nothing. I was completely numb.” She stares out across the grounds, looking past all the other markers, lost in a world of her own.

            Those that do what I do hear this type of story often. It is the one that sticks clearest in the memory of those left behind. It is often the last story that connects them to their loved one. It is also one of the hardest. The pain is the rawest and the most real. They make it seem like almost a physical thing that binds them up. Though I have tried, I cannot understand.

She rubs the material on her left wrist, a piece of his uniform someone made into a bracelet for her. She does this often, like maybe it makes him feel closer when he is so very far away.

“I remember the day we got married. You stood before God and all of our family and friends and said that from the moment we met we had been inseparable and that we always would be. You promised you’d never leave me, that you would be there to walk all of life’s journey with me. And that turned out to be a lie. You barely walked through any of life with me. We barely celebrated our third anniversary before you were deployed. You didn’t get to experience the joy of me finding out I was pregnant, or see my tummy grow. You didn’t get to feel the baby kick or be there when he was born. You never got to hold him.”

I can’t help noticing the vivid contrast she makes. She speaks of marriage and family, the essence of life. But instead of joy, it is backlit by death and the stealing of time. In the end there was no complete enjoyment of what were supposed to be the happiest moments of their life together.

            “I remember getting a rare letter from you in the mail around New Year’s. You told us how you had taken some Iraqi kids and celebrated Christmas with them. You drew a Christmas tree on some paper and taught the kids Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Silent Night. I could hear your joy as you wrote about their giggles and their hugs when they said good-bye that night. Later that week, one of the kids from that same group lost her family when a bomb hit their village. She was at school when it happened. When she heard the news, she ran to you and you held her tight. She cried on your shoulder for hours until she fell asleep, exhausted. You were afraid to move, afraid that you would wake her and she would find herself back in the hell that was now her life. I heard the anguish in your voice as you described the day your best friend, Harry, died. He’d gotten sick one day and only got worse. You stayed right by his side while he slipped farther from this earth.”

            She smiles sadly and rubs her arms. “You were truly the hero everyone said you were. I am so proud of you for that. You fought for your country with a fierceness and loyalty the likes of which I’ve never seen. You had freedom running through your veins and you would bleed out if it meant everyone could have it. You loved your country, your family, your friends and your fellow soldiers with a love that even death could not break. It made my love for you so much stronger.”

            She looks up at the big, blue Carolina sky as though searching for her lost love among the clouds, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of him. “I tell Braden about you every day. I show him your picture and tell him how much you loved him. I tell him that you were brave and strong and courageous. I tell him how funny you were and how sweet. I tell him that I hope he turns out just like you.”

I know just by the things she says that she knows the color of sadness and the taste of bitterness. She knows how love feels when it wraps tight around her. She has experienced the sound of laughter that sets her heart dancing. I know nothing of the sort. I know dark and light, hot and cold, only because of the weather, not because of the feelings it creates.

            She swallows hard and her lip trembles a little. “I miss you, baby. So much. I’m jealous that God gets to hold you and I don’t.” She pauses. “Do you like it better up there with God? Do you like hanging out with your Paw-Paw and going fishing? I hope every once in a while God pulls back some clouds and lets you look down on me and Braden so you can see we’re doing okay.”  

            That is another thing I do not understand, this concept of forever. All I have ever known is that life stops with me. I am the final resting place, the end. It does not seem that way from what she says. Certainly she and her son would be better off if he were still living and not laying six feet beneath me, but from the way she talks, it would seem that he is happy wherever he is.

            “Mama’s always telling me that it’ll get better with time. She says that I’m a survivor and every day I get up and move is courageous. Most days I feel like just breathing hurts the most. I have to breathe without you and go about my day knowing that you’re not going to be there waiting at the end of it.”

When she talks like this, I feel like I am invading. If she knew I was watching, I imagine she would not continue like she does. But she keeps right on going.

“I brought the letter today. Dad said you mailed it to him shortly after you were deployed, just in case anything happened.” She laughs sadly. “It’s almost like you knew. Did you? It wouldn’t surprise me. You always seemed to know everything. Dad gave it to me at your funeral, thinking I’d want to have it.” She takes a deep breath. “For the longest time, I slept with it under my pillow. It still smelled like you. A few times I thought about throwing it away without ever opening it. I didn’t want what was inside to be something that would tear me apart even more. I suppose that’s why, three months later, I still haven’t opened it. I’m so afraid to see what’s inside. Will I love you more after I read it or somehow hate you for the truth you show me?”

She has her arms wrapped around her knees and she is staring at the letter resting on the ground in front of her. If her face is any indication, she is fighting a raging battle. Thunder rumbles in the distance and what leaves are left on the trees rustle.

Finally, with hands shaking, she tears the envelope and unfolds the letter. I hear her read it aloud despite the sudden tightness of her throat.

“My dearest honey-bee,

            This was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do because writing this letter meant that I had to accept the fact that I could die. I had to look this war in the face and admit that it could take me away forever and I hated it. How could I let anything take me away from my beloved wife and child that I’ve never met? You two are my world, my everything. And though it was hard, in writing this letter, I was reminded why I do what I do. I love you and the baby so much that I want to make sure you stay free. I want you and everyone else to live in a safe place. I want our baby to grow up in a place where he or she can do anything they want. I want you to be able to enjoy the outdoors and to write with that reckless abandon attitude you’re so fond of. And if it meant giving my life so you and everyone could do so, then that’s what it meant. Sarah, if you know anything about me, it’s that I’m a man of my word and I am fiercely loyal. I feel that I can be both to you and to our country.
            So yes, if you’re reading this letter, I’m gone. Know that I loved you with everything in me, more than I ever thought possible. And I so wish I could have held our little one. I wish I could have kissed you one last time and tickled that spot behind your knee. There are a million things I wish, but there’s no use spending time thinking about what cannot change.

First things first, the advice that follows is my way to say I love you. Take it with you in your heart wherever you go. It’s going to be hard for you to read, but it’s not meant to be cold or mean, it’s just the truth.

Don’t ever feel like moving on would be a betrayal to me. I want you to have someone to hold you when you’re scared. To laugh with you. To dance in the rain with you. To tell you how beautiful you are. I want our son or daughter to have someone by their side, a Daddy, who can teach them to ride a bike, kiss boo boos, play ball or dress-up. It doesn’t need to be right away. I know this grieving thing takes time. But promise me you won’t grieve longer than what is needed. You’ll know when your time of mourning is done and it’s okay to start over. Go at it with all the passion I know you possess. Fall in love again, Sarah. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day. Be happy. And if I know you, you’re at my grave site talking to me. Leaving flowers. Pouring out your heart. Can I tell you something? Those words are just carried through the air until they’re gone forever. I’m not there to hear them. I love you, Sarah, but please don’t go back and waste your beautiful, precious breath on a headstone. Take those moments you spend by my mound of dirt and play with our kid. Write again. Go fly a kite or paint a picture. Go live your life instead of wasting your time talking to the dead. Please, honey, don’t go back there. Honor my memory by filling your days with what makes you thrive, not just survive. Do what you love knowing it’s what I wanted for you.
            I love you, honey-bee, with all my heart.
                        James”

I watch her stand, slowly. She folds up the letter and carefully puts it back into the envelope. For a moment, she stares out at the cemetery, at all the thousands of headstones. After a moment, she walks up to me, bends her head, and kisses the very top of my head. She whispers goodbye and walks away.

I knew then that this would be the last time I would see her. Her young soldier-husband’s words had rooted her heart. I could see it all over her face. She would change the way she went through every day, no matter how uncomfortable it was, no matter how much it hurt. Her shadow would never fall over me again. Her presence would grace gardens and living rooms and parks. Art galleries and church pew and canyons. Living things. She deserved to be among the living.

I watched her walk away with a new purpose in her step. That woman didn’t want to keep life waiting a single second. The young man’s words kept echoing, bouncing off the markers of countless other dead. Maybe humans weren’t as unlucky as I thought.

I only hold a name and a body void of its soul. That’s all I’ll ever hold. She, on the hand, holds memories and love. And yes, she holds pain. But she also holds freedom. I envy her. In time she will learn to love again. She can choose any path she wishes to take her forward into hope and new things. My destiny is to forever hold the dead.