052912
Day 22
A LETTER
I am a witness......
I saw something the other day. Something I can't get out of my mind. I was a witness for the end......
I have been struggling to make some sense of it......death is a tragedy...isn't it?...or is it a miracle?.......I wonder if a persons time on earth is determined the day they are born? The idea that a person leaves this earth on the exact day and moment that has already been determined puts my mind at rest with what I saw.....but I wish I could believe that more faithfully.....I wish I could believe that I witnessed some sort of magic, a miracle that hasn't yet unfolded....instead I feel as if I witnessed the most horrible thing I can imagine. I saw the aftermath of a fatal crash.......I was there just minutes after it happened.....
When I realized exactly what I was witnessing I shut down....and started to panic. The rest of the day I could not shake this awful feeling, the knots in my stomach, the horrible overwhelming sense of doom...its was like my insides turned into a bottomless pit....
I can only listen to myself to find solace after baring witness to the fatal crash......I write because I cannot keep the wife's face from my mind.....Moments of this casual conversation we had a few months ago keep flashing into my head.....it was one of those conversations that you don't soon forget.....I think of her, and when I do I send her strength....
I always envision her climbing a mountain, or finding happiness or watching her children grow......I imagine her being both mother and father, I imagine her fighting through this life.....but when I try to place myself in these shoes.....the same shoes.....I cannot see myself doing these things.....in my mind its like the film cuts out and its just blank reels of film flipping continuously....
And the only way I feel I can heal my traumas and send some tangible strength to the wife is to help.....to help her......at risk of harming myself and scarring myself even more....because then the real reality of it all may come crashing down upon me.....I feel like this is my chance to face my fear- in hopes that death, and the wife's new battle in life will give me the fortitude to SURVIVE if such a thing should befall me in my own life.......
The Wreck- specifically the shock of it even though we deal in death.....and the reality that it doesn't have to be war....its absolutely terrifying, the worst heartbreak, mystifying....any time there is loss....when its proximity is close...I can't help but think about.....a life.....just ONE life....and how much it means, how many things and miracles and people that ONE life was about....it makes me question war....it makes me wonder why we can't all just get along and love each other.......
I think of all the times that we have defied gravity, defied death, life, how many times we cut it too close, or took too many chances, and always I come back to the same questions....WHY? I realize there is a balance to life, to everything, but I see so many ugly and nasty people.....giving the rest of us who are trying to change the world such a headache.....WHY does it have to be the good that leave....why does it have to be the ones that work the hardest........?
I am terrified of being a widow. Its my worst fear.....I keep seeing her face....I see it when I am driving, when I am sleeping, I see it when I wake, and during the day while I look out the window....
I am trying to be respectful to the family, writing seems to be the only thing that is holding me together....I wish to cause no harm....but to instead shed light on a life that shall never be forgotten and to memorialize the plight of this military wife.......
I wonder sometimes if other people feel this way? I wonder if being military and dealing with the every day stresses, the loss, the hardship, makes us MORE thankful and AWARE....hyper sensitive...a sixth sense, a super power......and its not a competition.....but I look for my civilian friends and I feel as if the posts and words they use are just not the same vocabulary.....there is a gratitude that is if present NEVER mentioned.....
Everytime I think of it I feel sick and my eyes water....that lump builds in my throat and it stays there....I feel sometimes this overwhelming sadness....it wraps around me and engulfs me completely....I feel like I can't breathe.....I am choking under its constant heaviness....
If there was one sentiment.....I could give to the wife it would be....don't give up.....don't give up for our faith.........faith that there is something beautiful awaiting our soldiers who pass too early and die to young, don't give up on our hope, hope that out of darkness, out of tragic and sad, something bitter....comes beauty, don't give up on our wish,.......a wish of this life that we envision for you, don't give up on our own will.....our own will to SURVIVE.....
LOVE on YA- BIRDIE**
Another day in the life of an unlikely military wife......**
Praying for you, too!
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