Good heavens, it's been a busy few days, but things should settle down now, so I'll be able to update here more often. Got through all the things I needed to do and saw my sister and her kids again over the weekend and now it seems as if the dust is beginning to settle.
This will give me a chance to catch up on writing which will be great, because I am getting to the point where if I don't write something soon, I will just burst. Usually, I mull over story ideas and think about them, dream about them, then when it comes time to write it down, I have to write otherwise, the stories build and I can't put my mind to anything else, because the stories are prodding me, telling me they need to be written and written now.
One of the stories/essays/poems (haven't decided what format I will use yet) is one I've already talked about here. Another idea is still very fresh (and still in the thinking/dreaming about it stage) and came from a call I overheard yesterday that just broke my heart.
While my sister and I were driving back from lunch, her husband who is deployed in Afghanistan called her and she pulled over to talk to him. I tried to look away to give them their privacy since it was a skype session and as his image came and went on her phone, they shared bits and pieces of news. Although I was looking out the window at the cars passing by, trying not to listen, I could hear that the silences on his end weren't the result of lost signals. Something was wrong.
They spoke in code, something I was used to--vague references to "something" or "somewhere"--words that soldiers used so as not to jeopardize their missions and now that I think about it, to protect others from knowing the truth, to distance it, keep these things without a face, name, or identity. Things are better to deal with when you don't know what they are.
Yesterday, was "something different." And I knew that it wasn't good, because of the way my sister started to breath, deep, controlled breaths as her voice crept down. "Was it bad?"
"Yeah." Then a quiet so long, broken only by breathing, as a soldier began to cry.
I don't know how my sister held it together, but she did, and when the phone went dark, she looked at me, her eyes now free to fill, and took a deep breath. "Just tuck it back. Tuck it back away," she said, making a motion as if putting it all behind her before getting out of the car and unloading the kids from their car seats.
It was a short moment, but it is one that has been weighing heavy on my mind since then, because while we grew up with deployments, our father in Iraq and often away on missions, it was always something that was distant and never discussed. When Dad came back, he never said a word about what happened and Mom told us never to ask him about it. We saw the anger when he was back, the violence, what the war did to him, but we never saw why.
And I saw why yesterday.
The war hurts these soldiers. And it breaks my heart so much to see that. These young, good men going out to serve their country with all honorable intentions, but then being thrown into situations and seeing things no one should see.
It's sad, because with the war having been going on for years, news stories of fatalities and injuries are no longer in the headlines. It's easy to think that the war is somewhere far away. But as I was reminded yesterday, it's not, as I sat inches away from my sister as she listened to a soldier share the things he saw without words, using motions made with his hands, an averted face, eyes down, gestures that meant nothing, but told everything.
This will give me a chance to catch up on writing which will be great, because I am getting to the point where if I don't write something soon, I will just burst. Usually, I mull over story ideas and think about them, dream about them, then when it comes time to write it down, I have to write otherwise, the stories build and I can't put my mind to anything else, because the stories are prodding me, telling me they need to be written and written now.
One of the stories/essays/poems (haven't decided what format I will use yet) is one I've already talked about here. Another idea is still very fresh (and still in the thinking/dreaming about it stage) and came from a call I overheard yesterday that just broke my heart.
While my sister and I were driving back from lunch, her husband who is deployed in Afghanistan called her and she pulled over to talk to him. I tried to look away to give them their privacy since it was a skype session and as his image came and went on her phone, they shared bits and pieces of news. Although I was looking out the window at the cars passing by, trying not to listen, I could hear that the silences on his end weren't the result of lost signals. Something was wrong.
They spoke in code, something I was used to--vague references to "something" or "somewhere"--words that soldiers used so as not to jeopardize their missions and now that I think about it, to protect others from knowing the truth, to distance it, keep these things without a face, name, or identity. Things are better to deal with when you don't know what they are.
Yesterday, was "something different." And I knew that it wasn't good, because of the way my sister started to breath, deep, controlled breaths as her voice crept down. "Was it bad?"
"Yeah." Then a quiet so long, broken only by breathing, as a soldier began to cry.
I don't know how my sister held it together, but she did, and when the phone went dark, she looked at me, her eyes now free to fill, and took a deep breath. "Just tuck it back. Tuck it back away," she said, making a motion as if putting it all behind her before getting out of the car and unloading the kids from their car seats.
It was a short moment, but it is one that has been weighing heavy on my mind since then, because while we grew up with deployments, our father in Iraq and often away on missions, it was always something that was distant and never discussed. When Dad came back, he never said a word about what happened and Mom told us never to ask him about it. We saw the anger when he was back, the violence, what the war did to him, but we never saw why.
And I saw why yesterday.
The war hurts these soldiers. And it breaks my heart so much to see that. These young, good men going out to serve their country with all honorable intentions, but then being thrown into situations and seeing things no one should see.
It's sad, because with the war having been going on for years, news stories of fatalities and injuries are no longer in the headlines. It's easy to think that the war is somewhere far away. But as I was reminded yesterday, it's not, as I sat inches away from my sister as she listened to a soldier share the things he saw without words, using motions made with his hands, an averted face, eyes down, gestures that meant nothing, but told everything.
Please give your sister a hug from me. I'm sending your whole family strength & grace & protection from harm.
ReplyDeleteWill do, Sandy! I don't know how she does it. It requires so much strength to know your husband is in the middle of all that.
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