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My sister just now forwarded this e-mail to me, written by an acquaintence of hers. I'm reprinting it here, except I changed the names to protect the person's privacy. I don't even know how to begin to respond to it.
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Where do I begin? I am nervous about telling my story... I shared it before, maybe by the wrong means, and I was so hurt by people in doing so. Please, bear with me... I am trying to get it out of me but not in front of a counselor paid to listen to me. I go there and I talk about anything else but what hurts me. It is a bit long but I had to write it down. There's always a first time for everything, I guess.
Quick scan of events
October 2003
It's just another evening after work and school. I am cooking and Mark is watching TV. He is daydreaming and seems to be sad. He is normally calm, has a healing smile on his lips, and his eyes are full of light. I turn off the stove, sit on the couch, take his hands in mine...
"What are you thinking about, Cutie?"
"Babe, I was wondering, what comes after death?" he stares at me with his big, hazel eyes.
I freeze. Why is he thinking about death? I try to look for some explanation, something I heard at church maybe. If someone else had asked this, I would have said, "if you do good, you go to heaven; if you do evil, you go to hell." But this just doesn't make sense to me now. I wrap his baby face with my hands,
"Baby, I don't know, but whatever it is, it must be scary," I mumble. He pauses.
"Babe, I am not scared of death if you are with me..."
November 7, 2003
We get a call from the Maine Army National Guard. He's activated to get deployed to Iraq with his unit, the 133rd Engineering Battalion. We look at each other, me with fear and despair, he -- with concern. Neither of us is persuaded of the righteousness of this war, which makes matters even harder to accept.
"But Babe," I say crying, "you only practiced shooting once a year and you only shot at a still target. You are a computer guy in a National guard engineering unit; You are not trained to be a fighter."
He knows, his buddies know it too.
"Babe, they ordered me to go and I will. I trust my superiors. I'll go there, do my duty, and come back home to you. I just hope I won't have to shoot at anyone"
Sunday, April 18, 2004
I'm back home from church. My heart is heavy. I close my eyes and I "see" the army chaplain coming to my door steps. I open my eyes and I freak out. I tell Mark not to go on any convoy. I have a bad feeling. I call my mom-in-law and tell her I feel something is gonna happen...
Monday, April 19, 2004, 7:00 am
Just like every morning, he comes online on Yahoo IM and we see each other through the webcams. I am sick at my stomach and my eyes feel heavy. He tells me I look ill and asks me to go to bed. I can't keep my head up...
"Babe, go back to sleep. You look so ill... Don't worry, we'll talk tomorrow..."
"I want to talk to you though; I've been waiting for this all night long."
"Babe, don't worry... We'll talk tomorrow, OK? I have a couple of things to tell you but they can wait..."
"Ok, Cutie, I love you!"
He signs off and a huge wave of despair overwhelms me. I try to save the last image of him on my camera but I can't. I write him a message telling him not to go out of base. I feel something is gonna happen...
****
12 am. I'm tossing and turning. Can't sleep. I am scared... I finally sink in a deep sleep and suddenly, my eyes pop up open at 2 am. I jump out of bed and go on the internet... I check all news channels... Nothing about Mosul or the 133rd... Fall back asleep and wake up again at 4 am... Still nothing on the news...
****
April 20th, 7:00 am. I wait, wait, wait. He doesn't come online. I feel like I'm walking in someone else's body. For the first time since he got deployed I believe I'm paranoid. "He'll surely email me lately," I say to myself.
I go to the three courses I have, barely finish my English paper that's already overdue, and I rush to the Family Support Group meeting for the Guardmen's spouses. On my way there I hear "Midnight Train To Georgia" twice on the radio. Even after the song is over, I keep thinking of the refrain, "I'd rather be in his world than be without him in mine..."
I am at the Armory. I can't feel myself. I am taken to a different room than the other spouses there. I'm clueless as to why, how naive of me... As I enter the room, i see teddy bears on the couch and I smile... I thought maybe Mark had sent me something... I turn around and I see the chaplain and another officer dressed in Class A uniform, their hats in their hands. My knees lock and I get a chill down my spine. I am told to sit down. No, Mark, what happened? Someone takes my hand...
"We regretfully inform you..."
I feel something snap inside my chest. Is this a novel i am reading? Who is this happening to? I don’t hear the rest. All I hear in my head and all I keep repeating is "I'd rather be in his world than be without him in mine..." They can’t make sense of me…
“Where is your family?” someone asks.
"All her family is in Romania," someone else whispers.
"Do you have any friends?"
Blurr...
I want to be with my Baby, to hold him... He said he wouldn't be scared if I was with him... Where is he???
In the days to come I start finding out more from the newspapers and the people who were there when the convoy was ambushed. Mark was a shield to everybody else in the humvee when the bomb exploded... Then the humvee caught on fire and he was severely burnt. His convoy was attacked around 9 am (Iraqi time is 8 hours ahead Eastern time), which was about the time when I woke up that morning. He was prononced dead an hour or so later, which is about the second time when I woke up that night.
The second I close my eyes, I can "see" him, pale in the face, eyes shut. I want to hold him and I cringe at the thought that he's probably being moved from one cargo plane to another in a cold casket. I have dreams that I'm being burned alive. Mark's body comes back 8 days after his death. I'm told that it's not advisable to see him and I end up not seeing him... The wake and the funeral take place with a closed casket draped by a flag. I am angry that this aimless war has killed my husband and many other husbands. I'm angry with God becasue He wasn't there for Mark... I'm angry with myself because I could feel it coming and could not prevent it.
choosing a casket... a burial place... ordering the headstone... reserving rooms for Mark's out-of-state family. It's almost like planning a wedding...
As all this is going on, more and more soldiers are dying. More women are widowed, more children become fatherless. 200 died only in April. They become numbers, statistics... The pain is left to their families to carry. They are being thanked for their sacrifice and then their caskets are lowered into the hole... Politicians don't care. One of the top administration officials, when asked if he knows how many soldiers died in April, answers with a big smile on his face, "Gee, I don't know... 500 maybe?"
I am being told over and over again that there is a higher purpose for Mark's death. I am struggling to find it. Why did my Cutie die besides the fact that he was in a war zone? I decide to speak against the war, to prevent other families from going through this nighmare. This would be my promise to Mark. "If my Baby died, then let me find a purpose." I made the headlines of the national newspapers, gave interviews to the media... It was hard to stand up and try to make a point when my heart was so heavy with grief. But I braced myself, I pushed myself, thinking I am doing what's right.
Emails start coming to me... People start attacking me in my pain. They don't say, "Well, the war is right and here is why..." Most people attacked my person and Mark's. They said I dishonored him, I trampled on his sacrifice, that I should be proud that he died for the country, that I don't support the troops and that through my statements I endanger them. Someone had the audacity to tell me that since I'm a foreigner I don't love this country enough to sacrifice my husband for it.
I was overwhelmed, still am although the bad emails stopped a while ago. I am now trying to stay away from the news, to just focus on my grieving, on going on somehow. It's hard though... This experience has left me fearful of meeting people, of sharing with others how I feel. I am afraid of being judged again and criticized. And the worst, I feel uprooted, I feel like an "alien" (INS term) again... And I don't have anything tangible left from my Mark. I don't have a baby of his... I only have pictures, memories, a flag, and medals...
I don't know how many had the patience to read this entire account, but I want to thank those who did.
Peace and love to all of you.
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