68. Who Are You?

"I will love you - and only you - until death do us part."

If you think about it, this is really a pretty crappy wedding vow. "Until death do us part" is awfully vague. What happens when death does do us part? Love transcends the grave. Life ends; love doesn't. So what happens to the person with so much love left to give and no love of their life to give it to?


If there's one thing I've learned throughout this process, it's that people have an overwhelming desire to fix me and tell me that I'll be happy again. They tell me that the happiness will be "different," but it will happen one day. Being happy again, in society's eyes, means "finding someone else." But why? What is so wrong with loving one person forever, even when they are no longer here? Even when I ventured into the dating world, my heart always belonged to Jon. You don't tell a parent who has lost a child that they'll find another child, so why do we tell widows and widowers that they'll find another spouse? It's not like shopping for new pair of shoes when the old ones wear out.


This tendency to assume that happiness - or, at least, satisfaction - has to come from another relationship is something I've certainly been guilty of myself. As I've discovered, I do have a lot of love left to give. But maybe it's just not in the cards for me to have that love come in the form of another amazing man. I already had my one great love - the love of my life. I've been a lot of things, but I've never been selfish enough to assume that I deserve two in one lifetime. Does that make me sad? Yeah, it does. But maybe I can prove to society that adopting a child and channeling my energy into philanthropic outreach projects will sustain me until the day that Jon and I are reunited. Love doesn't really conquer all - death ultimately wins every hand in the game called life. And yet this in and of itself is a double-edged sword, for it wouldn't be this hard or hurt this badly if I didn't love him this much. You don't just get rid of the symptoms of true love and expel it from your system like some temporary illness.


I hope the book I read this summer titled "Heaven is For Real" is right. It tells us that this life is just a drop in the bucket. There's so much more waiting for us on the other side of the sorrows in this world. I think that sometimes when I voice these sentiments, people get all worried and assume I only believe those things because I want to see Jon again. Obviously I want to see him again. But it's more than that. In order to survive life here on earth, I need to believe there's something more. A friend once told me that although he can't understand exactly how I feel, he can certainly appreciate how different my perspective must be when the person I love is already waiting for me on the other side. And that's exactly it right there. Like I've said before, I'll see him again. Just not yet.


In church today, the title of the sermon was "Who Are You?" In the back of my Bible, the glossary of terms defines widow as "a woman whose husband has died." As I read those words over and over, I consciously told myself that I am so much more than this. I am a dedicated wife, a heart-broken lover, a passionate advocate for our nation's heroes, and a proud Soldier. Not one of these things defines me. All of these things define me. I am not just a woman whose husband has died. I am a woman who has seen more in twenty-eight years than many people experience in a lifetime, and I am a woman whose love for my husband lives beyond the grave. My love for him is endless, timeless. To feel this way is truly a gift, though a bittersweet one. No one can take this away from me because it's not just what defines me - it is me. And although it might not fit with popular sentiment, I won't apologize for it. I want to scream it from the rooftops. No, make that the mountaintops. I am me! I am in love with a man who is gone but never forgotten!


"Jonathan" is defined as "God's gift." That gift is unconditional and without equal - a real version of the kind of gift that keeps on giving. I can't imagine my life - or my identity - without the wonders of this gift. For I am here. Here I am! And he is always with me.

67. My Generation

"The Soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest acts of religious training - sacrifice.  However horrible the incidents of war may be, the Soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.
~General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, May 12th, 1962

When 9/11 happened, I wasn't just a kid.  I was a senior in high school, about to turn eighteen and officially become an adult.  The next year, as a freshman in college, I joined ROTC and began my military career.  In terms of my commitment to the program, I'd passed the point of no return by the time we invaded Iraq on March 19th, 2003.  This is why it frustrates me now to no end when people emphasize the fact that the current war is being fought by an "all-volunteer force," as if this somehow makes it more okay when bad things happen over there.

It's an all-volunteer force...but so what?  

Does that make the sacrifices of those volunteers mean any less?  There is no relative scale for self-sacrifice, and, if anything, volunteering to put oneself in harms way should make it mean that much more.  The force that constitutes today’s military is unlike any other form of volunteer work or duty in existence.  It is, in the words of General MacArthur, among the noblest developments of mankind.  In my words, I don’t care what it is you’re doing – unless your job here at home involves getting shot at every day or travelling along roads where people routinely get blown up, there’s simply no comparison.  That is not to say, by any means, that every person who serves deserves some sort of medal – there are a handful of individuals with whom I’ve served that I’m embarrassed to call Soldiers in the United States Army.  But they are the exception and not the rule. 

The fact that it is an all-volunteer force just makes the people who quietly resent the military's "privileges" and benefits seem even more ridiculous – the option of signing up is open to all those complainers in the same way it was open to me, to all those who came before me, and to all those who've chosen to sign on the dotted line over the past ten years.  For me, at least, it was never about the money, the benefits, solving violence with violence, or even the ability to do all the fun stuff, like jumping out of airplanes and shooting big guns.  Even the fun stuff comes with the price tag of a whole lot of suck and waiting around on someone to tell you what to do next.  And don’t get me started on the deployment thing.  We all go over there, knowing full well it could be us who doesn't get to come home alive, but discounting the probability and believing instead that we will be “okay.”  All we want to do is put our heads down and get through whatever it is we have to do so we can get back home to our families and away from the place that’s overshadowed by death at all times.  It’s not fun over there and it’s not supposed to be.  To call it a job is like the understatement of the year.  No, make that the century.  The E-3 Private First Class on the front lines may be getting paid…but his meager $2,000 a month paycheck is hardly enough to justify him coming home to his wife and newborn baby in a wooden box.   And therein lies another great paradox of inequity:  never before have the debts of so many been paid by so few.  When I observe the self-entitlement of some members of my generation, I literally feel sick to my stomach and have to physically separate myself from the situation.  Again, those individuals are the exception and not the rule, but it's funny how one or two bad apples have the ability to sour the whole batch.

Call me old-fashioned (or maybe even a little boring?), but this lack of patience with my own generation is what contributes in part to the respect and appreciation I have for my grandparents' generation.  By chance, I ended up having drinks and dinner a few nights ago with three wonderful people who've been around for long enough to know what matters most in life.  I've never met them before, but one of them - a man named Randy - literally could not stop crying and hugging me as I told him my story about Jon.  He took pictures of the photos I carry with me in my wallet, wrote down our names, and toasted to my sweetheart.  He also invited me to stop by the restaurant anytime for a glass of wine - he promised he'd be there and would be honored to hear more of my stories about the husband whose absence in my life and home never seems to get any easier.

Just a couple of weeks before this unexpected surprise,  I was fortunate enough to be in the presence of some of the greatest and most patriotic men and women I've ever met:  veterans of the Vietnam War.  As a local representative of the American Widow Project, I attended the reunion banquet of the Tan Son Nhut Association at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  A slight mix-up in the start time meant my cousin and I were a little late, which, considering it was a military event and all, didn't bode too well for the rest of the night.  However, things improved ...and quickly.  I approached the chapter president to thank him for having us and he immediately insisted on announcing Jon's name to the entire room.  As he listed the dates and place of Jon's death, he asked me to stand up and be recognized, and then the entire room followed in a standing ovation.  I was beyond touched...and, of course, in tears.  The Association also presented me with a coveted unit coin, which I am honored to be able to add to my collection of military coins.  The entire experience was truly the modern version of magical.  It made me prouder than ever of my sweet husband, whose sacrifice allowed me to experience such gratitude and kindness from complete strangers.

At the banquet, I knew Jon was right there with me.  While eating dessert, a nut from my brownie escaped and somehow made its way down the front of my dress.  My first thoughts were great, just what I need...but only moments later I had to laugh as I remembered the story about the hot brass going down the front of my shirt back in 2003.  I realized this was just Jon's way of encouraging me to smile, even in the midst of an incredibly emotional event.  What more can I say?  Jon was one of those special members of my generation who gives me hope for the future.  His sacrifice was the most selfless act a person could possibly perform, and his love for me was endless.  I hit the husband lottery.  It doesn't get much better than that.  

66. Arm-in-Arm

Mom (in response to the death of her son's dog):  He'll always be in your heart, honey. 

Son:  I don't want him in my heart.  I want him here with me. 

~From Tim Burton's Frankenweenie

When I made the decision to join ROTC at college, I had this silly, romanticized image in my head of meeting a cute Army guy and walking arm-in-arm together through campus - him in his uniform, of course, and me in a pretty little sundress with the perfect pair of shoes.  I never anticipated what ultimately ended up being a far better reality - that I'd find myself in some of the grungiest and most unattractive situations of my life and, in the process, that I'd meet my soul mate.  A good friend of mine from high school (and one of my bridesmaids at my wedding) told me that besides the obvious emotional connection, Jon and I even looked like we were made for each other.  She said she could see us having beautiful children one day together...and that those children would undoubtedly bring out the best parts of both of us.

At Jon and I's wedding in 2006, Jon's brother, Jason, was the best man.  During his speech, Jason poked fun at his little brother, which, of course, made Jon mad in a friendly, brotherly, I'm-going-to-kill-him later kind of a way.  Jason said that he had known I was a keeper when we all went to the pistol range in December of 2003, and, in the process of shooting at my target, a piece of brass managed to find its way down the front of my shirt.  Hot metal on pale, sensitive Scottish skin doesn't feel too good, so I immediately put down the weapon and turned towards the back of the room to remove the piece of brass with as much dignity and poise as I could muster.  So much for the dignity and poise.  My future father-in-law, Jason, and Jon all laughed at my ridiculous efforts to get rid of that piece of brass without undressing in front of all of them.  After an episode like that, I always knew Jon must love me for a whole lot more than just my looks and lack of gracefulness.

As I avoided writing a miserable paper for law school the other day, I found myself surfing the web to find out how to insert a missing person into a photograph.  It was just a silly Google search, but it made me reflect on how strong the urge can be to jump back in time to when my favorite, current photographs always included my husband.  Sometimes I swear I can still feel his touch.  I'll dream about him, feel his lips on mine, and I want to stay there in dreamland with the man who made my silly dream possible back in college and who promised me we'd continue to walk arm-in-arm into the future.  Cliche or not (being that I'm from Scotland and all...), one of my favorite movies is Braveheart, and although the first time I saw it was long ago, there's this line during a dream William Wallace has about his late wife that always brought me great sadness as I tried to imagine how a man who has lost the love of his life might feel.  Now that I know how he felt, I'd really like to go back to just imagining it:

"Murron's ghost:  William, you must wake now.
William Wallace:  I don't want to wake.  I want to stay here with you.
Murron's ghost:  And I with you...

I think I've become pretty good at what I call "the transference of sadness."  It's probably just a coping mechanism, a way to dull the sharp sting of losing my soul mate since my heart can only take so much of it at once.  I call it the transference of sadness because that's essentially what I'm doing when I cram my schedule full of events and activities and work.  It's what it means for me to focus on other things that are less real and seem less personal, like the movies I've loved for years that I can watch over and over again while letting my mind drift to thoughts of something else for a while.  And yet, in the end, all my favorite movies always manage to hit a little too close to home for comfort.  Braveheart is a good example.  Gladiator is another.  Gettysburg.  The Green Mile.  Black Hawk Down.  P.S. I Love You.  Same thing with Forrest Gump.  Why is it that all the best and most brilliant of movies always involve a good person losing someone they love more than life itself?

Jon and I never had the chance to have those children my friend said would be beautiful and look just like us.  For some reason, people think that this somehow makes it easier for me since I can focus on my own grief and don't have to look into the face of a child who represents a constant reminder of what I've lost.  Yet, what they fail to understand is that I'd give just about anything to have to drag myself out of bed every morning and live my life to the fullest for the sake of a little one with my husband's beaming smile and his crooked, Roman nose.  I'd even picked out a name already for a little girl if and when Jon had one in the future:  Nicola (pronounced Nick-oh-lah).  It used to be a pretty popular name in Scotland, and although most Americans mispronounce it, I love that it's so different and requires you to pause and think for a moment.  I know I'm biased, but I guess I always assumed that any child Jon created would be like that too - he or she would be brilliant, inquisitive, and, just like Jon, would cause people to pause and think for a moment about the world and way they see it.

When my dream of children with Jon didn't come to fruition and I first found myself facing the prospect of many long, lonely days ahead, I rescued a two-year-old dog from an animal shelter on what would have been our wedding anniversary.  I named her Nicki.  Nicki is now about seven, and although she can be a little annoying sometimes, she's a sweetheart and just wants to be loved.  I think she's also grateful to have a warm, comfortable home after spending God-knows how long in a dirty cage with several other dogs where she had to fight for food and water.  A couple of days ago, I took another break from writing that miserable paper to go on a long walk with Nicki and experience fall in Ohio.  We walked for well over an hour and it was dark by the time we finally made it home.  Nicki loved it - she pranced through the leaves and left her mark on every bush, mailbox and tree from our front doorstep to our turn-around point and back again.  It made me laugh to see her so excited over little things like all the delicious smells on our new route.  And the sunset was, in a word, beautiful.  Again, I know I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure Jon would have approved...and I know he would have loved to have been there, walking arm-in-arm with me, too.

65. Ya'Aburnee (Arabic): "You Bury Me"

"If I knew back then, 

All the things that I know now, 

I'd kiss you forever and never let go 

When I uttered that sacred vow."

According to the author of an article I read, "ya'aburnee" is Arabic for "you bury me."  (Pamela Haag, The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English:  http://bigthink.com/marriage-30/the-top-10-relationship-words-that-arent-translatable-into-english?page=all).  As Ms. Haag describes, this word is a declaration of one's hope that they'll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.  It's a morbidly beautiful thought...and one with which I'm all too familiar.  How ironic that this happens to the be one word on Ms. Haag's list that's in Arabic, of all languages.  It sums up the very essence of what I've often tried to express to others, in English - that I wasn't, and still am not, ready to say goodbye to Jon.

A friend of mine once told me she and her husband never tell each other "goodbye."  Even when they served together in Iraq and went out on dangerous missions, they'd say "see you later."  She said it helped to soften the harsh reality of never knowing whether it might be the last time they would see each other alive.  These are the little tricks we play on ourselves to retain our sanity.  To live day in and day out with the prospect of losing the love of your life at the forefront of every thought is mentally and physically exhausting, almost to the point of being self-destructive.  Try then, to imagine living with the reality of it after months of worrying how on earth you'd ever cope if that reality were to come to fruition.  And yet, here I find myself.  Who would have guessed that there lies such a vast, great distance between being alive and going through the motions of living one's life?

Goodbyes are, by definition, exponentially harder than hellos.  Even when we do say goodbye, we often hope it's just an extended version of "see you later" because the finality of goodbye is simply too much to contemplate.  And yet, without a goodbye, there is no real sense of closure to the story.  Perhaps that's because what comes next is still a part of the story, but with an unexpected - and often unwanted - plot twist.  In Jon and I's story, the beginning of the end was April 6th, 2007 - the day I missed the last call he ever made to me from Iraq.  Although I couldn't have known it at the time, it was my one and only opportunity to say goodbye...and I missed it.  It's one of the things I've struggled with over the years, and every time the image of that missed call showing up on my phone comes to mind, I blame myself all over again for the fact that I never got to tell him "I love you" one more time.  He left me a voice message, promising he'd try to call again the next day.  When I checked my email later that night, he'd also emailed me to make sure everything was okay.  As it turned out, of course, everything was not okay, but not in the way either of us imagined at the time.  The next day - a Saturday - I can still picture so clearly the way those last few blissful hours of normalcy played out, like the calm before the storm, if you will.  I remember looking down at my watch as I walked into the grocery store, seeing that it was already 5 pm, and thinking it was too late to hope he might still be able to call.  When I got back to our apartment about twenty minutes later, there was a knock at my door.  That was, of course, the knock that would change my life forever.

I later recorded that last voice message from him, along with the others I'd saved over the past few weeks, so that I'd always be able to recall the sound of his voice telling me he loved me.  Some nights, when I'm feeling strong enough, I'll listen to those messages just to hear that sound one more time.  I hear Jon say my name, call me his "cute wife," and tell me he's about to go to bed and hopes to dream about me.  Sometimes, it's the nights when I'm not feeling so strong that I choose to listen, and that sound is the most beautiful, bittersweet thing I've ever heard.  I wish to God I could hear his voice again...in real time.  A tape-recorded message is no substitute for a sound that always brought a smile to my face, and still does - only now, that smile often gets lost amidst the tears.

Goodbye.  Forever.  For two relatively short words, they carry with them a whole hell of a lot of interminable finality.  It's a kind of finality that brings the world into sharp focus; we see things we never noticed before, understand the fragility of life on a deeper level, and grateful though we are for all this newly acquired wisdom, we wish whole-heartedly that we could return to the time when things were less clear.  To borrow from the words of one of my favorite historical figures, "oh, what damn fools we were."  Damn fools, perhaps.  But happy fools.  And as happy fools, our days were ones of ignorant bliss, like the day almost ten years ago now when Jon and I went (for the third time) to see The Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King.  During the final scene, the main character bids his best friends farewell and embarks on a journey to another world.  I can still remember sitting there in the theater with happy tears rolling down my cheeks like it was just yesterday.  It touched me to think that there are people who come into our lives unexpectedly, represent an irreplaceable piece of who we are and what we become, and then, just as suddenly as they appear, they're gone again.

At the time, I squeezed Jon's hand a little tighter, thankful to have the man who made me strive to be a better person sitting right there next to me.  I could never have guessed that within a few years, we would live out that final farewell scene for ourselves.  It was December 25th, 2006, and after two glorious weeks of respite from what had become an increasingly dangerous deployment, it was time for the dreaded airport goodbye.  I kissed my husband, told him I loved him, and, as I held him close, etched every detail of his smell into my memory.  At the very last possible second, I had no choice but to let him go so he could board his plane and fly back to Iraq.  Now I wish I'd held on forever.  I remember the expression on his face as I caught sight of him on the jet way.  He smiled at me and waved, and my heart did this little flip-flop of joy.  Only he had the power to affect me in this way.  Knowing now what would happen just a few months later, the clarity with which I remember that moment continues to bring me to my knees in a state of unspeakable grief.

One of the last pictures taken of the two of us together on Christmas Eve

A week and a half after Jon was killed, we had a closed-casket wake in the little New Hampshire town that Jon called home.   After several hours of standing by my husband's casket and shaking the hands of a never-ending stream of visitors, family and friends, my strength was depleted and my heart had had enough.  I pulled up a chair alongside the flag-draped casket and sat with my hand pressed to its smooth wooden surface as people milled around me and prepared the church for the funeral the following day.  I didn't want to talk anymore, and there was no one, besides the obvious, that I wanted to see.  I just wanted to be as close to my husband as humanly possible, knowing all too well that the moment I would never touch him again was drawing near.  Eventually, my family tried to persuade to go home and get some rest for the night, but I refused to move from his side.  Only after two of our friends from college assured me they'd take turns standing guard by Jon's casket throughout the night did I finally relent and let my family put me to bed for a few hours before the final goodbye.

Watching the pallbearers place my husband's casket into the funeral car

That final goodbye took place the next day after the funeral service and reception.  With a full honor guard procession in tow, Jon's body was transported from the church to a local funeral home.  As I sat in a private room next to his open casket, I leaned over his body and wept without restraint for the husband I loved more than life itself.  I touched his face - to hell with all the caked-on make-up.  I unbuttoned his jacket, hoping to find evidence of the marks I knew so well on his skin but found only layers of white gauze and bandages.  I kissed the bridge of his nose (whose shape he always hated), and I held his stiff, gloved hands in mine.  Jon's brother and my sister-in-law joined me after a while.  One of the songs I'd requested for the funeral service - appropriately titled "Time to Say Goodbye" - hadn't made it into the final program, but Jason knew how much it meant to me and let me listen to it on his iPod through headphones as we cherished those last few minutes with him.  As I left the room at the end of the night, my dad tried to step inside for one last look before they sealed the casket, but I begged him no, please, that I wanted to - had to - be the last one to see him like that.  That was also the last time I ever listened to the song "Time to Say Goodbye."  I've heard snippets of it on two occasions over the past five years - once on a trip to Las Vegas with Jon's family during the fountain display outside the Bellagio and once, of all places, in a shopping mall.  Shopaholic or not, you can be sure I ran for the nearest exit as quickly as humanly possible.

Things have been really hard recently.  They're always hard, but lately I can't seem to relax, not even when I'm doing something that is, in theory, incredibly relaxing, like taking a bubble bath complete with scented candles, a glass of wine, and soothing spa music.  In the mornings, I hold my breath before I open my eyes, hoping against hope that I'll wake up to a different reality.  Maybe I'll even roll over and Jon will be lying right there next to me?  But sadly, once I open my eyes and see the empty space in my bed, I realize that the life I've been living without him for the past few years remains the status quo.  Advice from others has been plentiful, and for those who simply say, "I'm here, and I love you," I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  For those who try to fix me and tell me Jon wouldn't want me to be sad, please understand that you can't fix what's broken here.  I'm sure that whenever I write another blog entry or post some quote about loss, there are those who think "oh great, here we go again - what could she possibly say about how sad all this is that she hasn't said before?"  But in widow-land, this is my new normal.  You'd think at a certain point I'd have said it all and there would be nothing more to discuss.  But the thoughts keep flowing, and so I keep writing.  

A co-worker of mine once said Jon knows how much I miss him every day.  He said Jon is probably doing PT up in Heaven right now because he wants to look his best for when his bride rejoins him there at some point in the future.  Guess I'd better get my butt into gear too - I obviously want him to recognize me when I see him again!  That, though, is really the point of all of this.  It's why I feel the way I do - I will see him again.  So when people tell me it's time to turn the page on the last chapter of my life and move onto the next one, I ask them how?  I don't want Jon and I's chapter to be over...and how can it be when I'm still deeply in love with the man I'm honored to call my husband?  Hard though it is at times, I'm still here, so unless those people expect me to turn the page on my own future, I'm going to continue to live and breathe this story - our story - until it's time to say goodbye to this life and move onto the next.  As long as Jon is waiting for me when I get there, I can't imagine anything more beautiful.

Ya'aburnee:  "You bury me."  Noun, verb, noun.  Read literally, the phrase almost seems to command that one of us take action in response to the inaction of the other.  I guess it basically says what I already knew, which is that one of us would always have to go first, much as I wish I could reverse the "you" and the "me" in Jon and I's case.  I'll be honest - it's pretty eerie to look down into a pre-prepared hole, knowing that that's where your husband's casket will be placed, not to mention where I'll be laid to rest too one day.  Yet, eerie though it is, it is there that our bodies will be reunited while our spirits dance on into eternity.  And maybe - just maybe - the goodbye we never had will finally become a see you later.

Or, better yet, see you always.  Always and forever, my love...