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...