Left Behind

I am one of the chosen ones, the ones who have been left behind.

This is my nightmare. I counted the days until he returned, until the phone rang.

It was Friday night. He usually called me on Sundays. I knew something was wrong. I didn't want to answer it.

But I did.

Knowing that he would be home soon kept me going.

Knowing that he would come home in a coffin stopped me completely.

I collapsed to my knees, dropping the phone on the cold hardwood floor. He was still holding on then, but I already knew. I already knew that he wasn't going to make it. They amputated his arm, his leg. The right side of his face was destroyed. He was on life support, there was still activity in his brain. But I felt him slipping away from me, slowly. Painfully. He was trying to hold on for me, but he just couldn't do it. I couldn't make him do it.

I thought first of what he would be like if he did survive. If he came home as a broken man, physically and emotionally. The other three men who had been in the vehicle with him died instantly. He was the driver, and the IUD had impacted the passenger side of the backseat. He would feel so guilty if he survived, allowed to live when the brothers who had entrusted him with their lives were dead. He would never be able to play with his son, or coach his t-ball team. He would be so unhappy. I would still love him, but that wouldn't be enough.

He took his final breath early that Saturday morning as soon as the machines were shut off. I didn't get to kiss him goodbye. I laid in our bed awake all night, waiting for the phone next to me to ring. When it finally did, I felt the tiny glimmer of hope I still held onto fall away. I felt his soul slip away from me. We had been together for 6 years, through 2 deployments and 1 child. Our son, still in my womb, would never know his father. My due date was only 5 weeks away, just days after he was supposed to come home. My greatest fear when I kissed him goodbye for the last time was that he would miss his son's birth; the thought that he would never return had slipped from my mind.

I am one of the unlucky ones, the ones who have to say goodbye forever.

I am a widow, a single mother.

He joined the military because it was expected of him. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, his uncles, his grandfathers. He wanted to fight for his country. I admired and hated his selflessness all at once, knowing that I would have to face months, even years, without him. But the time we did have together made it worthwhile. We learned how strong our love was during his first deployment, and we were married as soon as he returned. 2 years passed, and then he was called to duty again. He had come back before, I was sure that he would come back this time. After 6 months he came home for 2 weeks, and our son was conceived. I remember telling him that we were having a boy, the happiness in his voice as he shouted to his comrades that he was going to have a son. I sent him photos of myself every week so he could watch our son grow. We discussed names and goals and what kind of parents we wanted to be whenever we talked. On the bad days, when his work was especially harrowing or his comrades were feeling low, he told me how much he hated being away from me while I was pregnant. He promised that he wouldn't leave my side for the next pregnancy. He said he would be there to get me chili cheese fries at 2 in the morning and to write on my back when I couldn't sleep. He wished that he could sing to the baby as he grew inside me, teaching him all the good Aerosmith songs.

And now?

I took out his favorite sweatshirt, the gray one that he had owned since before we met. There were holes in the sleeves where his thumbs poked through. I pulled it over my head and over my belly, trying to feel his warmth around me. But it wasn't the same. I took out his bottle of cologne and sprayed it on the shirt, but I still couldn't feel him with me. I cried for hours, knowing that nothing would ever come close to replacing him. Not his clothes, not his scent, not even his son.

I am alone.

I went to the funeral alone, holding my head down so I wouldn't have to see the others. I wasn't the only one who had lost him. I knew that once I started to cry again, I wouldn't be able to stop. I recognized a few of the soldiers there from the pictures he sent. The faces that had been so jovial on their days off were now somber and grim, filled with the guilt of surviving and the pain of their loss. They were burying their brother today, and each of them knew that it could just as easily be their body in that coffin underneath the American flag.

I barely heard the words that were spoken as I sat there in the front row, staring at my husband's final resting place. I stood as the soldiers gathered in front of me, holding the flag they had folded so precisely. I took it from them because it was my duty as a soldier's wife, not because I wanted it. It reminded me that he hadn't died for this country, but for another. Our freedom was never in jeopardy. He fought because those were the orders he was given, not because it was a cause he believed in. I became angry, unspeakably angry. I approached the coffin as his loved ones watched me, shocked in their mourning by my sudden loss of control. I began yelling, screaming, sobbing.

"You fucking bastard! Why did you make this happen?"

I wasn't angry at him.

I was angry at the president who started this war, the president who gave the orders to send in more troops.

"My son doesn't have a father!"

"You took my husband away from me! I hate you!" I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders, but I pushed them away.

"Don't touch me!" I was being pulled away, but I wouldn't let go.

"Don't fucking touch me!"

The hands fell away, but the soldier still stood behind me. I screamed one last time, as loud as I could. My voice echoed throughout the cemetary.

I looked at the soldier who was behind me. I saw in his eyes the same anger I felt, the same sense of betrayal. His death wasn't necessary, and we both knew it. I fell into him and we cried together, knowing that this loss wasn't worth the gain. While I cried for my husband, for my fatherless child, this man cried for the 4 brothers he had lost.

This is the price of war.

This is the chance you take when you love a soldier.