One of the young people in my life recently celebrated her 40th "escape from the gallows," as Mark Twain once put it. She sees it as a milestone in her life and considering what this very special and gifted individual has survived to see the sum of those sunsets and sunrises, I’m inclined to agree.
She’s an extremely gifted writer and a sensitive and caring human being. She’s quick to accept personal responsibility and slow to apportion it. She’s got a beautiful Native American face that can be read like an epic Jean Auel novel or experienced like Aaron Copland’s Ode to the Common Man.
She’s breathtakingly beautiful, this child of God. Intelligent and endowed with a sense of humor devoid of all shred of malice, she has, as well, an intimate understanding of this planet as the goddess Gaia and the same rapport with the deity which governs beyond.
She was a medic in the Persian Gulf War and before she shipped out to Operation Desert Storm, she asked me to talk about what I did in a long ago war of my own and how I survived it. I gave her the volume of poetry I’d written against the day one of the young people in my life faced this particular contingency and asked her to read it on the plane over.
That’s never worked for Samantha and it didn’t this time, either. So I read it to her. It helped her remember life up ‘til then. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she cried and sometimes she stared at me without really seeing me.
We had popcorn and drank canned Coca Cola. We listened to music we’d experienced together a lot before. We broke out Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, her favorite movie and mine. I tucked her into bed that night and the illumination of my computer screen as I worked on cast her dreams as Technicolor shadows about and beyond me.
Samantha shipped out without ever hearing about my war experiences. They weren’t the same. I didn’t want her burdened with mine or doing this weird comparison and contrast when she needed to focus on what SHE was doing, tending to the hurt and dying.
She came back different. They all did. After a brief reunion, I didn’t hear from her for quite awhile. She said she needed time to work things out. I knew what she meant. I had that volume of poetry I wrote and the music we enjoyed together.
She’s come a far piece but she recently lost of third friend in Iraq. The hauntedness has returned to her eyes. Now when she sleeps, the shadows’ danse is macabre and violent. She cries out in her sleep for lost brothers and awakens disoriented and with deep shadows ringing her eyes.
She’s losing interest in her art, her music and her writing. She goes for aimless walks along the Ship Canal and ends up sitting in a coffeeshop, staring into space for a long time, remembering what she cannot forget, even in sleep.
She wants the American government to stop sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s tired of saying good-bye. Her numbers are legion in this country and they are just as much victims as the veterans of any other war the citizens of this nation have chosen to fight. Samantha knows what every combat veteran knows.
War is an atrocity with no real rules of engagement. And no one who takes a life ~ under any circumstances ~ is ever truly whole or happy again.
Soon, we will witness the inauguration of a man we voted into office because he said he will get us out of both places. I hope we hold him more responsible for that promise than we have some others we have elected to lead this nation both in peace and in war.
This young person, Samantha, is very special to me and I do not want to lose her again.
She’s an extremely gifted writer and a sensitive and caring human being. She’s quick to accept personal responsibility and slow to apportion it. She’s got a beautiful Native American face that can be read like an epic Jean Auel novel or experienced like Aaron Copland’s Ode to the Common Man.
She’s breathtakingly beautiful, this child of God. Intelligent and endowed with a sense of humor devoid of all shred of malice, she has, as well, an intimate understanding of this planet as the goddess Gaia and the same rapport with the deity which governs beyond.
She was a medic in the Persian Gulf War and before she shipped out to Operation Desert Storm, she asked me to talk about what I did in a long ago war of my own and how I survived it. I gave her the volume of poetry I’d written against the day one of the young people in my life faced this particular contingency and asked her to read it on the plane over.
That’s never worked for Samantha and it didn’t this time, either. So I read it to her. It helped her remember life up ‘til then. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she cried and sometimes she stared at me without really seeing me.
We had popcorn and drank canned Coca Cola. We listened to music we’d experienced together a lot before. We broke out Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, her favorite movie and mine. I tucked her into bed that night and the illumination of my computer screen as I worked on cast her dreams as Technicolor shadows about and beyond me.
Samantha shipped out without ever hearing about my war experiences. They weren’t the same. I didn’t want her burdened with mine or doing this weird comparison and contrast when she needed to focus on what SHE was doing, tending to the hurt and dying.
She came back different. They all did. After a brief reunion, I didn’t hear from her for quite awhile. She said she needed time to work things out. I knew what she meant. I had that volume of poetry I wrote and the music we enjoyed together.
She’s come a far piece but she recently lost of third friend in Iraq. The hauntedness has returned to her eyes. Now when she sleeps, the shadows’ danse is macabre and violent. She cries out in her sleep for lost brothers and awakens disoriented and with deep shadows ringing her eyes.
She’s losing interest in her art, her music and her writing. She goes for aimless walks along the Ship Canal and ends up sitting in a coffeeshop, staring into space for a long time, remembering what she cannot forget, even in sleep.
She wants the American government to stop sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s tired of saying good-bye. Her numbers are legion in this country and they are just as much victims as the veterans of any other war the citizens of this nation have chosen to fight. Samantha knows what every combat veteran knows.
War is an atrocity with no real rules of engagement. And no one who takes a life ~ under any circumstances ~ is ever truly whole or happy again.
Soon, we will witness the inauguration of a man we voted into office because he said he will get us out of both places. I hope we hold him more responsible for that promise than we have some others we have elected to lead this nation both in peace and in war.
This young person, Samantha, is very special to me and I do not want to lose her again.
1 comment:
I hope and pray that your friend will find her peace.
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