Dear Charles,
As I write this, it is January 2008, a year and three months since you went away. Our son is twenty-one months old and his energy is so infectious that it sustains us both when I am most weary. So does my certainty that you can hear me when I need to talk to you—not my voice, but the essence of what I have to say. This is what I need you to know:
You do not need to worry about Jordan and me. He is flourishing and I am finding my way, taking baby steps to regain my balance, just as Jordan did when he began to walk. I took a leave of absence from work to write because I needed so desperately to find an outlet for my grief. Writing has always been my salvation, as you know, and it has helped me to preserve your memory and our love.
There are still days when I cannot summon the strength even to brush my teeth. I have gained twenty-five pounds. I no longer bother putting on makeup or skirts or the leopard-print pumps you liked so much. A friend recently treated me to a tube of plum lipstick, trying to put some color back in my life, but I have yet to wear it. I sleep holding on to your favorite shirt when I am most lonely and sad—the faded blue-gray jersey you used to wear with jeans. Some nights, I roll it up and lay it across my chest so that it feels like your arm is still wrapped around me.
Then there are days when Jordan says a new word or looks at me with chocolate pudding on his nose and I hear myself laughing out loud. It is in those moments that I remember that life does goon.
I am not the only one coming to terms with that painful reality. Nearly one thousand more American soldiers have died in Iraq in the year since you were taken from us, and I grieve for the fathers and daughters and lovers who are feeling their way through the same darkness that I am. I pray that someone finds away to end the fighting before another woman has to bury her man and another little boy is left with only photographs of his father to kiss.
Some of your soldiers are heading back for another tour of duty soon. I know that your spirit will be guiding them through. Others are still struggling to regain their lives. Your friend Tony retired early, just shy of twenty years of service, even though he once shared your dream of making sergeant major. He was so enraged by your death that he no longer wanted to wear the uniform. William Record is still receiving skin grafts and other medical treatment for his wounds, and as yet has no memory of the explosion. Jason Imhoff is still in the military. He continues to blame himself for what happened to you and calls me regularly.
In fact, you would be so proud to know how many of your men still call and visit us. Jordan has so many new uncles who want to tell him about you. It is amusing to watch their reaction when they see him for the first time. They draw a quick breath, stunned.
“My God, he looks just like the first sergeant,” they inevitably say.
Jordan lost all his baby fat after he started walking and has been a mirror image of you ever since. Christina stares at him and shakes her head in amazement, too.
Your daughter is doing well, considering. She is about to graduate from high school and plans to spend part of the summer with us. I love telling her funny stories about your slow driving or the time you fought against going to a spa with me, then fell into a blissful sleep during the his-and-hers massages.
Being with her baby brother seems to comfort Christina. She dotes on Jordan when she visits, feeding him ice cream and chasing him around the children’s museum. I am so sorry you never got to see them together, just as I am that you never got to see what a spirited, confident boy your son has become.
Our son has already learned to climb out of the crib we bought when I was pregnant. I replaced it with a “big boy bed” that one of my girlfriends helped me put together. He has not actually slept an entire night there, though, because he prefers your spot in our bed. (We’re working on it.)
Jordan has become quite the little New Yorker, too. He already knows how to hail a taxi and recently sat through an entire play at a children’s theater in Greenwich Village.
It is too early to tell how your death will affect him or how much he misses you, though I know that he does. Some days he covers his eyes and says “peek-a-boo, Daddy.” I sobbed the first time he did it but now his little game makes me smile. I wonder if you are actually there playing with him.
Like me, Jordan’s favorite question is “Why?” The answers are simple for now: because the oven is hot, because eating that plastic could cause you to choke. One day he will ask “Why?” and there will be no easy answers. When that time comes, I will be honest. If he wants to know what this war was about and what I thought of it, I will tell him.
All I have said so far is that his daddy is a hero who wrote a beautiful journal for him. I said that you made sure that all of our needs would be taken care of if you were called on to make the ultimate sacrifice. I said you were just that kind of man.
I know he did not understand all of what I said, but I will keep telling him until he does. He should know that Mommy will always take care of him, but that I am not doing it alone.
I am also trying to find ways to take care of myself. You remember the spot on my ankle that you liked to kiss? I have had your name tattooed there, apermanent symbol of our love and a substitute for the wedding band I will never wear. As the artist carved the thin script into my skin and surrounded it with tiny hearts and delicate swirls, I welcomed the sting of the needle, distracting me from the larger pain.
A friend gently asked if I had considered what another man might someday think of the tattoo. I said that I would hope he would understand that it is the mark of a woman whose love is forever. But the truth is I cannot imagine falling in love again.
I would trade a lifetime with anyone else for just one more day with you. I would tell you I am haunted by guilt for the years I wasted questioning whether we were right for each other. I would tell you that you taught me how to love, and that you helped me to be a better woman because of the dignity with which you lived your life. I would savor your smile as you watched our little boy play and would let my fingers trace the lines of your face and the veins on your hands.
Then I would put Jordan in your arms one last time and lie there with him until you had to go home again.
It has been hard accepting that I am a widow, but I know the time has come to start focusing on my future without you. It is time for me to get back in the gym, which would no doubt amuse you. I may take Jordan to visit friends in Paris in the spring. I might even put on that plum lipstick someday soon and go to a jazz club with my girlfriends.
I know that the more I heal the easier you will rest, and the more present I will be as a mother. Mostly, though, I owe it to myself to find a reason to dance again.
Jordan and I were cuddling in bed the other morning and he touched my face and said, “I happy.”
I held him tighter, drawing on his warmth and his exuberance.
“I’m happy, too,” I said.
At that moment, at least, I meant it.