Feels like yesterday you walked out that door, with that gun locked firm in your holster,
Seemed normal that you were in a big hurry, not bothering to pick the bread from the toaster.
You blew a kiss and waved like you did every morning, it assured me everything was all routine,
You always left home first and came home last, that morning was like how it had always been.
I remember I sat down to eat my lunch that noon, flicking channels with the TV remote,
Completely unaware that destiny would reveal, the sequence of devastation she wrote.
I was browsing when I came to a local news channel, and Mom suddenly let out a panicky "WAIT!"
I read the headline once, and then again, I didn't even notice when I dropped my plate.
"Army colonel among dead as regiment attacked", words which resonated inside my head,
I could hear my Mom screaming in agony behind, I stared in disbelief as my soul bled.
My mind went back to that very same morning, when he was standing next to the door,
I didn't blow him a kiss as he was leaving, now I'd never be able to make up for that anymore.
I realised the million things that crossed my mind, they were everything I never told him,
How would I tell them what is left inside, knowing I'd never even get to hold him?
I looked at Mom lying in a pool of her own tears, and suddenly I felt i was all alone,
Who would bring things back to what they'd been? Reality struck as hard as stone.
My tears wet the entire floor as I walked to Mom, but then I realized I had nothing to say,
I hugged her tight and she cried harder.. I could feel how she felt betrayed.
Knowing she'd married a soldier of the land, she'd knew this possibility when she put on the ring,
And now that it had actually happened, how could anyone prepare her for this sort of thing?
I walked to my room and latched the door, as the pain touched each one of my nerves,
I threw myself on the bed and screamed.. As the tears kept flowing from an unknown reserve.
I stared at the ceiling lost and disconnected, I knew the scar was going to get deeper,
That throughout my life his absence would hurt, as the burden of difficulties grew steeper.
The smallest of memories which lay in dark corners, suddenly held a value insurmountably huge,
The bleak bitter truth lay everywhere I could look, there was simply no running, no refuge.
I realized I'd always taken him for granted, inspite of knowing he walked in danger's lair,
And believed no matter how much he endured, at the end of the day he would be there.
From that day on not a day has passed, that I don't feel his absence in my life,
He left behind a hole that no one could fill, and in it his little daughter and wife.
I think of all the things I wanted to tell him, but now which lay somewhere roughly battered,
In a heart which still refuses to accept reality, a heart which was so completely shattered.
The thing is we don't really learn to respect, what we have until it's lost and gone,
It's better to speak when life gives you the chance, life just doesn't simply go on.
We search our fantasies for something to do, when our goals lie in everything we've seen,
The friends that we make, the family we love, and all the other people who mean
the world to us... and everything beyond, because we never realize how strongly we're bound,
As I came to know when I lost one such person, and my life came crashing to the ground.
