I'll Only be Gone for Forever

Goodbye

Rhea's Perspective 4 Months in

Today another letter will come. It's Wednesday and just like all the other letter days, we crowd around the window waiting for the truck to come and deliver my husband's voice to us. He's been gone since August 29, 1965, when the Selective Service called him. I remember the day like it was yesterday, cliche I know, but grief is not original. The next few days were a blur full of tears and farewell parties. Some of his buddies who were also condemned to Vietnam left us little post-it notes hidden around the house. I'm still discovering them to this day. One under the flour with the drunken writing scrawled across it, "Meet you to the other side". Or the one under my bed, "I always wanted to know if I was good enough for heaven or I'd burn in hell with the Gooks." The most ominous one was a quote by Hunter S. Thompson, "The Edge... there is no way to describe it because the only who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over it." But my husband was never like that. He was always the optimist of the family. He was optimistic in the face of everything. While his friends were plotting how to get out of the draft he was planning on what snacks to bring for the flight and how to make sure that we had enough warm clothes for the winter coming up, Richland Washington's winters had no forgiveness. He was completely selfless in everything he did. If he was scared at all he didn't let it show. He's been gone for what seems like centuries, but it has only been a matter of months. Every week on Letter Day he sends us a card and they all contain the same phrase, "I'll only be gone for...." The first one came while he was still on the plane over, "I'll only be gone for 11 months, 28 days, 5 hours and 23 minutes." They came in everyone, every single one. On good days they were nestled into the letter, a reminder that he wouldn't be gone forever just a bit more and that he hadn't lost his soul and his humor like the cross the street neighbor, John. His once sparkling blue eyes were now vacant, jumping around. Sometimes he grabs my kids and pulls them down with him screaming bloody murder trying to ward off the Gooks that still haunt him, chasing him down and killing his team over and over again. Every night I pray that Eric will not come back like that, he will not grab my arm and force me down screaming "Please take me, take me instead." I want him to come home whole, unbroken by all the terrors from this useless war.