It was late in the evening that dark winter night. It was clear, cold. Just he and I, enveloped in the darkness and warmth of the SUV, the soft glow of the dashboard lights, our lone headlights revealing the long country road as we made our way to Philadelphia to gather up Mother from her latest round of radiation.
A stark contrast to the past week, raucous and giggly filling the house. I’d brought their two tween grand-boys to visit, much to our delight, maybe not so much to theirs, keeping them up far too late laughing at old family pictures, the boys terrorizing their beloved cats. Mother was fatigued…Dad busy navigating them both through this recent and terrifying diagnosis. A wave commencing from the West Coast, we crashed into New Jersey and into their quiet, comfortable lives, bringing with it all the excitement of giddy tourists. We at least remembered to bring the Ritalin. Manhattan Island, New York City! Rockefeller Center at Christmas time! Real Italian pizza! The birth of our Nation in Philadelphia. The boys’ amazement at the poor homeless man’s ability to cross the street upright with his pants around his ankles as the rest of us took in the view of Benjamin Franklin’s gravesite from the tour bus window.
A rare occasion that it was just he and I, full of the awkwardness that comes with not being practiced at being alone together. I tried to fill the space with my idle chatter. Dad quiet, stoic as he was often wont to be. A stalwart of the family, I never felt unsafe, but this man could strike fear in me as a kid.
Somewhere in my mindless pratter, I mentioned my first husband’s and my visit to Washington DC in the mid-eighties and visiting the then rather new Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Wall. Every bit imposing as the name implies, it’s polished Black Granite Slabs, planted, immovable. Every cross, every diamond, every name etched into its seemingly impenetrable surface. To stand in its presence is to feel it’s power. Something so immovable as a medium that seemed to transcend, emitting energy capable of stirring the hearts of men…moving THEM…reducing them to tears.
In that very moment, the stoic, immovable man sitting next to me in the car, laid bare for me to see a vulnerability I had no idea even existed in him. Revealing to a daughter, that the imposing figure she had contrived in her head for all those years, was as imperfectly human as she was. It was powerful, moving, and painful.
Dad was a military officer during the Vietnam War. In the early 70’s he was not in the household. I only have recollection of him when he returned to the family. Very little before then, I was too young. I’m a little derelict in my understanding of all the details so forgive my lack of due diligence, but I do know his career has always been in Procurement, during, and even after the military. So my best guess is that his Vietnam tour was of a similar nature. Procuring equipment, weapons, ammunition, supplies supporting the war campaign, and maybe even distribution to those fighting. I feel fortunate he was not on those front lines. But that didn’t mean they weren’t just as exposed to the danger, the violence. As a military officer, he had soldiers under his command. I don’t know how many, but he was a leader, responsible for those men and the execution of their mandated mission.
It was late at night. Two individuals from enemy forces had managed to infiltrate the barracks and opened fire on the sleeping soldiers. My Dad described a surreal and chaotic scene of bodies, bedsheets, and mattresses flying through the air in a mad scramble to take down the perpetrators of the carnage. It lasted only minutes, but in its wake, they realized that five (maybe more?) were dead and quickly going cold in their beds. In an instant, five families’ lives changed forever.
Bewildered that my father had just shared something so very personal and traumatic with me, I began to mumble something about how visiting The Wall might provide an opportunity to pay his respects…honor them.
It got even more grave when his next statement revealed.
“I can’t remember their names.”
I could see the pain break across his face, even in the dark. It was palpable and it took my breath away. I was instantly reminded of when my 10 year old son was in the ICU with a pneumonia so severe he had to be placed into a drug induced coma while doctors and nurses tried to keep him alive. It’s the most helpless feeling in the world….a panicked desperation compelling you to do or try anything to fix it, take the pain away. Only to discover your attempts are futile. There is nothing you can do.
This felt like just like that.
My mind raced trying to find a way to fix it for him. Could he remember the name of his company, battery, division, anything?! There were catalogs and indexed references all around the memorial to help you find the name you might be looking for. But the passage of time, aging memories and bodies made it seem too daunting a task. Maybe he could look into it, he had a battle to fight now as it was and we sped along to gather up Mother.
Years later, me in Vegas, the rest of my family in the Pacific NW, I would call on that aging hippie brother of mine to connect, hoping to quell some of my homesickness. We would reminisce about family and experiences and laugh aloud as we poured over stories we’d heard and recited a million times. He shared with me the trip he’d taken in recent years to New York City with our parents. Mother was in full remission by now, flaunting her health and daring any of us to out live her. Not that she every really said that, but a part of me believes she thinks it. They had made the trip visit the 9-11 Memorial. My brother was born in New York, so it was an opportunity to show him where he was born and the house they lived in. I of course knew all this, but was not aware as my brother revealed, they’d made a trip to DC as well, to see The Wall. My brother had never heard his father’s story or the incredibly personal moment my Dad and I shared. I selfishly hoarded it…it was mine and my Dad’s alone. It was precious to me in all its pain and power. But there it was, my brother was confronted with the same mind blowing realization of just how vulnerable his father really was. Just like I had been so many years back. As they stood at The Wall trying to absorb all those names, my brother looked over to his aging figure of a father and found him weeping. Alarmed at seeing his own father in that state he nudged at Mother, “Is Dad okay?” Mother, in her usual calmness reached over to Dad, “Jim, is everything alright?” He looked up and those heart wrenching words spilled from his mouth.
“I can’t remember their names.”
My brother and I cried over the phone together. I told him his father’s story as I knew it and we cried some more.
I still wish to this day I could find a way to fix it for my father, to restore him to that strong, granite slab of a man… immovable and impenetrable, but I can’t. The only thing I can think to offer some solace is to let him know that it’s okay, he doesn’t have to remember their names. Because it isn’t just THEIR names, It is ALL of their names. All fifty eight thousand two hundred seventy two names. Fifty eight thousand two hundred seventy two stories. Fifty eight thousand two hundred seventy two families. To tell him that he can weep for everyone of them and know that we will all be right there, weeping with him.