“The Seabee”
Written By: Stacey L. Bolin
Veterans Day – Monday November 11, 2013
I lay motionless next to my sleeping husband, tears slowly
traveling down my cheeks to pool onto my pillow, as the darkness of an evening
sky slowly allowed the morning to creep through the window into our room.
Outside the wind howled while it danced through the threat of rain and snow
upon this solemn day that awaited all of us. In a few short hours another
brother-in-arms would be placed into the earth as his soul goes home to be with
our lord and savior. A day that we had all been warned about - feared - and
prayed that the angels would make an exception and grant us a miracle that once
again, this brother-in-arms, would be healed and be as he once was before
stricken with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). I try to close my eyes and convince myself that I have only
awoken into a dream that is not of any reality and that when I awake again, I
would find myself home in our own bed and no illness has taken anyone from us.
My husband rolls over and pulls me deep within the loving embrace
of his arms. A temporary feeling of calm and contentment warms me while I rest
my head on his chest listening intently to the sound of his heartbeat. I begin
to think about a wife who no longer can do the same – again the tears fight to become
present. I tell myself, I must be
strong, that tears must be kept aside, but the pain that my husband’s best
friend – a mother’s son – a wife’s husband – a child’s father – a child’s
grandfather, will no longer live in this present life and no longer be a phone
call away. It gnaws away at my strength exposing my soul to the unanswered questions
of what lie on the other side of life. To know that he will always be alive in
our memories, pictures and stories provide me no comfort at that moment – I’m
angry! – He’s too young! – He fought a war and came home to later have to fight
a new war, twenty-two years later, against his health! I just don’t understand!
My face remains expressionless, while my eyes tell a different story and reveal
that I am overwhelmed with my emotions – but my husband knows and understands
my struggle with grief and holds me tighter as he lets out a sigh of sorrow.
Outside the bedroom door, the house is still, no movement, no
sounds. I wonder if this family is thinking as I have, that it is all a dream
and that to sleep is to awaken to the sounds of our brother-in-arms, walking
through the front door from a morning of hunting and free from illness. I
listen while secretly hoping for those sounds of this man’s life to be upon us
once again, but the house remains silent and still inside while outside the
wind wraps itself tightly around it. Eventually the family finds their inner
ability to rise and prepare themselves for the drive into town for a morning
funeral service.
We follow the family in our own vehicle to allow them their
privacy. The ride feels longer than ever before as the weather in the area, as
we drove to Yale, Michigan, has the same wet, windy and raw, appearance as
hunting seasons where I grew up in New Hampshire. I find myself breaking the
silence by stating this resemblance that I have noticed and feel it was a way
that the heavens were telling us that our bother-in-arms, no longer suffered
from the illness that disabled him here on earth. A brief, yet tender smile
finds a place on my husband’s face.
Our arrival to the funeral home is met with a friendly and
professional staff member who is both kind and focused while guiding us to our
parking location while arranging the car line to prepare the funeral procession.
My husband parks the car where instructed and then sits for a moment to collect
his thoughts. Without any words - I reach out to touch him – I’m there for him.
He is suffering a tremendous loss and I feel helpless when I finally muster up
the ability, through the knot in my throat, and ask is there anything I can do
for him. In a whisper filled with deep sorrow he replies, “You can bring my best
friend back.”
From the area that we chose to sit, during the service, you
could see our brother-in-arms at rest and dressed in his military dress blue
uniform. The minister speaks from quotes
from the bible, but I can’t hear the words through the noise of a thousand
questions all screaming for an answer in my mind. My husband sits next to me as
we hold hands. For years we have had our own way to talk to each other through
various grips, and this time would be no different as we helped one another
deal with the loss of our dear friend and its effect on the family and friends
that remain behind. Special moments were added to the service with music chosen
by the wife and her family. How beautiful it was, and I couldn’t help but
wonder how difficult it must have been on all of them to go through old
pictures and then find the right music. They certainly had more strength than
I. As the service concluded, the congregation stepped into the adjoining lobby
as the attendants and the minister prepared for the final journey. As I stood
in the lobby, trying to console my husband and a favorite uncle of the family,
a player grand piano, began playing a melody I knew all too well and was
a symbolic piece, and an emotional trigger, to a time when I myself struggled with a Cancer illness and
feared what would become of my family if a cure was not found.
I’m listening to this right now, to help with the next several paragraph
that for some reason my mind wants to lock away and not deal with the pain. For
me, I have found that writing is the only way I can share my true feelings –especially
when it comes to a deep feeling of sorrow. So hold on and listen with me as you
read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdcwnBUowc&list=PL752FB5D5DEBCB651
I saw years of great times, hardships, losses of friends and
family, births of my boys, life in the military, California, Port Hueneme, and
the first time I met my husband’s best friend and his wife Shelly - my whole
world. I couldn’t hold back the emotion that was rushing in like a small town
in the path of an unexpected flood. I looked up at my husband as my eyes welled
with tears and told him, I needed closure, I needed to say what I needed to
say, before his friend was lay to rest and I needed to do this on my own and
alone. Quickly I excused myself through
the crowed room to the back and entered through a set of open doors to find
myself standing beside the open casket.
Our friend was gone, and I felt so guilty that a cure had not
been found for him. I put my hand on his and found the ability to just speak
out loud through the cracking of my voice and from my heart. The funeral tenant
granted me a moment with him and stepped aside to move the lovely arrangement of flowers
to the side of the casket as the minister watched on. I’d like to think they knew I had not taken this
moment during the viewing the day before, but desperately needed this time to
help me understand what was happening and chose to deal with the situation
instead of trying to block pain and hurt like I had taught myself to do for
many years. I began to just let my feelings out and speak.
“Fred, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do? I don’t know how
to help these people though this, but I’ll keep my continued promise to you if
you keep your promise to me. I will do all that I can to help your family and
watch over them, if you could just find the strength up there to watch over Ron
and help him fight the war of a memory of war in his mind and the pain of
losing you. He is such a wonderful person and no matter what happened over
there in the Gulf, and I may never know, the fears that you both faced
together, the worries of not knowing if you’d come home, what I'm trying to say Fred - he still needs a
guardian angel and that angel has always been you.” I’d like to think that
somewhere deep down I heard an heavenly angelic voice that replied, “Thank you and I will
always be there.”
I then leaded over him, and as I had done during that July
morning when I had last seen him, before my family and I headed back to
Maryland, I found the strength to give him a good-bye kiss on his forehead and said,
“I love you Seabee, you are so going to be missed, rest in peace.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and then turned slowly to walk
back to find my husband standing with several other veterans who were asked to be
pallbearer’s. There was something about my husband, that captured my attention,
and help me focus and finally see completely what it was and still is, that has
me so deeply in love with him. I saw it, a moment in time that I had not seen
for many years. A moment of the first time I feel in love with him mixed with a
special ingredient. If you had ever been in the military you would know what
the special ingredient is, as the other veterans wore the same – Military Bearing.
You could feel the sense of honor, duty, pride, respect, and determination -
that no matter what lay outside those doors of the building that day, no matter
the weather, no matter what dangers may linger, they would see that this fallen
brother-in-arms would reach his final destination.
Only the pallbearers were asked to accompany the funeral
director back into the room the same way that I had chosen to enter, while the
entry doors to the parlor still remained closed. I stood there, looking at the numerous
faces of grief, by friends and family members that wore shrouds of bravery, to
ward off the sorrows temporarily, as they anticipated the flag draped casket that
would soon appear as the doors opened. They stood in silence as they watched as
the Veterans escorted their brother-in-arms through the lobby. The Veterans
made no eye contact as they slowly and carefully made their way to the gloss
black hearse that awaited them outside. Never once loosing focus, their military
bearing was at full attention to uphold the honor and the duty that had
been bestowed upon each of them by the grieving family.
As I stood by the doors, I watched my husband’s face try to
fight the pain he was feeling as they closed the doors to the hearse. I wanted
so much to go over and put my arms around him and tell him that everything
would be OK, like he had done for me for so many years, but this time it wasn’t
OK - His best friend and war buddy would not be there when he needed him or
just needed to hear his voice. I knew
that the only thing I could give him at this moment was time. There was nothing
I could say or do as the hardest part was still ahead of him.
We walked back to our truck and waited for our time to pull
into the funeral procession that would follow the hearse to the cemetery. As we
drove, I saw something I have never in my life seen before. Vehicles one-by-one
pulled off to the side of the road. There were no cars in a hurry to get
anywhere. Nobody cut through the line. These people, who may or may not have
even known who lay inside the flag draped casket, still honored him, as they sat
on the side of the road in their cars with their heads down. I don’t know if
they did this because it was Veterans Day, or if life there is just different
and it didn’t matter what day it was. There was just a sense of utmost respect
that I had not seen like that - in person – ever.
We arrived at the cemetery where the family had already taken
their seats beside the grave site. My husband, without delay, immediately found
his place at the head of the casket. I stood beneath a rainbow colored umbrella
that clearly was out of place against the traditional brown and black ones used
by others. I watched as the Veteran’s lifted the casket and carried it against
the wind and the rain. None of it seemed real as I told myself to make a mental
note of what I was witnessing. My husband, in spite of his daily back pain,
with no jacket, no rain coat, no protect from the elements, wasn’t
feeling anything but sorrow and the determination to be sure he would help be
the one to see his best friend laid to rest – anything else – didn’t matter.
It was a full military funeral, and I wouldn’t have expected
anything less. As the Active Duty military personally took their positions at
the casket, the command was given to stand and those who were military or
retired military could render a hand salute while the soft somber tone of taps
being played accompanied the wind. Every one of us Veterans stood at attention
and provided our best hand salute. I don’t remember when the orders for the 21
gun salute was given, but I do know that it is a haunting feeling that I had
only felt one other time when my step father George had passed away in 1991. Something
about that sound makes things seem so final, and that all that is left are the
memories and mementos that are left behind.
To watch the strength of this now widowed wife, and longtime
friend of ours, accept the perfectly folded flag seemed more like a movie that
my brain kept waiting for the film director to yell, “Cut…that’s a wrap.” I didn’t
want to leave; I didn’t believe that any of this was happening and I just
wanted some kind of sign to tell me that although our dear friend has passed,
that he no longer suffers from the horrors of ALS. I believe that those who
have passed on have ways of connecting to us, we just have to be opened minded
rather than brush things off with the thinking it is merely a coincidence - it's not, it is so much more. I got my
sign as I had hoped for as I sat with my husband at a banquet hall at their
local golf course. The family decided to put together a gathering for friends
and family to come together to enjoy a warm meal and talk about the life and
times of their lost loved one.
I have five loves, my husband, my two boys, family, and
snowflakes. As my husband and I sat at a table drinking coffee and speaking
with the minister, something outside the picture window had caught my eye –
snow – the cold and dreary rain had turned to a soft billowy snow that danced
effortlessly upon the wind and feel softly on the autumn leaves that had not
found their way onto the earths floor.
My question had been answered. Rest in Peace – Fred, Rest in
Peace.
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| Fred and My Husband Ron - Feb 2010 |
