Dying from a broken heart

I have heard people state that "she died of a broken heart". Trite and smarmy as that sounds, if I were 20 years older and my body were weaker and more tired then it is now, I would have died of a broken heart after Scott was killed. Now I read this morning that a car bomb has gone off near Abu Ghraib and a soldier was killed at the MP outpost there, where Michael is stationed.
How much more the Universe intends to hand this family, I dont know.
In a way, Im glad Scott doesnt have to read the news right now, he carried too much unbearable sorrow over Michael, and reading that a soldier died today in that spot might have been more then he could have handled.
I will take up the banner of parenting and concern, as the survivor..write to Michael, write to Scott's daughter, let them have the good information that one gives to young people.Encourage and support them, as I do my own adult sons. Thats the least I can do for Scott, and we made promises we would do that in case the other one dies.
I still look for my husband in the house, and it will take time, a long time, to process that he isnt here.
It's a lot to wrap one's mind around. One day at a time.
I must have a strong heart, otherwise I would not be typing this now.

I am my own widow's support group

The second month is harder. The flurry of activity and people bending their heads and offering condolences is over. The world doesnt like grief, and they usually wish it would go away fast. The US is a country that denies death anyway..it's terrified of mortality and prefers sanitized death, dressing one's loved one up in sunday finery, and pumping them full of formaldyhyde to pretend they are just sleeping.
Death also reminds people that they too will die.
The second month is harder. I stand outside myself and remember what the "widow" is supposed to do. Touch everything my husband had, let it go, watch myself walk through the house calling out his name...he does not answer. Go to town, go thru the motions of being at all the places we were at, and do it alone.
The 2 chairs outside we used to sit in, we cannot sit in them anymore. I may remove one of the chairs just so I dont have to think about him sitting there, and now, not sitting there.
The dogs are much wiser then I am. They still play.
My son tells me to look for the sublime beauty, and that is where I will find Scott. My son, on occassion, says some very wise things.
The rest of us are left reeling with pain. We are a mess, and not many people are showing up to say hello. Not surprising, in that death is a bummer to people who prefer not to think about it.
Some days I remember that other people are going thru this daily, but I have to do my own griefwork, yet again.
Some days I scream at the Universe for this one.
I have to learn to give myself the advice I usually give to other people.
Take your time.
Grieve.
Be gentle with yourself.
Sleep, a lot.
Eat when you can (I dont want to eat, the hell with food right now.)
Cry
Be mad. ( and I am)
dont make any big decisions for one year.
If the Great Spirit can create every goddamned star and galaxy in the Universe, it can certainly grab me by the arse and get me out of this town and show me the path Im supposed to be on.
Until then, Im in a world of shite, still in the world but not part of the world. Nor do I ever wish to be a part of it again, just standing on the edges watching the circus .
Go to the joy to burn off the pain.
Right now, my dogs are the joy.
Nature's counselors.

One month

One month has passed since Scott was killed in the auto accident right around the corner from where we live. Every day, as I drive by the small grove of trees where Scott died (within minutes,BLUNT TRAUMA says the death certificate), one's mind does the work of asking why. And there are never any answers, except the one answer that Scott was depressed, so clinically depressed after his brother died, and his son was sent to Iraq, that he chose to drink more then ever the month that Michael was deployed.
No matter how much I tried...trying to start a military family support group thru the church here, intervening in his situation by throwing names of counselors at him and demanding he get help, he continued to spiral downward into deep deep wells of sadness, crying out of turn, watching the news obsessively , waiting for words from his son via email, waiting for his son to come home.
None of it worked. I could not save him from his own sorrow. No matter how many letters I wrote to congress, no matter how many times we marched against the war, no matter how many interviews I did to speak out against the madness that saw around me, no matter what I did, Scott could not drag himself out of the abyss of grief over his son's deployment .
I knew, last year, when Michael brought his "Operation Iraqi Freedom" papers into the house on christmas eve, that Scott would take this hard..harder, evidently, then I even imagined then. I had a daunting and impossible task ahead of me back then..to try and get Michael out of it, to get him home by any means necessary..
All of the energies I expended were a waste of time. Perhaps, in some way, I did something as part of a group of people attempting to end the war, but I pounded my fists against a wall that I could not knock down.
Scott had already been depressed about his brother's death earlier in the year, and Michael's deployment must have been the straw that broke the camel's back for Scott.
No matter how many times we said I love you to each other, no matter how many times we joked and laughed and sat thru the days sharing our stories and watching the dogs play, I evidently did not know, truly, the extent of Scott's deep grief of losing his son to a war zone. Scott's insistent need to watch the news, all day, his obsession with this war, and the daily stresses that occur in life on a daily basis were just too much to bear for him.
Joseph Campbell writes that we must participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world..Scott and I always joked that we were lousy buddhists, the absolute worst. Intellectually, we could embrace the idea of non attachment, but with our own children we failed miserably and for all the musings over attachment and disattachment, we were terribly attached to our children , even as adult children. We wanted them safe, and certainly did not want them in a war that never had to happen in the first place.
Long nights of crying, watching Scott sit and see tears flow down his cheeks when he watched Fallujah or Baghdad being bombed, too many days and nights of that as civil war erupted there more and more..too many days of watching him sigh in disgust and anger that he didnt know how to show towards the monsters who started this war..
One month, today, since Scott died in a car crash, his spirit tired of it all, making a huge mistake, driving away in a rainstorm after drinking, in a car with no airbags, and crashing into trees where his body had to be pulled out by the jaws of life, and his spirit just ascended to where it had to be..no more emotional pain for his son, no more terror over whether his son would die in a war, no more worrying day and night ..No more..
and his last words tome on the phone before he drove out in the car that afternoon..
"I love you, see you soon"
He was coming to see me, to have dinner with me.
No one knew , really, my dear dear husband, how sad you were. I know now.

Michael is back in Iraq, no mourning time for him

His email last night to me:

heyi just want you to know that i made it as far as kuwait for now. i will be spending the night here, so it is one less day i have to spend at the shithole prison. it was a long series of flights, and i haven't slept yet. every time i lay down i think about home, and my dad. i think it is sunday, but i am not sure. i regret not seeing a theropist. i am going nuts right now trying not to lose it in public. i suppose everything will settle in the place it should be in, but i feel worse than i did when i first came here. even worse than i did at fort dix. i will try as hard as i can to plead a case over here, but if i can't get results, i will try to have fun, and keep out of danger. remember, it's almost october, so time is running out. if i don't come back in november, then i definately will be back soon. only a matter of time.

i love u
mike

To My Husband.

My darling, this morning I wake up and dont see you come down the stairs and smile at me, and say "good morning". I dont see you making coffee, in your beige pants, your shirt that says "Anyone But Bush 2004" on it, I dont see you walking by me and smiling and taking our dogs outside , and I cant ask you "did you get an email from Michael today?"
I wont hear you say "I didnt, I did, " or "Not yet, Im about to check Ill send it to you and let you know right away."
I wont be able to watch Jon Stewart with you tonight, and we cant both lie on the bed and laugh at his jokes, and I cant laugh with you anymore when we stand in the kitchen and remark to each other how stupid and inane the news was, or how angry we both are.
You were always so quiet, my darling. Even tho we read the same books, and believed so strongly about the end of this bloodbath in Iraq, and fought so hard together to get Bush out of office, and have all his friends thrown in jail for sending Michael away , for sending all of those children to Iraq for nothing, you held so much in, you held so much sadness inside and you didnt tell me, really, how terribly sad you were. You and I were different, because I couldnt lay down and cry all the time, I had to stand up and get mad, I had to scream from rooftops, I had to shout and fight and bellow my anger. You held it in. You were kind, and gentle, and filled with rage, but it ate you up inside, it ate you up.
You got in that car, and drove off in that rainstorm. Your sadness and despair must have been beyond my comprehension. I tried, my dearest heart, to understand, to understand the nights you tucked Michael into bed, and played with him, the nights I remember you and Michael sitting by the firepit and talking, the nights you told me about when you played with your son as a child, when he would pretend to be a "cop" and pull out his toy gun and say "Freeze, Please!" and how you laughed at that son, and what an angel he was to you.
I wonder, in your deepest heart, in your deepest soul, in your deepest spirit, if you knew that the only way for your son, your son who you loved more then anything, I wonder if you knew your own death was the only way for him to come home. A life for a life. This is what I wonder, my gentle man.
I wonder if you knew this would bring your son back.
My darling, my soul, my heart of hearts, I can feel you there with me. I know you want me to fight. Remember we promised each other once we would take care of the children if one of us went first? I will take care of Michael when he comes back, I promise. I will take care of your daughter too. I will do what has to be done.
I will fight. I know that your greatest wish would be to keep Michael home and never send him back to that hellhole he should have never gone to in the first place. I know your second wish is that I still fight and the world fights to remove George Bush and the rest of them from the White House.
I know you want to see them all in jail. I will fight for that. I will not stop fighting.
I asked you the other day "why do you love me so much?" and you told me "Many things".."But Im so angry and I am so full of rage and I am always fighting on all these quests and political forums and writing letters and protesting..doesnt that make you tired, just watching me?"
You said "thats why I love you, thats one of the reasons."
Okay, my sweet wonderful man, I will keep fighting. More now, then ever.
Michael should have never gone to Iraq.
You should not have had to die to get him home.
You should not have had to cry even one minute for your son this year.
You should not have had to lay in bed and weep all those times I saw you .
You should have spent the summer with Michael playing baseball and having family dinners.
You should have had a family dinner on your birthday in June , with Michael at your side.
I will fight, my dearest heart, for you. I will fight to keep Michael home, and to do what you wished, your last wish, that Bush be thrown out of the White House with the rest of them, and your son stay home, and that justice be done.
My husband, my soul, my most beautiful, gentle , kind man. Im so sorry I could not stop this war, Im so sorry I could not keep you from crying and hurting for your son, Im so sorry I could not do this. I tried.
I will be with you someday, I will cross over and see you again.
Until then, goodnight my husband. You called me your angel many times. You may never have known this , or believed it, but you always were my angel, also.
I will stay on this side and fight.
You can be my angel now, Michael's angel, and an angel for your daughter and my sons.
Help me fight, help me fight for truth now, Scott. Be there with me, and help me fight against the cruelty and meanness that hurt your heart when you lost your son to this fake war, and help me fight for the families who are also hurting like you did.
All the tears that flowed from your eyes when you thought of all the families of the soldiers that died, the tears that flowed when you thought of the Iraqi parents who lost their children and loved ones.
Help them, now, where you are. You are more powerful then me now.
You are in the light of beauty, truth, and goodness. You are a part of a great light that can shine into the souls and bring goodness to so many.
You are in absolute Love.
Absolute Love and compassion will always conquer the cruelty, the greed, the horror, the meanness, the anger, the evil that is on this earth, that which led to your death, that which sent your son to Iraq for nothing, that which tried to destroy this family.
You are Pure, my sweetest friend, my best friend, you are Pure Compassion and Goodness now, and I ask for your help, to help me fight the evil that, like a dark and ugly cloud, hangs over the earth, and has hurt so many and continues to hurt so many.
It killed you, my sweet man.
But it did not kill your spirit. Help me now to fight.
I will always love you. Intertwine your soul with mine, to fight the evil of this war, and the horror that it is causing so many.
My angel, you are my angel now.

My letter to the Washington Post

Dear Editor;
Howard Kurtz front page analysis and mea culpa regarding the 'war' coverage and lack of heady , hard hitting investigation amongst the larger newspapers, including the WP and the NYT, and their lack of questioning the policies of the Bush administration and their out and out lies leading up to this debacle, are bitter vindication for many of us out there in the vast wastelands of the US who have a son or daughter over in Iraq at this very moment.
I do. My stepson has been there since February. From the beginning of this fraudulent 'war', my husband and I both knew about the neocon agenda, their admiration for the insane philosophies of Leo Strauss, the Progress for the New American Century websites, the out and out lies about Niger yellowcake, the pumped up rhetoric billowing out of the White House, and nary a peep out of the media on these subjects. For months my husband and I screamed to high heaven on every forum we could about the lack of coverage in these areas, we were attacked on the street and screamed at, at the beginning of this 'war', even with a loved one in Iraq, because we chose to seek the truth. Two, over 50 parents, who dont work for a newspaper, were able to research effectively the agenda of the PNAC crowd over 3 years ago. It's not that hard, if you actually care.
In the meantime, almost 1000 soldiers, most of them kids our son's age, are dead. Thousands and thousands of civilians are dead. Thousands of soldiers and civilians are wounded, and now the media, either print, or television, beat their chest in horror at their own lack of investigative reporting . Too little, too late...Tell that to the mother and fathers who stay up all night crying and wondering if their child will survive another day. Tell it to the parent in Iraq who has just seen their baby blown to bits or lying in a ditch with their brains all over the roadway.
I have always known this 'war' was a lie. Bittersweet vindication now, that the media suddenly embraces a conscience. If anything bothers me in this country, at this time, it is how LACKING in concern and compassion people in the media, and even many in the populace of the US are, over the horrors of this war. To this day, the top brass and CEOs and editors of television and print media still froth at the mouth over ratings, monies, advertisers, and seem to be getting all their talking points straight from the Karl Rove's kitchen. The very fact no one seems to CARE about the destroyed lives of families, the nightly screams of a mom whose child was paralyzed from the neck down or killed by an IED...the everyday terror we live that our son wont come home, and we will never see him again. Empathy cannot be that hard, but evidently, for some people, it is.
People like Judith Miller of the NYT, who , at the beginning of this 'war', touted the glories of Chalabi, should be fired. The editors of each and every newspaper who refused to allow REAL investigations concerning the lies of the Bush administration, should be thrown onto the front lines along with our loved one to experience firsthand what it's like to see their 18 yr old friends lying on a road without legs and arms.
From the beginning of this lie of a war, my husband and I knew the truth. There were no WMD's, and the only time there were was when Rumsfield sold them to Saddam Hussein during the Reagan administration. I am not a reporter, but even I knew that little tidbit over a year ago.
Why is it that many of us out here in the so called heartland knew so much, and yet the media, including the print media, refused to go after all the lies with both barrels? Why did real, investigative journalism take a back seat to profit and scared, impotent editors?
If any one of the editors had a child over there, on the front lines, they may have taken a different stance on all of this. What in god's name is their motivation for not allowing journalists to go ahead and ask the real, hard hitting questions that needed to be asked?? Fear? of what?
They should live ONE night with the fear that their child might die in Iraq. ONE night. That is the fear we have lived with since February.
In the meantime, it's too late to save all of the children who have died , soldiers and civilians, because so many in the media were so unwilling, and so complacent in their own comfortable lives, that they were unable to allow themselves even a moment of empathy and compassion in a time when we , especially the families of the soldiers, needed for them to demand truth from the Bush administration, and hold them accountable.
I consider this one of the darkest times in US History, and I hold the press responsible for being part and parcel for allowing this fraudulent war to occur, and for not asking the questions that might have kept our son from being sent over to that nightmare.

Marianne Brown

It gets worse and worse

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=5933751

and you wont see a thing about it on TV, where the puff pieces and talking heads mouth only what their sponsors and top brass CEOs demand of them via the White House PR control room. Not a peep out of the newscasters..I want to believe in Karma, when I see NOTHING on the TV news about what is really going on in Iraq, or why.
People in the US go about their daily routines, and ignore it ...I cant. I cant say "Oh well Ill forget about it today". You cant dismiss it when someone you love is standing over there. You live with it every day.
Last night my husband went to the local store and was met with a grimace from a young man in the line he was in. My husband was wearing his "Anyone But Bush 2004" shirt. These are the moments, succinct moments, when one needs to pull out enlistment forms for these idiots. They run like cockroaches when you smack-down an enlistment form in front of them. Talk is cheap. Every chickenhawk in the WH is a cheap talker.They wont send their kids, nada, nada.
Closing the windows today....War criminal Cheney is in Battle Creek. God damn him to Hell, if there is one.