pandalicious's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Memorial Day came Early I've ruined 3 perfectly clean black shirts today. Oh but how? Snot rockets. Yes. I'm not proud, but there it is. I am getting sick as a sick thing. My paw was sick this weekend in DC, which was the worst I've seen him, health-wise. Even then, we had a good time after all. We saw all the sights. And you won't believe it, I don't believe it... but I was about to bawl my eyes out at the Vietnam Memorial. I didn't, but it was the saddest I've been in an empathetic way since just after September 11th, the kids wearing shirts with their father's face emblazoned on them. I saw thousands of names, a million missed opportunities. It's not just the boys that died there in that war. It was the hearts of their families, their wives and lovers... it was the unimaginable. Yet it happened. I can only pray to God that this will never happen to us again. That we won't have to erect another monument, etched with the names of more of us... There were at least 5 times when I could feel myself being on the brink of tears. There were hundreds of people making the walk down the pathway. I couldn't find Matt. When I felt like losing it, I set my mind to finding him. I really wanted to fling myself off into the grass and just really cry, no matter who saw. No, I didn't know anyone that died in Vietnam. I do know that my favorite uncle is forever affected by what he has experienced... he has a plate in his head, a purple heart and a cavernous scar on his arm that will never fade with time. He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and he has the memories of death and dying. My uncle was a medic. He saw more than his share of darkness. Maybe knowing the horror (though only on the surface) is what got me. I think it is just knowing how important the men in my life are. How I could not imagine my life without them. The kids killed in Vietnam were just like my friends. There were many of them just like Matt. Like Steven. Like Felipe. Like Bill and Jeffrey and Chris and Alex and Brian and Tim and Josh and Sean. The worlds of experiences and the fabric of their beings is SO VALUABLE to me. And that's just a handful. That's just a grain of sand in the beach of the casualties of war. This war or any war. I told Matt to look around the park where we sat. Imagine suddenly if EVERY MAN DISAPPEARED from our sights. Imagine them all disintegrating or fading, dissolving into thin air. Imagine the impact, the sadness, the hands holding them now grasping at nothing. How empty that world. How sad. I forget to live sometimes. Life is so precious and here I go forgetting to live. 8:11 p.m. - April 15, '02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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