Yesterday I spent my lunch with Joseph Charles, A. Turcotte D145444GNR RCA 1936-2000 and Colin Comeault Royal 22E RTegt-sgt 1937-2000. Courageous and loyal soldier, Devoted father and loving husband, who is still waiting for June M Coones 1938-.
I walked through the rows of stones peppered grey. Each one proclaiming that someone important lay underneath. Someone who fought in a war they may have believed in or they may not have; it did not matter then and it does not matter now. Regardless of what they believed they each sacrificed a part of themselves, and not a small part, not a part that can be replaced – they gave their innocence. Take a moment to think about that, I'll wait.... I realize how cliché and silly that sounds.. What the hell is innocence anyway? Think about it. Once a person sees death-I’m not talking last breath, final words, in a bed surrounded by loved ones death; I’m talking knee high mud, wrong step, body parts flying, entrails hanging, could have been me if I was half an inch to the right death-once a person sees that, there is no hope left, there is no room for wide-eyed enthusiasm or the cup half full – How can there be? How can you believe in the good of humanity when you see first hands the depth they will sink to? Men ripped apart, Men ripping others apart, the sorrow, the grime, the innocence in the eyes of the child moments before the grenade goes off, the baby crying with his mother in pieces a foot away, an old man cradling the still shell of his fallen wife. This is the depths we sink. I can’t even fathom the effect of the words I am typing, and I am only using naked words, I can't express the pain, the noises, the smells, the filthy shit covered people slithering on the ground. Men who used to be lawyers and students with promising futures turned into targets and the walking dead overnight, scared and alone clinging to a token of a forgotten world, a picture, a letter. No, my words are nothing, their meaning is hollow and Hollywood. I am still an innocent. When I think of war I think of Platoon or Red Dawn, images on a screen, chocolate milk syrup mixed with corn syrup and red food coloring. That’s what I think of. Actors who stop crying when the director yells cut. These men, for them there was no one to yell cut, the crying continued and I believe it would have continued until the day they died. That is what I mean by they gave their innocence. They gave theirs and we keep ours and say “good work boys!” They come home, some of them come home and we give them a parade and a day to mark off the calender and we think it's all good. None of us can ever truly grasp… but I digress.
As I walked and looked at all of their names, dates and ranks; looking at the many flowers, some old and dead themselves, some young and fresh; sunflowers, roses, poppies,.. as I felt the unsympathetic cold of the stone on my hand and the soft loose dirt or regrown grass under my feet; as I felt the warm of the sun clash with the cool of the breeze, I thought of those men and women, what they gave up and where they are now...
A box of wood, a mound of dirt and a pile of de-fleshed bones.
The bees search for nectar above them; birds find an afternoon snack in worms who may have explored their decaying bodies. There is no pomp, no circumstance, just a few words etched in stone, filled in by dust carried by passing winds or simply faded with time. Chipped statues of angels sit at the base, words chosen from a book sit unread save by some vague passerby, the meaning lost and gone. No one salutes them, there is no more “Good work boys!, there is no more them
They are no longer there.
I am not saying they are in Heaven or Hell, I’m not saying they are not. I don’t have the first clue about any of that stuff, nor will I pretend to, but I do know they are gone. They do not notice the chill of the ground, they can not envy as I brush away a wisp hair blowing in my face. The storms blowing or the sun shining, it makes no difference to them.
They exist in name and memory only. Soon the stories they star in, the moments retold at family get together, Christmas, thanksgiving, the laughter surrounding the mention of an old quirk they had or joke they told, they will all cease.
The laughter
replaced by a casual mention
replaced by a vague recollection
replaced by silence.
The memory will be gone.
These people become nothing more than another name carved into a rock amidst a sea of others. Gentle sentiments, well intentioned promises "Lest we forget, forever missed". There is no choice but to forget, time takes care of that…. and forever? It is a simple illusion. It doesn't exist. Time is simply a complex puzzle consisting of collective realities, always stopping and starting but there is never one constant forever, no flow. Forever is simply a word to give romanticism to the lines of the poet. It is an illusion we keep alive to help soften the blow that one day we will join McElroy, John Joseph 1934-2001 in his existentially challenged tomb and we will simply be gone, Remembered for a time and then gone...
So goodbye Matthews, William E (Bill) July 20 1916-April 22 2008. I give your name this moment and I give your memory this passing thought. As for you, I give you the promise that I shall enjoy the breeze, love much, cry when hurt , and join you soon. Your forgotten soul will not be alone.
That is all I can give.
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