My Soldier

He took my hands in his, his beautiful brown eyes met mine. He ran his hand through my long hair. He brought his lips to mine. We were oblivious to the rest of the world, at that moment he was all that mattered. He had always been all that mattered. His arms wrapped around me, his body pressed against mine, his lips on mine. I was in seventh heaven. But then it all faded away. And I awoke alone. To the sound of my one year old baby’s cries.

      As I cradled my baby in my arms I looked at the picture on the bedside table and without warning tears streamed down my pale cheeks.  He had always been my love, my life. His warm eyes and dark brown hair, a few strands of which always seemed to fall carelessly on his forehead. The slight dimple on his cheek lent him an air of mischievous cheerfulness. In the picture, his muscular, tall figure was outlined against the setting evening sun; I had just told him that I was pregnant. He was ecstatic; Jim wanted to be a father more than anything else.

      He promised me that after this last assignment, he would stay home and be with our baby. He said that he would be back in a month; he said he wouldn’t be gone for long. Little did I know that he would be gone forever. Jim always took his duty as a soldier of the American army very seriously.  A week after Jim left, our son was born. I tried contacting him, but no avail. He was completely and totally unreachable. Consumed by my new role as a mother, the next week passed by quickly. That was when the real worry set in. Jim had never before gone two weeks without contacting me. Between my role as a mother and my worry for Jim, by the end of the second week I had reached a breaking point.

      The third day of the third week, that was when I received that dreaded phone call. The army officer sympathetically offered his condolences after he told me that Jim, my Jim, had been killed in war. He told me that the loss of Jim was deeply grieved by the nation as a whole and that his sacrifice would always be significant. I remember putting the phone down with shaking hands, mid-way through the army officer’s rehearsed speech.  For the next few days are shut myself out from the rest of the world. How could I ever move on when my very life had been taken away from me? Why had God inflicted such a terrible tragedy upon us? What terrible crime had I committed that I should be subject to so much pain? I was alone and abandoned in the cold, cruel world. The shock and fear of living alone confronted me every morning. The only thing that kept me going was our baby. He was the sole reason that motivated me to continue living each day. All my attention was concentrated in the only thing I cared about anymore, my baby. As I watched him fall and then pick himself  up again, in an attempt to walk; I was motivated to do the same. A full month after Jim’s death did I finally decided that it was time to move on. 

        It wasn’t easy and every new day presented different hurdles that I had to overcome. As a single mother so much was expected of me, at first I did not think I would ever be able to cope, but gradually I did fall into a routine. I thought about what Jim would have wanted. He would have wanted me to smile and move on. He always said, “Always smile, because you never know when someone’s going to fall in love with it.” I accepted the harsh reality and put my best foot forward at everything I did. And whenever I felt like giving up, I looked at my sons smiling face and I would be filled with a new determination and confidence. Even though I would never live my fairy-tale life, I was going to do everything possible to make sure my son lived his.