My Soldier in Vietnam

    I hold the photo in my hand and slowly rock back and forth on the rocking chair, an empty one beside me. Sixty years later, after I got the letter. A mother of three. A widowed mother. It has not been easy to get to where I am now. There were many a night when I could barely get enough to feed the three growing teenagers.

    

    I remember his eyes the best, always so bright and expectant. The photo captures it perfectly. Unfortunately it is the only photo of him they could find, right on the brim of his helmet is written the words War Is Hell though he smiles right below it. Maybe he smiles because he knows it is true. He always believed in telling the truth, even if it hurt.

    

    I try to fold out the creases in the photo in an attempt to preserve the photo. But it's corners are already bent, a few blurred splotches from tears. The creases don't go away and a pain I thought I had gotten over reopens in my chest. The blue green of his eyes are not shown in the black and white picture. The soft pink of his lips are not either. The slope of his cheeks, the softness and roughness of farm hands. The photo doesn't capture so much of him, and yet captures every single part of him. 

   The chain that hangs around his neck that goes into his shirt hangs his wedding ring. His friends say he never took it off. A deep sadness consumes me for a moment and I lean back in the rocker, feeling my age and loneliness.

    I flash back to all the best memories i have of him. Our first date freshman year,  first kiss four dates later, prom, walking across the stage together, the proposal, the wedding, the wedding night, finding out we're having a child, the birth of our first child, the birth of our second child, and then the deployment. While theses memories may have faded in all of my sixty years without him, the feeling I felt during those times certainly have not. 

I miss my soldier in Vietnam. 

Author's Note

based on the picture for the story. advice and compliments are always appreciated

Reviews

[Nu]

Well written. I had a question why the single photo they could find took prominence. I wondered why wouldn't she have more photos of him...

[Amanda Worthington]

Hmm I never thought about that. I guess it's kind of like the last memory she has of him though there probably is other pictures of him. She hadn't seen him in a while and he had been torn away from her life. She'd never know his last thoughts or if he was in pain when he died. The photo of him as a soldier probably a remembrance of who he was when he died.

[Nu]

Yeah, makes sense :)