A soldier’s death, that ‘ultimate sacrifice’, deserves the elegance and beauty of ‘The Last Call’, that is bugled at military funerals and all around Britain this weekend.
As we honor those who died for their/our country, I’m thinking too about those left alive and about the reverberations of loss that echo across their and our lives.
For them that bugle call signaled the beginning of a changed life. They accepted the folded flag, the medals, the personal effects and went home to . . . what? A country copes by offering solemn remembrances. A town erects memorials listing the names of those taken. A church puts up wall plaques and prayers. A partner, though? What do they do? A parent? A child? What of their loss? Each survivor counts the cost differently. Resignation. Pride. Anger? Memories frozen in time. A son who never reaches his next birthday, a mother who shows up missing at a daughter’s wedding, a friend who was the keeper of jokes we can no longer remember alone. Truth be told, some survivors no doubt felt relief since not all heroes were heroic at home. Even so, for all of them (and us) a fog of emotions.
I’m reminded, as I often am in heart-sore times, to look to John O’Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us, 2008). From ‘For Grief’
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
It’s worth looking up and reading the rest of the poem, too.
Annette Atkins
