That death or severe injury is even a possibility for him right now has drained me of every drop of energy that overflowed my cup this morning. The spring in my step has uncoiled with the anxious dread of not knowing.
The silence.
The waiting.
Time does funny things to a person waiting for this type of news. It stretches itself to seem interminable but promises none of the speed that brought one to this stalemate.
I know what you must be thinking: "He's in a war zone; what did you expect?" But it's funny how that works, too, because while you try and prepare for these types of scares as you send them off with a hug, a mental dress rehearsal can't compare with the real thing. It's totally different when the whispered imaginings of "If ..." are replaced with nightmarish details of actual events. Bloodstain outside the T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk where many soldiers socialize. Details distilled in the military's slowness to release information and paired with a personal tendency to let my mind wander the "what-if" trail amount to a dance with insanity.
Try sleeping when you don't know whether your friend is in pain, conscious, dead or alive; whether he's alone in a military hospital or just reliving the horror in his bunk as his body and mind wrestle about the need for sleep.
I apologized to him - mentally - as I ate today; that my body seemingly kept ticking forward when for him the world had been interrupted so violently. The fact that my appetite was still there felt like a betrayal from my own body. I was full of dread, worry, fleeting bouts of hatred toward the Taliban, then the subsequent repentant prayers to God. Weren't all these enough to keep my body going?
In the fluctuation between panic and numbness, I got to thinking about war. Nothing in my mind was linear and these thoughts aren't either, so I won't try to string them together in a forced structure. I pondered:
- the wasted potential, the promise of brilliance bled out on battlefields where the gifted individual is hidden behind generic labels like "troop," "soldier," etc.
- the unquantifiable senselessness of it all; the ugliest layers of Life and humanity exposed; the messes we get ourselves into for unchecked passions, lack of wisdom, and an abundance of pride.
- the hatred I feel for the terrorists restrained only by my desire not to resemble them in any way; not to become like them by the same fatal flaw; instead, to tap into the potential nobility of a human soul and recognize the power to choose what we allow ourselves to become.
- frustration for the moments when people reassure me there were "only injuries" reported. I know they're trying to comfort, but it sounds callused and naive to say that. "Only injured" could be a life-altering brain injury, limb or sensory loss. And, without any further information from the military, we have no way of gauging how many are "only" critically wounded, which could translate into the worst-case scenario.
"And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God" is a favorite line of mine from the musical "Les Miserables." It reminds me, now, why it is so crucial not to hate and allow evil another stronghold on Earth; but instead, to sacrifice our aching hearts, shattered dreams, and wounded pride on the altar of service to God and fight brutality with beauty, fear with faith.
That being said, abstract principles are little comfort to me as the silence consumes me tonight. All philosophical thought seems absurd when the concrete dangles before me.
Overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness and exhaustion, I climb into bed.
***
Update 5/25: I heard from my friend this morning and he is safe.
please try not to hate.
ReplyDeleteAm I hating, Matt? :)
ReplyDelete