It's been a while since my last entry, and it's called me today. My lack of posts, however, doesn't mean a day has gone by that I haven't thought of my brother. Many days recently, I just haven't been able to find the words. Dad and I were talking the other day, and he was talking about how he had wanted to keep working to help Evan get through college, and how that wasn't a factor anymore, as I thought to myself: Oh my gosh. That really isn't a factor, because Evan REALLY isn't coming home, or going to college..like I was just now coming to that realization. Will this ever seem real or will it always feel like a dream?

I just watched Carrie Underwood’s performance from the CMA awards last night. Her song “Just a Dream” is about losing someone in the war, specifically a fiancée or husband, but there are a few lyrics that are applicable:

“Then they handed her a folded up flag and she held onto all she had left of him
Then the guns rang one last shot and it felt like a bullet in her heart…
It’s like I’m looking from a distance, standing in the background,
Everybody’s saying, he’s not coming home now
This can’t be happening to me…this is just a dream”

And so it is. It still feels like a dream. More like a horrible, horrible nightmare I suppose.

And all of the sudden, the anger returns. Mainly anger at God. Mainly, “why me? Why US??” anger. WHY was Evan in that humvee in that moment they drove over the IED?? His unit has not lost another soldier throughout their entire deployment, except for the 5 that day. Why was he one of the five??? Of course, it makes me ill whenever I hear of another soldier being killed, but it wasn’t supposed to be me, and it wasn’t supposed to be my family.

And he died in war, this Iraq war during which we have lost over 4,000 soldiers. Over 4,000 families that have had to endure pure hell. There’s just no other way to put it. And I'm mad that I can't go anywhere without a reminder. It's on the news, and just about everyone I meet has an opinion about the war. A soldier walked into a Waffle House where I was eating about a month ago and I just burst into tears, right there over breakfast. I also don't perceive so many to be appreciative of the fact that our soldiers are risking their very LIVES every day so that WE can rest easy. I read a quote recently that I really like:

“He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing less than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known…He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.”

I read something recently, a quote from a Mom that lost her son in Iraq. She says, “time does not heal all wounds, it just gives you a few more seconds each day before the loss begins”. How true I find this statement to be. I do have seconds, minutes that I can breathe. I don’t forget-we will never forget. But sometimes I can be distracted for a moment. Then all of the sudden, the grief hits all over again in a wave. And so often, what people see are the public smiles, not the private tears.

In less than two weeks, it will be Thanksgiving. Last year, on Thanksgiving, is the very day I gave Evan a big hug and told him how much I loved him, and how proud I was of him, and said goodbye as he left for his second deployment. I remember walking down the hall, and looking back one more time. And whispering a silent prayer, begging God to keep him safe. Had I known that would be the last time I would ever look into his eyes…I would never have let him go. God give me the strength I so desperately need to get through this…

All I want is one more time to talk to him, one more time that I’ll never get. I would tell him, one more time, how proud I am of him. And how much I love him. And miss him. And what a deep hole there is in all our lives.