Love and Duty

                         Love and Duty

     We woke up early. It
was hard to get moving, but it was harder to fall asleep the night before. Fear
and sadness nagged at the back of our minds all night, until our body's desire
for sleep swelled over our anguish. It was hard to wake up, but then we all remembered,
no, we already knew the reason. He was leaving; off to fight in a war far from
home, far from the ones he loves.  
   

  Fog and ocean spray
loomed over Boston that spring morning. Funny how every sad event of my life
tends to happen on such overcast days. As we got dressed, my mind flashed
through memories of birthdays, and holidays, and every other kind of day when
my dad would come home and play with us. He'd make corny jokes and we'd be forced
to laugh because it was the only thing we knew how to do, back then, when I was
so young, or what seemed to be young at the age of ten.

     Utter silence echoed throughout the morning. Not
a word between us as we packed the car, except for the occasional whispers of
yes, no, and soft, near silent sobs. It was somber and really dramatic as if it
was a movie. We all followed a script and we were all playing our parts
perfectly, as the morning rolled on in agonizing slowness but I knew it would
feel like only seconds when it was over, a few precious seconds.
     For a long wile I
tried to think about all the things I would miss about my dad, just how every
speaker at his farewell ceremony said. 
Why should I think about those things, when they would only make me
sadder? I did not want to be
any sadder, when fear clenched at my stomach with the strength of an alligator's
jaw, rolling, turning, and tearing, trying to make me scream out for help, but
that would be cruelly inappropriate.

      So I just sat
there, looking out the window at Boston's skyline, seeing how nice it looked,
how complete it looked. Then my thoughts wandered to another skyline that was
missing something, as if something was cut out of a familiar picture. They all
tried to explain to me what it meant, but that's another unhappy memory that I
don't need to go into, because I knew what it meant. When it happened, I knew.
My dad knew that's how I knew just by looking at his face. They would take him
away, and his side job of playing army for a weekend and making some extra cash
would turn into the real thing. Of course it was a long time ago and my mind
was fogged with emotion, fear, anxiety, and all that good stuff, but I remember
that I could not help but think of my health teacher at that time, Miss. D. she
was a cold woman, and she assigned our class to make this hippy poster about
how violence was stupid and useless. Then 9/11 happened a few days later; the
next week the poster was due. Three months later my dad was activated and he
told us that he had to go far away to help those who fought for us. I realized
then, as the car was driving by the rows of army trucks and jeeps, that if war
was useless then why is my dad going into it? Is he useless? She was a Jerk.
The answers seeped into my mind in away that would be explained in latter
years.

     We all got out of the
car and my Dad looked at us with the saddest eyes I had ever seen on a real
person. He hugged my mom, then my sister, then my brother, and then me. They
were all crying, but I wasn't, or maybe I was and don't remember. But, as he
did one of the most the difficult things in his life, a shockwave shook my
entire universe and my small world opened up and I saw my Dad walk away from
his family, and walk towards war, and I saw myself walk away from him and walk
towards home, and every gear and cog in my head started to quietly turn. And Tears
did stream down my face, not because I was afraid I'd never see him again, but because
I had never seen my dad so sad, and I knew that this would change him a little.
It would be such a small change I wouldn't realize it at first, until I do as
if by accident and then it's always there. I prayed right then and there that
he wouldn't have to kill someone. My Dad may be a hotheaded Irish kid who grew
up in Auburn, but he is a pacifist at heart. Yet his love, duty, and will to
protect and serve made him strong, but he's only human.  

         
     Of course I was only
ten at the time and my brain was incapable of making these connections, but
soon I did, about four years later when that day happened all over again and
the same goodbye and the same fear of him changing all came out, like pulling
stitches out of a half healed wound and then pouring salt on it. The world had
seamed to open up before me, and the truth about everything seemed to be shown
in different kinds of gray. I saw bullshit like the sun in the sky, fake people
stood out, like two preppy kids sitting at a goth table. I saw how people could
care about everything, and I saw how people could care about nothing. Yet my
imagination exploded, and my mind remained open.
 

    It was during his
second farewell ceremony that I finally realized how fabricated the military
is. Of course there was discipline, order, and a sense of duty and honor, but
there were the people who care about the soldiers, and the people who care
about themselves. The main reason why my dad hates the Army is for that reason.
So as I sat listening and getting filmed by the TV cameras, pretending they
still gave a damn about capturing sad faces and brave soldiers, but I guess
mine was not sad enough, because when I saw it on the news I was in it for
three seconds. The rest were all sobs from people who this never happened to
before and saying how hard it was going to be for them. It was hard. But we all
toughed it out before, and were stronger for it. The only difference was that
he would be gone the whole year. There was always leave, but that was always
worse than him being there because he was not all here. 

   
     It was that morning after it all clicked, as my
dad hugged me, and yet again he walked towards and we walked away. I saw how it
might be duty that makes a person stand up to fight for their country and
defend their family, but it is love that keeps my dad going in the grime and
gore of this Cradle War. Maybe love and duty is the same thing. I still don't
know. Even now as I wait for and dread a third day to say goodbye for a third
time, as anxiety quakes ever so slightly in the pit of my stomach, you'd think
it would get easier but this is one of those things that actually get worse,
because each time my Dad goes he d change, each time he comes home he starts
his life over and becomes a citizen, like every one else. You just learn to
deal with it, or you learn to change with it.  

by FaheyFierce