<h3>It really makes me feel sad. </h3> <h3>Understanding
I traveled through time last week.
Okay, all I really did was clean out a closed. But what I found took me back nearly three decades, to a day I never could quite explain.
The envelope was worn and the letter dog-eared and crumpled. It was written in pencil by a passionate young soldier who looked like Richard Gere. It was written to me.
Mark was on an airplane when he wrote it, leaving Oregon for his Army post on the eastern seaboard. In simple, transparent words, he put his heart on paper, and mailed it off to me.<br></h3> <h3>He planned to talk with my Dad and come to an “understanding.” Mark was an optimist. It wouldve taken a diplomat to resolve their differences. Mark and my father were both soldiers. Neither was a diplomat.
As I reread the letter, I closed my eyes and began to journey back.
And then, quietly, it was that day once more:
Several weeks had passed since Id received the letter from Mark. I was at work at a small accounting firm. At midday, I climbed in my car to drive home for lunch. I backed out of the long, which ran past the parking lot for a local cocktail lounge. Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. There Mark sat, on his beloved motorcycle.
But it couldnt be Mark, hed left on a plane. So I didnt stop, because I knew I had to be seeing things. But still, I couldnt keep myself from looking back.
All logic shouted no. it was a n incredible imitation--- right down to the resolute jaw. The smoldering look in his eyes. The exact color of his hair, and, of course, the motorcycle.
It couldnt be him. But my stare was locked, and I saw Mark looking so intently at me, so strangely sad.<br></h3> <h3>I looked out the all through lunch, expecting a motorcycle to boil into the drive with a furious Mark aboard. I expected a tongue-lashing for not even stopping to talk. Even as I expected all that, my practical mind dutifully reminded me that it could not have been my young wild-hearted love.
When I drove back to work, the young man and his motorcycle were gone. After work, I hurried home, thinking there might be a message from him. It didnt make sense, but I still expected it.
My father met me at the door with three words. “Mark is dead.” I felt my legs go weak and my head began to spin.
“He was killed in a traffic accident.” It happened that day, he said, in South Carolina.
My heart broke, and my tears fell like rain on the hard concrete of the driveway.
Because I had lost him.
Because I had seen him.
Because I had passed him by.
Although Mark and my father never did reach their understanding, I now visit them I the same place. They are at rest at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland--- a very honorable place for two soldiers to be.
Even rugged soldiers need flowers sometimes. So I bring them. And I remember.<br></h3>