Letter #1

April 16, 2008 e.v.

Dear Damien,

Well this is it. Today's the big day -- a day that promises to change your life forever. Did you even sleep at all last night or were you too excited, like a kid at Christmas? I think I would have tossed and turned all night, or been up at the crack of dawn. You didn't mention what time you'd be shipping out or when your flight would be, so all day long I didn't even know where to put you in my imagination. On a plane? On a bus? Getting settled in at Fort Benning? It's 6:50 p.m. now so I'm certain it has to be the latter by now. I've just gotten home from a long and grueling day at work and am sitting here sipping a nice Australian shiraz.

I've decided to start writing to you even though I don't have your address yet, so by the time I hear from you where to send these you will have a nice bunch coming. And I hope to do some fun things too, maybe print out some of my artwork for you (if the Army powers that be will permit you to have it) or send photographs, or something. I know exactly one thing and one thing only about military life and it is this: those men and women serving overseas, or even just starting out in training like you are today, love to get cards and letters and other tangible reminders of how much they are loved and missed, to know when the going gets rough that they are not forgotten. So I've decided to type out letters to you here in the blog and then print them out later for sending. My goal will be to send you something every day -- a letter, a picture, a fascinating article, whatever. Something so you will have a part of me with you every day sharing in your new adventure. I'll be sure to keep copies as well, in case you ever lose anything and need a replacement.

Naturally I'm curious as all get-out about life in boot camp, what the routines are, what you will be doing everyday, what jobs you get assigned, what you like so far and what you don't, and how you are doing. Please keep me posted on all your progress, your successes and fallbacks, everything. Details, I want details! I want to feel like I'm right there with you when I read your letters or talk to you on the phone.

I listened to the Alter Bridge CDs you left with me last night and on my way to & from work today. I gravitate toward the 2nd CD for some reason and have been playing that over and over. The songs on there are just so deep and meaningful. They make me think about my life, my feelings, people I care about and think about, and of course they remind me of you. And because I'm a big softie and miss you so much already I bawled my eyes out over a couple of the songs. You forgot to leave me a title list so I could tell you which ones though, or which ones I like best, even! I'll have to go online and search by lyrical keywords, see if I can find them, or put the CDs in my laptop and see if the player picks up the info from the internet.

It occurs to me that I never had a chance to finish telling you my "life story" which we started a few months ago. I think I got somewhere up to about the age of 13, which leaves most of the more interesting stuff yet to be told! So I thought I might use that material in days to come to make letters to you when I don't have anything interesting going on at the moment to talk about. You'll have to let me know if the Army screens your mail and whether I should avoid discussing certain things specifically as a result ... *hehheh*

Well, AA has put some soup on and doubtless it's ready by now, so I'll close for the time being. Miss you already!! Hope all is well with you so far and that I will hear from you soon.

Love, Mom

This is it!

Well here we are and there he goes: at some point today Damien will be travelling to a hotel room near the airport, where he will spend the night with whomever else is shipping out to basic tomorrow. Tomorrow morning he will get up, get on an airplane for the first time in his life, travel the distance by air to Georgia, and then get on a bus from the terminal to Fort Benning.

We spent this past weekend together and had a great time. Went downtown to Sakura Matsuri on Saturday, out for ice cream in the evening, and watched some episodes of Joan of Arcadia on DVD, something we've been doing off & on over the past year or so. On Sunday morning we went to a local UM church. We aren't members, but they have been doing a series in world religions open to visitors which started March 30th, featuring a brief overview of the religion during the sermon, some elements of its worship incorporated into the service, culturally-relevant foods afterwards and an hour-long discussion time. This past Sunday they featured Buddhism and served some very nice Thai food. Damien enjoyed the visit and wore his new blue yukata, kamikaze headband and mala that day. We watched a few more episodes of JoA and then did a video interview with him about his goals and aspirations going into the Army, which I hope to upload to YouTube and then to this blog once we run it through some editing.

All in all we had a great time together, though I wish now in retrospect we'd had more time to talk. His father wanted him over Sunday night and that cut into our time together. We had started a session a couple months ago telling him my "life story" and got up to around my time at age 13 or thereabouts -- and never finished the telling. Well maybe this can be something I do to fill letters to him, though some of the contents of that telling might not be suitable for screening by the Army!

Flashing before my eyes

On the way to work this morning I was listening to "Leave Out All the Rest" by Linkin Park and suddenly had this horrible flash of "what if" ... like seeing myself in the future after some horrible nameless tragedy involving my son and listening to this song and remembering him. It was bloody awful and no words can describe what you feel like in those moments. It's like you're trying on scenarios all the time, getting a taste for the worst, and God only knows if this constitutes more senseless torture than it does preparation for anything, because none of us knows for certain what the future holds. Even those of us with precognitive skills or heightened pattern recognition cannot parse something so highly charged with heart-wrenching emotions, because the emotional component renders such a thick layer of subjectivity as to make spiritual discernment impossible.

Am I ever going to get used to this??? I don't think so. I don't think there will be a day going by when I will not worry for Damien's ultimate welfare and temporal well-being as he embarks on this journey. I have so many of my own personal emotional and spiritual issues entangled from the past 25 years ever since a certain tragedy and affliction befell me that it adds an extra layer of frustration to the mix and even my prayers for his safety come out angry and bitter. There had better be truth -- beyond everything else and anything else, and taking precedence over it all -- to the notion of God being Love, for both our sakes.