Pain so Common


The sky seems to be frowning as it masks the sun’s blissful smile with a blanket of gloomy, gray clouds. Leaves of fall colors trap themselves under windshield-wipers and swish slowly, as if they are being pushed upon by the unpleasant mood and unable to be carried up into the sunshine, under cars that form line. We are a line of strict school children walking one behind the other with no haste. We travel down this tree-tunneled dirt road, seeming to leave every smile we once had perched on our faces behind us in the cloud of dust. Not wanting to experience any more pain, which has already consumed us, everyone is seen slowly emerging from their cars; black veils try and hide the despair rippling down each face. I grasp the hand of my mother searching for some relief from this misery, but none is found.

Deep breaths only cause me to cry more rivers of sad, lost, lonely tears. The men in uniform are showing their faces from down the road, marching to a dreadful tune. Their guns crossing their chest while their chins are held high, they give thanks to the common lost life. How can something so common to this life we live become the one thing that breaks us, the one thing that causes so much remorse and pain to the point that nothing is worth hoping for anymore? I shake my head, telling myself this isn’t true. But it is and the truth is held in the box of black and sliver, lined with white cushions as if to make the moment more comfortable.

He is a statue I know and love with no life left to breath. I fall to my knees, the guns fire into the empty air, I hold on to the folded flag in my arms clasping it, promising to never let go of the one thing left. Friends and family walk pass as I stare blankly into the past. One by one they give me a hug, they give me a pat. They search for something to say but silence is dominant. I lie there socked in my own tears and I search for answers while I cry with lost hope twitting the ring, found in his pocket, on my finger. Why did this happen to me? How could this have happened to me?
A future that all the moments we had led up to was taken from me by the hands of a stranger only judging the color of the flag proudly sewn to his breast, sewn to his heart.