On this Memorial Day I'm thinking of two soldiers, one a secret to me until my mother died and the other the fallen husband of my dearest friend. After my mother died I was visiting my favorite aunt and she showed me ancient photos of the family. I learned I had an uncle my aunt was married to who adored me as a toddler, but he died suddenly in a car accident and my parents let his memory fade and never spoke of him. I lost him in my memory. And she surprised me again by saying my mother was in love with and engaged to marry a soldier in World War II, a pilot like my dad, but he was killed and she never mentioned him to my brother or me. She carried that wound to her own death, silent.
My friend secretly eloped with her beloved after graduating from college, right before he was sent to Vietnam. He was a helicopter pilot, and died three months after he was posted. It was a shock to her entire family and all her friends except the one who had driven across the country with her, ostensibly to visit me and my husband. She never said a word to me. When he died she was devastated, and didn't want to live. I've traced his name on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. and seen it on a a wall of the college they both attended.
Two loves lost, but not forgotten, two graves visited, in my mother's case by his relatives, and in my friend's case, by her, her kids and second husband and other relatives. How our lives are changed by the secrets and memories we hold.
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