And Tell Us about Love

I pulled the U-Haul truck to the sidewalk, looked over at the house and sighed. It was time to get out of this place. It was long overdue. I got out and smelled the ozone in the air after the rain had fallen. I loved the smell of ozone. I opened the front door and shouted at Jagger.

"You all done?" I shouted up at him.

"Yes, just about Mom." He would be twelve this year, already a serious little man. I trudged up the stairs for the fiftieth time that weekend, Jagger was dragging a box out of his room and I bent down to help him. When we had made it downstairs with the box, he insisted that he could do it alone.

"Okay, get the other boxes in the kitchen too will you please?" I was too tired to argue. He nodded. He had inherited far too much of his father for me to be able to look at him and not think of Sam. I didn't want to think about Sam. I had stopped thinking of Sam, I reminded myself irritably. The flame dimmed but it did not go out. There was only one closet left to clean out. I had left it for last. I turned into my bedroom and went to my second closet, Sam's closet.

I opened the doors slowly, as if I had no idea what I would find inside. When the closet doors were all the way open, I took a slow, deep, haggard breath. Without taking my eyes off the inside, I stepped backward slowly until I felt my bed behind me. I sank down on it, slowly, gratefully, determined not to cry - not this time. I sat there, staring numbly ahead, focusing only on two things. Firstly, not to allow the first prick of tears to wet my eyes, or it would be too late to stop them. Secondly, and this was harder, to keep the door to the memories locked and shut tight. I must not allow a memory, however fleeting to cross my mind, I must not allow an emotion, however harmless it seemed to enter my heart or I would not be able to get up from this bed and leave this place. I know that sounds dramatic. It sounds dramatic when people say their hearts drag on the floor behind them. It sounds dramatic until you feel the pain for yourself. Then no other description will do.

I laughed a bitter little laugh. Sam's closet in a house Sam never entered, didn't know about. Sam's son, born into a world he had already left. Sam, Sam, Sam... where did you go? The door in my head opened and I was swept back fifteen years in a second. I searched for and found the memory I always search for first; one afternoon in May, in our senior year. As my eyes opened to the sights and sounds of that day so long ago, I closed them against this time and place.

I was screaming with pleasure, Sam was chasing me with the hose, squirting water at me when he caught me. I squealed in delight and not even pretending to be affronted, giggled and turned myself toward him, so that he could see my nipples against my wet t-shirt. I arched my back at him, pushing my breasts out even further.

"You can look but you can't touch." I said spitefully, laughing.

"Oh yes I can!" He made a grab for me but I was too fast and I fled around the back of the house. Sam chased after me with the hose and got me twice on the legs before he caught up and pinned me against the wall. I had nowhere to go.

"No, no, no..." I said laughing, clutching my arms over my chest. He dropped the hose and then looked me in the eyes, deeply and intently. There was a message for me in his eyes and as I understood it, my arms found their way around his neck and my mouth blindly found his. Everything seemed to slow down, yet spin around us at the same time. My heart wanted to burst for the love of Sam. He carried me up to my bedroom and laid me on my bed. Slowly he lowered himself on top of me, kissing me deeply and deliciously. That was the day, the first time. Afterwards we lay in each other's arms, feeling perfectly loved and content.

"Will we always be together Sam?" I asked.

"Always Jenny." He promised.

Now I spoke to an empty room.

"And now Sam? Are we still together, or am I dragging into the future what should be left in the past?"

I gave a small laugh and brought myself back to the present. I looked at the corner of the closet and took the hanger off the rail. I stood in front of my mirror and held my wedding dress in front of me. We never got the chance to that either. The wedding was planned, we were waiting on Sam. They told me to get rid of the dress, that I was torturing myself by keeping it. The joke was on them, they had no idea of the size of the shrine I kept for him in this closet, this heart, this mind. Pain is not tangible, we cannot grab at our grief and throw it bodily from our hearts and minds. The dress was my tangible sign of denial. He wasn't dead, he would come back. When there was no more pain in the barrel of denial for me to feed on, the dress became useless and I had hung it right at the back of the closet. Denial had fought me and I won. This day was coming and now it was here - one day, when I would get rid of the dress. I laid it gently on the bed.

Turning back to the closet, I pulled two boxes out. They were filled with Sam's shoes, his t-shirts, his jackets, his books, his sunglasses. It knocked the wind out of me and I sat down heavily on the bed. The problem with Sam dying, was not Sam dying - the problem was packing Sam up. Those were the only tangible things left of him. I felt as if I had betrayed him when I packed his things away, that I somehow deleted his life as I packed him away. Each item in my precious boxes was a memory of Sam. I needed to see evidence of his life. I thank God that the pain of losing him has dulled over the years and even when I want to feel that first stab of my heart (if only to prove to myself that I have passed this way and survived) I cannot. What I feel now is bad enough. I thought I could leave him here and remember him only in my heart - nobody else seems to remember him, I thought I was strong - I was wrong.

I didn't know what I would take with me and what I would leave here on this bed, in this house, this life. Sam smiling at me behind sunglasses, looking like an insect with huge eyes. Me smiling back, looking even more stupid with pink rims. The jeans he tore ice-skating, patched by me and later cut off at the knee. The torn tickets from the Bon Jovi concert. I smiled - what a night. Suddenly my smile faded. Before I could even remove it from the box, my tears were falling from my cheek, little rivers of sorrow gathering into drops on my chin. I pulled out the flag, wrapped as his father had given to me, as it had been given to him, as I promised I would give it to Jagger. I sat swaying, holding the flag like a baby to my chest. This is what he died for, I repeated to myself over and over. If I sat there for the next fifty years trying to convince myself that it was fair, and that it was true, that it was worth it - I would have wasted fifty years. Under no sun could I find justification in his death, fairness in war, his death wasn't worth anything, it didn't change anything. It was bullshit, unfair and he had no choice. The flag had gathered dust, they must have gathered there when I was trying to forget. I would never forget that day, the sun was hot, the earth was dry and dusty. There was a stripped awning next to the grave and fake grass around it, to hide the piles of earth they would use to cover it.

The little baby had begun wiggling in my womb. By the time we were seated at Sam's grave enough time had gone by that I cried dry tears. I had used all my tears up. I bargained with God then, if He would take my little baby and give Sam back to me, I would for as long as I lived be devoted to Him. I bargained over and offering everything including my own life. Did God hear me? I think so, but He could see today and I couldn't.

I closed my eyes and Sam stood before me in uniform. Of all my memories, that is always the last one. He was going and I was staying. He was smiling but I couldn't smile back. Saying goodbye, trying not to cry for his sake. He passes through the barrier and turns and blows me a kiss, I blow one back and wave madly, then Sam is swallowed by a crowd of men wearing the same army uniform as he is. My mouth forms the word 'Sam' but it is a soundless call. I'm hesitant to drop my arm in case I spot him again. The memories rushed past as unstoppable as a train, inertia carrying them forward in the gravity of my mind. The letters and phone calls and care packages. I couldn't quite remember the sound of his voice anymore. He didn't get older in my memories either. I laughed another bitter laugh. The picture is hazy around the corners, the corners as dull as the pain. I am afraid of letting go. I am afraid I will forget completely.

I took the flag and the packet of letters we had exchanged. Did you know how much I cried for you while you were still alive Sam? You belong to the past Sam, I told myself harshly. The scary part is I answered myself and called upon my treacherous heart to agree or disagree with my brain. Nothing is mortal, there is no time in immortality. Sam belongs to the past, the present and the future. I remember my anger with God, the President, the military - it was a long list. I wanted someone to take responsibility for Sam's murder. It was murder, his enemies laid in the desert, camouflaged, waiting for his platoon to pass in front of them, intent on killing them. That's premeditated murder in any court in the world. I was angry with Sam for dying, simultaneously, rationally knowing I was not angry with Sam for dying, but for abandoning me.

There is so much healing the heart and the human spirit must do, before one can remember the joy his life brought and not only the searing pain. It was too slowly moving, the river of healing for me to recognize it. It happened while I was surviving and then when I was living again. It happened when I smiled again. Now I remember the joy of loving him as much as the pain of losing him. I turned slowly, taking in everything in my room for the last time. And then I walked into the hallway and down the stairs.

We arrived at our new home two hours later and parked behind a similar U-Haul to the one we had. Jagger jumped out excitedly and ran to the front door shouting.

"Bumpy! Bumpy! We're here!" I picked up Sam's flag and the letters and followed my son through the front door, Nick was telling Jagger and Chris to go to the back yard, which was massive. He told Jagger he saw some children playing just past the fence. The boys flew outside, eager to make friends. As far as they were concerned, their part of the moving was done.

Nick came over to me and lifted my chin to look in my eyes.

"Was it hard?" He asked, he is the most patient and tender man I know. I love him deeply and his love is like a lazy wave washing up on my shore. The tide rose around me and by the time I noticed the love of him, I couldn't live without it. I nodded.

"This is all I brought." I said showing him the things I carried.

"Where do you want to put it?"

"How about on one of the shelves in the library?" It was time I shared Sam.

"His medals?" Nick asked.

"Here in my bag."

"I was on the laptop for a bit this afternoon. I saw something strange. Do you know that there are veterans selling their medals on e-bay?" I was shocked, horrified.

"No!" I cried. "Why would anyone want to do that? They were bought with blood, if not theirs, then others!"

"They've run out of options, they have to eat and some have families too. There's nothing else they can do. Some guys are selling their kits as well."

"That's not fair."

"Agreed. If I pledge my sword so to speak to a king or a country or a president then his sword should be pledged to me. When my service is done, it is his duty to see that I am fed or at least have a job with which to feed my family when I'm a civilian again. I will never put on a uniform again for a man who is not willing to die for me, especially the man at the top." Dear reader, you thought I was bitter. You were right, death betrayed me. Nick felt his country had betrayed him.

Nick didn't know Sam. We met at the church where Jagger was baptized almost a year after Sam's death. That was when I discovered that Sam's family had buried him in their hearts and minds on the same day they put him into the ground. They've never been back there, every time I visit, I find my dead flowers from my previous visit. If they have been, they didn't leave any evidence. We normally go on the date of his death. I cannot bring myself to go on his birthday, he has no more birthdays. Last year Jagger and Chris helped me make card and attach them to his tombstone. Chris will be eight this year, he's been with us for four years, his mother - Nick's sister committed suicide.

I think perhaps if Chris didn't come along when he did, Nick and I might have had a baby of our own. But Chris completed our little family.

All the emotions and tears I had for Sam, I could see in Nick when his sister passed. He was so angry, he couldn't, wouldn't talk. He didn't want to touch anything of hers, that was his way of denying her death. Nick didn't speak about her for more than a year. One night I laid in his arms and we began speaking about Ria. Nick said the loneliness was the worst, when I was asleep, loneliness came and stood by his bedside, bringing emptiness with it. He remembered as loneliness and emptiness wanted him to, all the memories of Ria. Especially when he would recall her sadness which she could not name. He remembered and cried tears that would never come.

"I remember them vividly." I said. "Promising me that the pain I felt during the day was nothing compared to what they could do to me at night. Daring me to try to sleep."

"They were right to be feared. They would show me her sadness and I would blame myself that I didn't foresee where that sadness would end. Almost like survivor's guilt."

"Did we survive or were we abandoned?"

"Both of them, we needed to be taught the difference between survival and abandonment and living. Living with all our emotions, all our senses. To love and lose unconditionally and completely. If we don't learn to love unconditionally, to live completely..."

"To dance like no-one's watching..."

"Then the reason for their being becomes nothing."

"Yin yang." I said

"Yin yang. Cheers to the one who can survive his dreams, to the one who gets what he asks for." He agreed.

He looked in my eyes.

"I want to make love to you. I want us to become one in our hearts, minds, spirits, consciousness - everything."

"To love completely." I whispered. I tilted my head to the side and unbound my long sandy hair. "Make me one with you Nicky."

He leaned over me and kissed my jaw from my ear to my chin, and then from my chin to my mouth. I caressed his shoulders, kissing the soft skin over his hard collarbone, nestling my lips in his neck as he nuzzled his lips in my hair. I felt his lips looking for mine and turned mine to meet his, finding them at last. I tugged on his lips, his tongue entering my mouth slowly, yet determinedly. I could feel him in my mouth, rolling his tongue around mine, me twisting my mouth to the side to twirl around his tongue. His hands were cupping my breasts and I dug my nails lightly into his biceps. He rolled each nipple between his thumb and forefinger, until they were erect, then he bent down kissing and licking each nipple.

My hands slid down his beautiful body slowly, savouring each muscle as I caressed it. I reached between his legs and closed my hand around his sex. Nick slid his hand in between my legs and I spread them for him. He caressed my sex. I became wet on my sex and Nick spread my wetness over all of my sex. I bent down and took his manhood in my mouth. Slowly I let him thrust his penis into my mouth while I licked his shaft and his head. I kissed his scrotum and licked it, then I took him into my mouth again and let him thrust down into my throat. When he began to grow even bigger in my mouth I knew it was time to let my delicacy go. I let him slide out.

He reciprocated and put his mouth between my legs, licking me with hard long strokes that made me moan, he inserted his tongue into me and licked my vaginal walls, tickling them, encouraging my sex to produce more wetness. He flicked his tongue quickly over my clit, then he sucked my juicy morsel into his mouth rolling it between his lips and pushed his tongue against it. He made his tongue stiff and flicked it over my clit. He did not stop and I climaxed in his mouth. He raised himself back to my lips and we tasted one another's wetness from arousion.

I wrapped my legs around his back and drew him into me, he pulled back to my entrance and thrust himself swiftly into me. I gasped and moaned in pleasure. As he thrust into me, my hips lifted and my back arched to meet his thrust. I could feel his scrotum bouncing softly off me.

"I love you baby." He grunted as he thrusted.

"I love you too bunny." I panted breathlessly.

"Feel me, know me." He moaned.

"Take me, make us one. Take my heart, my soul, my body - make us one heart."

"It could hurt."

"It will hurt, or it won't be true."

Eyes closed, focused on rhythm, taking and giving at the same time, the climax slowly came and we lost control trying to push more than our organs together, we looked at each other until the moment the climate peaked and we shut our eyes. We hung onto each other thrusting, pushing, not wanting the waves of euphoria to end. And when they did we were still hanging onto each other like people who were drowning. Tears of joy streaked down my face and I began crying at the beauty of the moment when two worlds collided and for a few seconds, we truly were one. I sniffed and looked up at Nick blushing. He was also crying.

"It was..." He shrugged laughing. "I think the room spun around us."

"It was like dancing as if no-one was watching."

"In that moment I understood why death is such a high price, it's worth the unbelievable euphoria and the feeling of spinning together, faster and faster, until nobody can see where one ends and the other begins."

"Some people say love only comes once in a life time. I don't think so. The first love only comes once. Loves comes to those brave enough to look for it. Those brave enough to present their hearts to be bonded to another."

"I think that's the problem right there. The hurting who want to be loved, present a small piece of their trampled hearts to a new love, and tell them that is their whole heart. And the new love does exactly the same. How can one love completely if most of your heart is hidden?"

"Once bitten, twice shy." I quipped.

"We are blessed. Through everything that's happened. We are so blessed that tonight and many more nights we will fall asleep in each other's arms."