Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving
Many blessings...big birthday...losses...changes...wonderful people in my life...a lot for which I'm grateful this Thanksgiving.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Requiem for a Young Airman
Thirty one years ago, Eric B. Park died in a car accident on a lonely road in Pennsylvania. He was only 25 years old, an airman on active duty in the US Air Force.
He was my husband.
As I went about my business these past few days, I thought of him, so handsome in his crisp blue uniform yet so rakish in his orange Datsun pick-up truck.
I feel the ache of loss as deeply and physically as if it happened yesterday. November 14, 1983 was a Monday. I was supposed to go to an international food and hospitality convention at the Coliseum on Columbus Circle, but I wanted to talk to my husband before leaving for the show. I called the base...and was given the chilling news that I was a widow, after only four months of marriage. As I hung up the phone, my future dissolved in my convulsive sobs.
Today, as I emerged from the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway station, I had an eerie sense of deja vu. Of course, the Coliseum is gone now (replaced by a glittering shopping mall), just as my brief marriage is no more. Things change. Life goes on. Or does it?
I have a friend who last November lost her husband of several decades. I want desperately to call her, to tell her that the hole in her heart will heal...that the pain goes away...but that would be a lie. The pain never really goes away, but instead it oddly harmonizes with one's being. I don't suffer the torment I did initially, but there is no denying that I am wounded. All those long-ago dreams that shattered in an instant are like pieces of broken glass tucked in a secret place, and when I sometimes take them out to consider them again, they cut me to the quick.
I do miss you, Eric, my dashing young airman. You made me feel alive and loved. Thirty one years later, wherever you are, I hope you know you still do.
He was my husband.
As I went about my business these past few days, I thought of him, so handsome in his crisp blue uniform yet so rakish in his orange Datsun pick-up truck.
I feel the ache of loss as deeply and physically as if it happened yesterday. November 14, 1983 was a Monday. I was supposed to go to an international food and hospitality convention at the Coliseum on Columbus Circle, but I wanted to talk to my husband before leaving for the show. I called the base...and was given the chilling news that I was a widow, after only four months of marriage. As I hung up the phone, my future dissolved in my convulsive sobs.
Today, as I emerged from the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway station, I had an eerie sense of deja vu. Of course, the Coliseum is gone now (replaced by a glittering shopping mall), just as my brief marriage is no more. Things change. Life goes on. Or does it?
I have a friend who last November lost her husband of several decades. I want desperately to call her, to tell her that the hole in her heart will heal...that the pain goes away...but that would be a lie. The pain never really goes away, but instead it oddly harmonizes with one's being. I don't suffer the torment I did initially, but there is no denying that I am wounded. All those long-ago dreams that shattered in an instant are like pieces of broken glass tucked in a secret place, and when I sometimes take them out to consider them again, they cut me to the quick.
I do miss you, Eric, my dashing young airman. You made me feel alive and loved. Thirty one years later, wherever you are, I hope you know you still do.
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