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.