by Megan Pierce

Created on: July 08, 2008

I am a casualty of war. I stand here today an aged, war-torn woman. I have been ravaged by war. But not the kind of war that soldiers battle with armor and weaponry. My war is a struggle of constant loneliness and sorrow. A war in which my heart has seen more conflict and loss than any experienced combat veteran. I once stood amongst the silent volunteers that have courageously fulfilled their duties as a supporter. They have sacrificed their sole existence to the duty of military wife. They have promised to faithfully avow to their husband's separation. Many nights they have slept tirelessly in an empty bed. Every morning, they wake up to an empty house, and depart for a long day of work just to get by without their husband's salary. They come home exhausted in the evenings, only to spend another night by themselves in an empty home. Waiting for a call from their beloved overseas. Waiting for any news of recent casualties or deaths. I have been a part of that rank, as I have lived through his departure, training, deployment, and death. My faithfulness has been tried by fire. My courage has been tempted by fear. But through every tribulation, my love for him has never dwindled nor died. Yes, I have served as the silent supporter. I am a casualty of war.

I have been a victim of my own war. my internal war. A war that has torn my soul apart, waiting for my husband to return home safely. I feel an insane guilt trickling through my veins. It was the loneliness that he had suffered. I was the only thing that he had. We needed each other. We both grew up with nobody to talk to, and we felt separated from everyone else in the world. . .until the day we met. I loved him, and it was so easy to see that he loved me with all his heart.

I could feel at that moment his strong arms as they picked me up and hugged me. I can still hear his laughter when he playfully teases me. And sometimes, when I imagine him holding me close to his body, I can somehow smell his cologne that always graced his neck. Oh, how I wish I could gently put my hands on his neck, and lean my face closer into his. I wish I could feel the touch of his hands move about my body. But wishes never come true, not even in the stories I had been told when I was a child. Stories about a magical genie who appeared from a lamp when some lucky commoner decided to polish the gritty brass and granted three wishes. No magical apparition could help me at all. I don't even think God could help me now.

And so in the early, cool hours of the blue misty morning, I stepped out into the steady downpour, and acquainted my tears with the soft droplets of rain.

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