the day I went numb

Not a day of my life goes by
When I don't remember him
That big toothed smile
when he won a hand
Pulling the pot in saying
"Come to daddy baby"
I remember the cigarette
dangling from his mouth
Like it was glued
to his lower lip
The stupid s**t he'd say
His blue collar sense of humor
how he slept on his right side
snoring and wheezing
How upset he got
Over tuition for his kids
In private schools
How worried he'd get
about his wife and his in laws
How sharp eyed he was on patrol
He could spot the tiniest details
A kid with a remote control
An old woman with a loaf of bread
a shifty eyed young man
A dead dog in an unnatural  position
Wires in the wrong place
People hiding talking on cell phones
dirt that had been moved around
He was cunning like that
I remember the day we
Loaded him on the medevac
side of his face ripped open
How much he bled
How horrible his face looked
how pale and cold he was
how distant his eyes looked
how I felt when I heard he died
I was heart broken like I'd never known
I was angry like I'd never felt
I was terrified like I'd never been
and I was guilty
I was there with him
I could have done something
If I'd been facing the right way
If I'd not been so preoccupied
with not getting hit
If I'd been more daring
I could have been the one
who died on the medevac
and went home in the flag draped coffin
with the hero's funeral on the local news
instead of him
We had a eulogy for him and others
we had lost in those horrible months
the sergeant major, the chaplain
the lieutenant the CO and
even the division commander
all made speeches
I didn't hear a goddamn thing
That was the day my soul went numb
That was the day I stopped feeling anything
I went home with that day lodged in my brain
My wife divorced me within the year
I'm still not really back from that day
I don't know if I ever will make it back

Reviews

[Michael G.]

It's about you... it's about him... it's about you... it's about him... it's about you.

First, it's good you have those memories of him laughing, worrying, doing all the things we all do. You introduced him to me, and I liked him immediately. What a guy. What a brother.

Then you were turned the wrong way. BR, nothing you could have done. Nothing.

You went numb. That is very understandable. Especially hearing the speeches and the words when you have the memories that see, not just hear words that can't possibly know what you see, and saw.

All this brings it all back to you... right now.

Will you make it back? Probably not... completely. Writing like this has a way of helping.

You can continue to honor his memory the way you did for us. I would have been proud to have known him.

I know I'm proud to know you.

[Inda]

Strong, emotional and heartbreaking. Thanks for posting something so personal here.

[Carolann Dowsett]

:-( I hope and I pray that you will find yourself again, so sad beyond words can say. I know what I say to you probably means nothing but you can't hold onto that guilt, it just is what it is and there is every chance that no matter what you did it wouldn't have changed a thing. Anyway for what its worth I'm so sorry that you had to experience such horror and that it has stayed within you. I pray that your soul finds freedom from the pain.

[Pax]

a complete heartfelt write my friend...
I'm sorry as well... if we could ever turn back time and rewind the awful things to make it good but then its in the past... i know some deep wounds seems like forever to heal... still being in the cold, staying there will make you numb of all the light and warm feelings around you... actually i'm out of words as well... for i don't really know what to say on how to erase this pain away... but i can say your a good person and i think i know you will make the right choices for you have learned something from all this experience...
be well my friend.

[Frieda P]

No words Baby, I'm sorry.