Hearing
If MaMa were here instead of there, I’d have her flip to the date of March 31, 2003. She could tell me if I heard wind on that day. Daily records of weather, arrival of news, good or bad, as well as news on the divorce of Dean Martin found themselves recorded in a calendar on her coffee table. Small, the calendar sat next to an ashtray (picture mammoth in red) that seemed to hold the tiny table down. MaMa didn’t smoke, but PaPa did. MaMa outlived PaPa by fifteen years plus, but survivors keep things.
If MaMa were here instead of there, I’d have her flip to the date of March 31, 2003. She could tell me if I heard wind on that day. Daily records of weather, arrival of news, good or bad, as well as news on the divorce of Dean Martin found themselves recorded in a calendar on her coffee table. Small, the calendar sat next to an ashtray (picture mammoth in red) that seemed to hold the tiny table down. MaMa didn’t smoke, but PaPa did. MaMa outlived PaPa by fifteen years plus, but survivors keep things.
A typical Monday and more. I’d just learned I’d completed a class that wouldn’t count toward my requirements for graduation. The mess-up: an extra semester. Upset, I all but sprinted across campus to see the assistant advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences. Once there, I explained the story, cried, said something like, “My son is in Iraq, I don’t know how I’m going to make it through today, let alone an extra semester!”
Busy behind a desk covered in organized clutter, Lisa Ham pulled a pen and square of paper from her desk drawer. “What’s your son’s name? I’ll pray for him.”
Well, I know enough about writing down someone’s name for prayer. This lady was serious. I gave her Aaron’s name. She told me I’d have to talk to the Dean, but he wouldn’t be available until later that afternoon. Before I left, she said, “Your son will come home! Believe that!”
I went for a sandwich to kill time, fidgeted with my food at a lonely table in a half empty Student Union Building, certain that students and staff around me had no problems, the crises in life, I owned them all.
Later, walking back through Tech’s Memorial Circle, reading the names of the remembered, hearing the song of some single bird, looking up at a great formation, my heaviness just leaving, healing, due to a song of life in the heavens, something simple in flight.
A West Texas windstorm and a slow steady rain at 1:30 p.m. in Panama. That kind of disparity.
I kept a journal during the early days of the war, red, hardback, somewhat different from that of MaMa’s, my notes consisted of news and casualties. Under March 31, 2003, I wrote, Day 13: 40 U.S. casualties with 14 missing.
I listed a message in red ink next to the count: Got my awesome letter from Aaron and Jose.
Articles and pictures of 15th MEU taken off Internet.
4 missing Marines are now confirmed dead.
A van filled with 7 women and children were shot at. All inside van dead by either a soldier or Marine. This took place after repeated gunfire up in the air to stop. Our troops have been tricked enough it seems.
The war rages on.
The war inside my gut—it’s gone.
He will come home.
Today, this afternoon, God lifted my heavy, heavy burden. He used a faithful minister (advisor assistant @ Texas
Lisa Ham
M-R
And I, in my mind filled in (the letters) O-T-H-E, MOTHER.
On top of that red ink, I taped the page from a Dayspring calendar for March 31. Those who see God will partake of life, for the splendor of God is life-giving.—Iranaeus
The days and weeks that followed Day 13 of 2003, I still managed to edge myself back into anxiety, but then, a bird always tuned-up somewhere. I developed a listening ear for these creatures. I began to pay close attention. I needed to.
One year later, March 31, 2004, four Blackwater employees were killed and mutilated in Fallujah. Burned, mutilated corpses of two of those Blackwater contractors were strung from a bridge. Fallujah’s violence escalated.
After that, not hearing, hearing. Not hearing.
Hearing.
One year from song to strung.
Then, another year. On May 5, 2005, in pencil, I drew an arrow pointing to the diary entry and wrote, This began with the song of a bird.
During the day, it’s not music or television I listen to—it’s the birds. And to the rest of life.
Sight
My husband and I drove out to the cemetery the day after Aaron was buried. As we stood there, we noticed movement within the mound of flowers. Greg lifted a bouquet and saw that a bird had buried himself within. My husband rustled at the nested color some, but the bird wouldn’t fly out. “Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe I should try to help him.”
“No, leave him alone. Let’s see what he does.”
After a while, the sparrow came out. He strutted, preened; he posed on that bouquet bed. I thought of Aaron in front of a full-length mirror as he turned to the left, the front again, the right, then around, twisted his neck and viewed his back, then faced me and said, “I’m so fine.”
While we watched, the little bird baptized himself over and over in that mass of red, white and blue. Your son lives because My Son lives. I sensed God’s message as that.
Mesmerized by the bird, Greg snapped photo after photo. “I can’t believe he’s staying here and letting me take his picture over and over.”
“I told you. God uses the birds to comfort me. To remind me of life.”
“I know what you said, but I always just thought birds do what birds do.”
Ten minutes into the photo shoot, the sparrow flew away.
Since that time we’ve maintained two bird feeders filled with seeds. Birds of every sort have their own little memorial circle mowed down around the branches of our tree, the state tree of Texas
They must know it’s just to look at.
As much as possible, I keep Aaron’s room as if he were just away on leave. His room. The bedroom Greg labored on as a surprise for Aaron after the second trip. Painting walls and trim, sanding and sealing the floor, shining oak. A map of the world, framed in wood, crafted by my husband, hangs in the midst of camouflage covers and framed prints of World War I, World War II. Red, white and blue accents. Marine and Texan, through and through.
A hero’s room.
I’m glad we kept Aaron updated on the revision of his room.
Smell
There was that moment of finding his house shoes a few months after Aaron was killed. First of all, there was a history to them. For several years in a row, at Christmas, one of Aaron’s Santa gifts was a pair of Dollar Store house shoes. It was kind of a joke, in a way, because Aaron loved the name brand things. I’d always get these house shoes because we slouched around in our comfies on Christmases and weekends. Comfortable, their cost was about four bucks, kind of cheap suede things, beige. Each year, Aaron re-worked the house shoes. One year he took a Nike tab off an old pair of tennis shoes and affixed it to the back of his Dollar Store slouchies. But on this pair, the pair I’d found, he’d taken a Sharpie pen and drawn zebra stripes all up and down them. These shoes were later stuffed into a closet that he’d once used, before the room had been converted into a bedroom for my dad. After Dad moved out, we used the closet for things we didn’t really need. At least, thought we didn’t really need.
I’d already been through several rounds of “looking for him.” Articles, pictures, his voice, things like that. He’d always chewed on the caps of pens, his dog tags, everything, so I’d already saved a few of these things. Keep in mind, preparation for this day has never been, so everything had pretty much been washed, given away, or thrown out after Aaron moved on once he’d graduated high school, just five months before he joined the Marine Corps.
I did find his voice on a couple of tapes. Once when he was in third grade studying for a spelling test, spelling dinosaur words over and over. And my sister has his voice captured with a few complaints, back in ’98 I think. He was whining about some girl. I have his voice on a video after his first trip to Iraq Iraq
Each and every new little discovery was uplifting for a while, lending hope. Then you remember why you’re even doing this in the first place, and so it goes.
Then one day, I was in that closet for some reason other than Aaron. I looked down and saw that pair of house shoes, the zebra striped ones. I grabbed them up and noticed kind of a grimy stain in the bottom. I sniffed, over and over. I cried, of course, but I was still so happy. It was the smell of his feet. No one ever expects that kind of smell to be a gift, but to me, that day, it was. Every once in a while, I go and get them out of his room. Now they set by his bed, close to our two pairs of boots; the jungle boots I wore in Panama, and his pair from Iraq. I could smell him better in the house shoes than his boots.
Touch
March 29, 2005. Last night was the first time I used Aaron’s towel. Before that, it resided in his nylon fishnet laundry bag that hung on his closet doorknob for a while. It was a part of his personal effects that were handed over to me on June 30, 2004. Only a minute list of items found their way back to me from Iraq
Each piece of clothing and linen had been laundered by the military in large commercial washers. They had washed away any personal smell of my son, or at least any to be registered through human olfaction. Some Standard Operating Procedure that robs a mother of such a necessity as that of the scent of her son.
Each item was precious to us. We stood there, lifting each article from that one and only final box. We knelt there sniffing, then sniffing again, then shaking our heads, nearly whispering, “No, it’s not here either.” But Aaron’s dog smelled something. Hennessy sniffed and pawed at the box, walked to Aaron’s closed bedroom door, pawed and whined, questioned us with his eyes, then he moved to the front door, pawed and whined. He finally lowered his entire body to the floor. His head on his front paws, down, his eyes, sad. Heartbreaking for us, though he is clearly prone to depression.
I shared some of Aaron’s belongings after they were returned to me: green T-shirts, socks, linen, a towel, those kinds of things. And the Dollar Store house shoes I’d given him for Christmas just seven months before: back seams slit, easy-in, easy-out, ghetto, I gave those to Tonya.
I kept one pair of cammies, one pair of boots, various papers and books that had his writing on them, and the snuggle pillow Aaron and I had rifted back and forth from each other when he was home on leave, one I’d finally mailed to that APO address overseas.
Me. Every night, holding that comfy pillow next to my breasts, the pillow that I will now own forever. I’ve worn out the cotton pillowcase I’d sent him. It split in half. I knew when I sent it that the natural fiber would keep his head cooler than unnatural polyester.
Two slivers of cotton, now tucked within the first piece of furniture Greg designed for me the first year of our marriage. The expanse of this chest nearly equals that of my bookcase. Nearly equals the heart of my husband. Sturdy. Reliable.
Too, all his socks, turned inside out, just like socks he’d washed here at home. I kind of smiled. Some things never change.
I gave my sister Aaron’s laundry bag and towel. He’d already given her a pair of dog tags he’d chewed on before he left that last Christmas. She has his teeth marks in metal like I have them on old pens and the like. On stuff like the phone he nearly wore out. His teeth marks are in its little antenna. That tired phone rests in the Americana chest, touches his watch and other mementos.
But yesterday, after a few months, my sister brought the towel back to me. She’d noticed feathers attached within the threads of the towel. She was well aware of my interest in anything to do with birds.
When she called yesterday and told me she’d noticed the feathers, I asked her, “Live bird or pillow feathers?” My reason for asking was simple. Tiffany had talked on the phone with Aaron a few days before April 26. She’d remarked how strange it was to hear gunfire in the background and a bird’s call. The bird had landed on or near my son, maybe on his shoulder.
Besides that, I’d mailed him a feather pillow along with the foamy snuggle pillow a few weeks before he was killed. I’d prayed over them before I stuck them in the box, prayed God’s rest for my son.
He received them the same day that two of his fellow Marines were killed. Yes, those pillows meant something to him that day.
Two weeks later, Aaron was killed.
The feather pillow wasn't returned with the small number of articles. I felt sure the rest of those feathers were blown to smithereens somewhere in the Sunni Triangle.
While all this raced through my mind, my sister answered, “I’m not sure. From a live bird, I think.”
“You’re kidding! Yes, I want it back.” By that time, it no longer mattered if they were feathers from a live bird or if they were a part of the feather pillow that had plumped his sweet dark head. Still, feather intrigue was secondary. Without question, interest number one in his towel was exfoliation of my son’s skin.
He’d picked a beautiful towel at some point—then packed it to go to Fallujah. Olive drab complemented navy blue. Beige bordered red, a red as dark as blood. Each shade was within a straight-line, then its river of color alternated, traded, and shared the geometric rule. Blood red then bordered beige and olive drab allowed navy blue the straight swim across its length. Back and forth. Back and forth. Thick. With a background of white.
This towel is in a photograph snapped of him and Jamie Vance while in Fallujah, only one month before machinegun fire struck Aaron’s chest. The towel, it’s the only bright color in the photograph. The rest of the snapshot, rendered in olive drab and desert gray. This bright blend of color in the towel still appears dead when compared with the energy of life pictured within the Marines’ quarters. Draped over a rack, the towel is juxtaposed against two healthy young men, their heads shaved, arms flexed, muscles rounded. Lance Corporal Jamie Vance and Lance Corporal Aaron Austin: a picture of confidence. The background reveals the start of a few pin-up posters—with plenty of plywood left over to continue the collection. Girly pictures and Marines. It’s understood.
To get the commercial smell out, I’d laundered the things I’d kept. If it’d been the smell of my son in those clothes and linen, I’d never have washed them. Lisa hadn’t laundered the bag or the towel. She’d put them up in her closet. I wanted to use the towel at least once, just the way I found it, commercial smell or not.
After my bath, I knew this was the closest I could get to the final flesh of my son. Patting the tufts of terry against my warmed skin, toweling my wet head, then rubbing its threads against my bony shoulder blades and sagging breasts, small—their elasticity resembling the flab of some discarded chicken skin after ripping it from its bone. This chest, still mine—my heart without an exit wound—my aching breasts. Shared body parts with Aaron from the first eight weeks of his life.
My hands trembled as I clutched the towel next to my face, then wiped my tears. I wondered how long it’d take before I exhausted another piece of shared fabric to shreds. Would I live that long?
I draped the towel over the bathroom rack. It was then I noticed a few blades of foreign grass. Dead and dry, they shared the fabric that enveloped some bit of undetected flakes, flecks of my son’s dead skin.
Much like me, their coarse texture holds.
Taste
Today, nearly seven years into this, I no longer crater when I shop for macaroni and cheese down the carb aisle in Bob’s Thriftway.
I always think of Aaron when I roll sausage balls. But I can roll them without crying now. I’m not sure what year of what holiday my tears quit falling. Maybe that’s a testament to healing all in itself. The lack of transcription.
I never cook Hamburger Helper anymore. His favorite. I don’t know if that’s a testament to him as a picky eater or his mom a poor cook.
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Psalm 34 is marked up pretty good in my Bible. Over a dozen scribbled dates covering Aaron’s high school graduation, Boot Camp, war, and April 6, 2004, the day of my sister’s prayer….
Who can make sense out of tragedy?
Who keeps a red ashtray the size of the Titanic?
What sense, later? According to the nose of a pit bull that loved my son, slept with my son, rode with my son, plenty.
During the fall of 2006, during a time of transcription, I’d wanted to check the date on one of Aaron’s duffel bags, the date he’d flown home for Christmas 2003. As I folded that treasure out, Hennessy planted the bulk of his body flat upon it. He sniffed and searched the rough fabric, then he just stayed and snuggled.
Scent and sense rested together in Semper Fi fashion. Two hours later, I pulled the American red pit off the United States Marine’s bag.
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