Relationships & Family Topics
The World My Son Saw
The only thing I had left were the pictures he took in Iraq, from his first day in Baghdad to his last.
I turned the flash drive in my hands, my fingers running over its smooth case. It didn’t seem right that the last months of my son’s life were contained in this tiny bit of plastic and metal and computer circuitry. It felt flimsy, inconsequential, the complete opposite of my Joseph, a natural leader with a big presence—strong, solid, comforting.
Losing him left a void in my life so painful I couldn’t see how anything could ever fill it. I’d lost a part of myself forever. My husband, Carey, had returned to work, and our two younger children had gone back to college. I couldn’t seem to get back to my normal routine. I went to church, but I couldn’t sing in the choir or play my flute in the orchestra without breaking down. I turned away from friends. Some days I didn’t even leave the house, as if being alone with my grief was the only way to hold on to my son.
Joseph was a sergeant in the Army’s 411th Military Police Company, stationed in Baghdad. The last time he called from Iraq, I asked if there was anything special he wanted when he came home on leave. “A big steak,” he’d said. “And I want to see the Gamecocks.” He was a huge University of South Carolina football fan. Carey and I bought tickets to a game. I could hardly contain myself. At night I would gaze at the sky and imagine that Joseph saw the same bright moon thousands of miles away in Baghdad. It made me feel closer to him. Soon, Lord, I’d think, soon he’ll be with me again, and we’ll look at the moon together.
That was before the call, the call every soldier’s mother dreads. One late September day, just a few short weeks before he was due home, Joseph was felled by an insurgent sniper. He died in surgery. He was only 25.
I should have been laughing with him as he hugged me so hard he lifted me off my feet, leaning into him as he yelled himself hoarse cheering for his beloved Gamecocks. Instead, I wept, sorting through the boxes the Army delivered. The men in his unit had packed up his belongings and returned them to me.
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Comments
I just read your article
I just read your article and you have my deepest sympathy on the loss of your dear son, Joseph.
We lost our nephew, Pfc. Garrett C. Knoll in Iraq on April 23, 2007. My parents had helped my brother raise Garrett and when my brother passed away in 2001 they became his guardians. Like your son, Garrett just couldn't find a place for himself and living in a small town, jobs were scarce. In May of 2006 he enlisted in the Army and was trained as a medic. He deployed to Iraq in February 2007 and 7 short weeks later the Army was knocking on my parent's door. Garrett had been killed by an IED along with 8 other soldiers.
My 80 year old mother was the one to go through all Garrett's things with our Casualty Officer. She put his cell phone aside to look at later. My niece found a picture on the phone that Garrett had taken when he parachuted out of a plane for the first time when he went to "jump school" as part of his paratrooper training. That picture became my family's inspiration to overcome our grief as we knew Garrett had to overcome his fear of heights and flying to make that jump.
I can understand the closeness you feel to your son by being able to re-create on canvas the photos he took while in Iraq. God has blessed you with an amazing gift.
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