On the Sixth Anniversary of Your Death
(Published on the 30th anniversary of your birth)
Dear Mo,
I guess it’s been six years, huh. I woke up sad this morning, and didn’t know why. Then I saw my sister’s post on Facebook about that day six years ago when she watched me listen to a voicemail from your mom, telling me that you weren’t coming back from Afghanistan.
In the early years, I always saw it coming. Now, it sneaks up on me. The anniversary, the memory, the pain.
Maybe it’s supposed to. I was reading a book recently given to me — Blue Highways — about a man traveling America, and today — today! — I read for the first time his words about our Chapel Hill, quoting the bumper sticker: “If God is not a tarheel, then why is the sky Carolina Blue?” And today —today! — as I sat with my friend Amanda at an NYC watering hole, I looked up and saw a Tar Heels license plate behind the bar. And today, Amanda asked me if I was OK.
“Yeah, I’m OK. What do you mean?”
“I saw your sister posted something on Facebook. About your friend …”
Snuck up on me, man. I walked to the subway, and there you were, a whisper on the wind. I felt it, then — the heaviness of loss, the weight I hadn’t felt in some time. The first couple years, I felt it a lot. I thought about you a lot. They say time heals all wounds, and I don’t know if it heals them, but it does put them farther out of mind.
You’re on my mind again. I remember when you passed, and my mom said the hardest thing for her was watching me lose one of the people who knew me best, and who I knew best. She said you only get a few people like that in life. I was fresh out of college, and although I knew she was right, I didn’t know it then like I know it today.
I’m 28 now. You would be 29. Where’d the time go, man? I rewind 10 years — almost 10 years exactly, if my math is right — to when we met, strangers at a frat party, hitting on the same girl. How little we knew.
Who would you be today? When I think about you, that’s what I wonder the most. Where would you be? My guess is, you would’ve served a couple tours of duty by now, and perhaps you’d be laying down your combat gear to become an officer or something. We’d talk for hours about politics, race, music, sports, women. Maybe you’d have a wife, and a kid or two running around. A girlfriend, at least, and we’d all go out together whenever you could visit NYC, singing karaoke in Korea town until 4 a.m. and watching comedy specials on my futon, like the good old days. How we’d miss them.
How I miss you, Mo, even when you’re miles from my mind. You can’t exactly quantify the impact of not having someone in your life anymore, but you can feel it. You can know what isn’t there, and used to be.
Six years later, your number’s still in my phone. I can’t call it. I talk about you with friends, and we go through pictures and videos of you and post to your Facebook page, but there’s no answer.
Or is there? I never know with you. When Chapel Hill pops up in the book I’m reading, or a Tar Heels license plate appears in a bar, or people connected to the two of us randomly cross my path — I think of you and smile. I hope you’re there, somewhere, somehow. You could be, for all I know — the Universe is a funny place.
If you are there, I hope you’re proud of me. And I hope you have a girlfriend, maybe even a wife, maybe even a kid running around. I hope you’re well.
I love you, man.
Sam
Private First Class Morris L. Walker was killed in action in Afghanistan on August 18, 2009. He died, reportedly, in a rescue mission searching for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. He was a special person.
Check out more of Sam Rosenthal’s work at samrose101.com
