Time should have stopped.

9-11 was the first time I experienced the ability of human compassion to stop time. As the United States stood in awe and horror, the world watched on and across race and religion time was halted. Attending my high school classes we sat close together, prayed, comforted, and coexisted. No one went on with their lives that day. Humanity can halt time, that man-made confinement that holds us so often captive can be abolished in the expanse of compassion.

As a large family, numbering in the 100's, my family stopped time at the passing of my Grandfather. A veteran, two purple hearts, man of strength, and expansive humility was none of that in my eyes. He was hugs and whiskers. He was the smell of coffee and horses. I looked into the empty shell in the coffin. It housed his spirit for so long, but that day his spirit was the wind all around us and for one day we stopped time to celebrate that man.

April 1st 2016 my husband received a call that should have stopped time. SGT Pitty, his roommate in Afghanistan, his driver in Afghanistan, his friend, and brother in arms had taken his life. His body was at Sacred Heart, being maintained on life support as long as possible so that they could gift as many family's as possible life saving organs. Even in his last act Pitty was a hero for someone. The next hour passed with my husband, choking back tears as he notified soldiers, talked with brothers, and organized his day. Meanwhile I finished cooking for my 3 boys, my teenagers friend who was over, my roommate. I changed diapers, found toys, and shoo-ed my toddler out. I fed the animals, watered them outside, and rocked down a baby. My Facebook buzzed with the mundane notifications of the world and my anger festered. WHY ISN'T TIME STOPPING!

My husband went to the hospital to wait with him till the final hour. For me, I stayed with my kids and the hours dragged on. Sitting on my kitchen floor in the sun, my toddler played out on the deck while my infant played on my lap. We love this activity. Mean while I answered customer calls and continually skimmed Facebook, waiting for time to stop. This was one of those moments when time should stop. Where the human compassion floods out from the cracks of the world and shatters all of the dark scary places in the mind.

As I contemplated this over the next little while I realized it wasn't time continuance that bothered me, but the unrealized loss. No one seemed to notice that the mischievous boy had slipped pasted our grasp. I was stuck alone in my memories. Alone with the arguments of Chevy vs Ford, alone in the jabber about guns, alone staying up late nights and seeing the glow of Pitty's computer in the Skype screen, alone with sour patch kids and monster. Knowing Pitty was a toss from my husband. This should be a tragedy that our country mourns together. And this isn't the only one. When a veteran passes it often goes down silently, surrounded by his brothers in arms who are always there, and the family. These men aren't seen as the pillars of our community, the loss isn't public. When it is, it seems to be some romanticized Hollywood production on which to mount some political platform.

Let me tell you the truth of that picture. I walked into the hospital at 7 pm. To a room full of brothers in arms, coming and going as their lives would allow. Determined to stay by their comrade who had been pronounced dead. There was sleepless nights. Awkwardly standing on the outskirts, trying to express to a mother, a father, what you can't say because the words have not been created. There is the reunions of brother in arms, who haven't seen each other nearly enough since they came home. Vacant promises of reunions on better circumstances, alcohol poured until dignity melts away, grief becomes anger, words of comfort give way to accusations, confusion, and pain, until the bodies bed down on whatever cold piece of earth they can find. Maybe wondering why they can't trade places. Leaders struggling to hold together a crumbling unit and bullet shells ringing hollow as they are tactlessly placed in a mothers hands. And the defining moment you hear nothing but her silent sobs.

There is no political ploy, no triumph end, no glorified messages that is announced in deep tones at the end of the day. Only the slow return to the trudge of reality, sending the boys away... praying this wont be the last hug, the last love, that the empty spots on the table will be filled before the next tragedy, the next one you know is eventually coming. And you find yourself screaming silently in the void for someone to do something to make these moments stop.

A note on the picture: This was my husband coming home from the deployment that him and Pitty were roommates/in the same vehicle for missions, etc etc etc. We were all so happy the day they came home. We have lost 2 now from that deployment group 11 years ago.