Today is April 4th, 2023. It’s been 19 years since my husband died. A part of him at least. It feels wrong to say, because so many good men did die that day 19 years ago, and my husband’s heart against his will and despite the best efforts of an AK47 round to the head, started beating again, his lungs kept taking in dust-filled air and life clung to him when he couldn’t cling to it. But It’s been 19 years since Pfc Jimmy Batchelor died, and a different man walked away. 16 years since he walked the stage for a hard-won bachelor’s degree.
15 years since I married him.
13 years since we had our beautiful firstborn child.
10 years since we had our much-prayed-for rainbow boy after too many losses.
8 Since that hard-won bachelor’s became a harder-won master’s degree
4 since he gave in to a calling from God and entered seminary. Perhaps his hardest challenge of all.
3 since they handed us our perfect only girl
9 Months since our last sweet boy entered the world and completed our family.
And today, for the very first time in all those years, I stood in front of my husband’s grave and wept.
The First Cav Memorial at Fort Hood is a sight to see. A tombstone for far too many young people. A stone monument to blood-soaked sand and fatherless children. The Veil feels thin here. And I can nearly see the boy who died standing before the man who walked away. Irrevocably changed. A soon-to-be 24-year-old kid, looking for reassurance from a graying father of 4, that the loss, the blood, the buddies that don’t wake are never forgotten, that the sacrifice made a difference. That life, freedom, and hope remain. A promise that the darkness doesn’t last forever and that there is always, even in the deepest grief, light.
I wish he could see the man I see. Not a broken 24-year-old that all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men have given up on, but a man restored, like a kintsugi teapot. All the cracks filled with the Gold of God’s good Grace.
There is death here, but there is life. Fort Hood doesn’t stop. Everywhere you look it teams with life and across the parking lots, from all directions men are coming, some from nearby, others from states away, they make this pilgrimage every year, like Jim, to spend a few moments with ghosts.
For many of them, like my husband, the dirt and stone represent what should have been their own graves. There is sadness and joy here. 19 years later it has not claimed them yet, but there are names missing from this monument, names that this day claimed, years after the sunset of the siege of Sadr, the casualties of Black Sunday continue to rise. Then, as if a force is drawing them together, they converge on this single point. Quiet reunions of blood that has mingled together to create a brotherhood born of shared nightmares.
There was no plan, no schedules, no agreements or group chats, yet somehow as I watch from a distance, there is a crowd forming, strong handshakes are pulled into tight embraces, prayers are offered, coins are placed, tears are wiped away and, after the quiet, there is laughter. Loud, beautiful, laughter with only a hint of bitterness, You can barely tell it’s there. There are slaps on the back, and stories and shared photographs, there is life. So much life. and promises of calls and lunches and catch-ups, That will never come. Because even after 19 years, it’s easier to leave it here. To lay it before these stones and hope that this year is the year it won’t follow you home.
The drive home is quiet, with few stops. The baby sleeps the majority of the time and the 3-year-old is easily entertained by her brothers. My husband seems pensive, lost in memories I can’t see. I watch him from the passenger seat. Thankful for the man he is, the kid he was, and the fact that his heart kept beating against his will until he was able to find the will to continue breathing in and out every day.
I’m thankful for the grace-filled cracks of our life. I’m thankful for the brave men whose names are carved into black stone on a grassy field in the Texas heat, reminding all those who step on their hallowed ground of the price that has been paid. I’m thankful he and the men who were with him today are living breathing monuments for the men listed on cold black stone.
