That was his gift to Gia.
So now you know what happened. To me, anyway. What happened to me and my son. I can’t speak for my husband or describe what this experience was for him. I can only tell you what I observed through the haze of my own pain: Imagine a skydiver leaps from an airplane. He has the best equipment and does everything right. At first, there’s euphoria. He sees so clearly—blue sky, green earth, beauty without limit, a higher perspective. He has absolute faith that he’ll land safely and be a better man than he was before. But it turns out his parachute is tangled. He struggles to fix it, but the chute tears away and disappears into the sky. Panic grabs him by the throat, but still—faith. He has his faith. In free fall, he flails, trying to pray, but the force of gravity takes his breath away. He sees the hard ground coming at him, and he knows that if he survives this, he will never be the same.
??ten
My husband wrote many songs inspired by or dedicated to our son. One that still wrecks me after all these years is “Comeback.” It’s the voice of Amiir’s daddy, alone with the echoed versions of himself, accompanied only by the quiet acoustic guitar I love.
sweet wind blew not a moment 2 soon
I cried when I realized that sweet wind was you
In the unresolved chords at the end of this song, you can hear this man’s love for his child. It was bigger than him. We loved each other, but this child—we loved this child. He was everything to us. We would have done anything for him.
“I smell him,” I told my husband.
“Do you?”
“Yes. In the air when I wake up. I smell him. Like my senses can’t accept he’s gone.”
“Don’t say gone. He’ll come back.”
“He will. I know he will.”
as sure as the candle burns
every soul must return
I begged him to put me under and talk to me about it, but he wouldn’t do that anymore. The deep connection created a door he was afraid to open now. We clung to our faith in eternal life and the great journey of the soul. We lay in the dark, talking about where Amiir might be now and how we could bring him back.
We didn’t wait to try to get pregnant again, but this ordeal had left my spirit so empty, it didn’t surprise me at all when my period came each month, my body telling me it wasn’t time yet. My body was doing everything a woman’s body is supposed to do after she gives birth to a baby, but nature designed all that with a baby in mind. My hormones were speedballing, and my breasts ached, even after the milk was gone—and the milk wasn’t completely gone for a long time. I’d wake up from a dream about Amiir and find it soaking my shirt and the sheets.
I’d been around the military all my life, so I knew about post-traumatic stress syndrome—shell shock, they used to call it—but it never occurred to me that there are all kinds of battlefields in this world. Now I see so clearly that we were both scarred and suffering for years, because we didn’t know how to deal with it in the moment. I was a zombie for months. It was hard for me to see past my own pain long enough to understand what was going on with my husband. Even if I could have, he was not the type of guy you can bring chicken soup to when he’s sick. He wasn’t accessible that way. As his wife, I could get closer than a girlfriend, but even after I had the phone numbers, there was a point of Do Not Enter. There were times when I knew better than to intrude. As cliché as it is for sexy older men to date younger women, I think his preference was more than physical; it was about the power balance. He didn’t like to be argued with. He wasn’t used to someone banging on the door and saying, “I’m coming in! I don’t care what you say.”
Before we were married, he wrote to me:
A secret—when have a disagreement with someone—it’s usually only one. Then they’re gone. don’t mind them (disagreement) with u because know we’ll always be 2gether. Although hate 2 fight, hope we are both better souls from the exercise. That’s how look at it—as exercise… The toning of the heart muscle so it’s strong and able 2 withstand anything when I’m a father!
I’m going 2 be one u know. When ’m ready! ’m glad u’re young cuz u can wait 4 me. Well hope u do. only want your kids! We’re so much alike, it’s inevitable.