Reminders of David

The first night we meet Roberta and James on their sailboat in Key West, she mentions that her two sons had been in the military: a soldier and a Marine. I decide not to mention that two of our sons also joined the military; David joined the Army and Peter the Marines. I don’t feel like being the grieving mother, I just want to be a tourist.
Four days later we approach Bethesda from the south on Interstate 495. We cross the Potomac, as we did on March 26, 2014, on our way from Dulles Airport. David and an Army buddy had flown in from Korea. We had driven down from Lexington that day, picked them up at Dulles, and gone to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (which I affectionately named WReNMiMiC). From then on I spent my days at Wrenmimic and my nights in Steve’s and Maria’s guest room in Bethesda, exactly 2 miles away. I was in that guest room when Mercy, the kind medical student, called to tell me David was having an emergency appendectomy. I posted my blogs in that guest room, until the Army lent me an electronic ‘hotspot’ to connect to the internet in David’s hospital room. That guest room was my home away from home for nearly two months.


And today David has been dead for five months. Our trip was a way to leave our everyday life for a while. We’re back. What’s next?