November 2021: Living in River City
In recognition of Veteran’s Day, I’m revisiting a piece I wrote when my son was stationed in Iraq with his Marine Corps unit. In honor of everyone who has served as well as all of the concerned, supportive and resilient families who love them, thank you for your sacrifice.
I used to live across the street from an Austrian lady. Hedy's home was haven for three-hundred-plus birds. Cages lined every wall, and on summer days she would open her windows allowing the rest of the neighborhood to hear the cacophonic soundtrack of her life. I’d learned of Hedy’s affinity for birds and other animals years prior when I worked at a mall bank in the 1980s, long before we became neighbors. She was the manager of Noah's Ark, a pet store that sold everything from puppies to fish. Once, when a canary escaped its cage in the store, she ran after it with a net lifted high over her head, determined to recapture it. Those of us working the teller line that day watched in amazement as she chased the bird through the Bergner’s corridor, calling for it to come back, oblivious to gawking onlookers. I thought she was peculiar, but I admired her pluck.
After we became neighbors, we’d wave to one another across the street but seldom spoke. I was too busy with a house full of small children to make time for regular chats, until one day I found myself on her sidewalk, retrieving a wayward child, drawn into conversation by her easy friendliness and mesmerizing storytelling.
"I grew up in Austria," she'd said. "I came to United States with Joe when he was a G.I."
Joe was the American-soldier husband she’d followed to the U.S. after they’d met during WWII. By the time she and I spoke that day on the sidewalk, it'd been decades since she'd seen her homeland.
"We met during the war," she said, her thick accent sometimes difficult to understand. "I had a brother, Joe, too," she added. "He did not come home from the war."
As she recalled her brother, Joe, she took on a faraway stare. "We lived in a neighborhood where everybody could see the uniformed men coming. They would watch the men, holding papers, coming down the street and wait for them to open someone's gate. That day they opened our gate. I remember my mother."
Hedy trailed off, tears fell onto her cheeks, lip quivering. She shook her head as if to clear the images, like stains, that lingered there. "I will never, as long as I live, forget the sounds my mother made that day." Then she took a deep breath and changed the subject.
Her story made me uncomfortable. She was elderly, reliving a moment I couldn't possibly comprehend. Here I was, a twenty-something year old mother trying to keep watch on little people climbing trees and chasing balls into the street. I struggled for something to say, but failed in my awkwardness and inadequacy. I probably said that I was sorry for her loss and then told her to enjoy the day as I trotted back home, wayward child in tow. But I’ve never forgotten her story.
That conversation was decades ago, and I thought about her again this morning. The day was early yet; the street quiet, daylight not yet bright enough to extinguish the street lamps. I sat at my computer next to a window overlooking the street, sipping coffee, when a black vehicle pulled in front of my house and stopped at the curb. I didn’t recognize the car and had no clue who it was or why they might have been there, and it unnerved me. Then, like a punch in the gut, I caught a wave of panic that three (that's how many my son tells me there would be) uniforms might unfold from the doors of that black sedan and begin a somber walk up my pathway to the front door. For an agonizing instant I choked on a consuming fear, like a presence, that set me back in my chair. I knew that if indeed any uniforms emerged from that car, I would never make it to the front door to greet them. I dangled in that abyss for a few breathless moments, and then the car moved off the curb and proceeded on its way.
My son had called from Iraq just two days ago, on Sunday evening. Could something have happened to him between then and now?
When we’d spoken that night, he'd sounded as exhausted as I'd ever heard him. "Sorry I didn't call sooner,” he said. “We've been in River City."
"Where's that?" I asked.
"It means that Saturday morning somebody was killed, and no calls were allowed in or out until the family was notified. This is the first chance I've had."
That conversation crackled in my brain as I worked to return my panicked heart-rate to normal. I thought about the flowers he'd ordered for me that had arrived Sunday morning, on Mother’s Day. I thought about the mother, somewhere else, who may have been waiting for flowers or a phone call but instead received a carload of uniforms. And I thought about Hedy's mother, her ululation, the unearthly news she'd endured the day when uniforms opened her gate.
I’m grateful beyond words that my son returned home from his service intact, but many do not. I hate war. I hate that so many have sacrificed so much. I’m also no longer the young, naïve mother I once was. I’m old enough to have fought a few wars of my own and suffered a few casualties along the way. If I could have that conversation with Hedy over again, this time I’d invite her to sit at my table, hold her hand, share a cup of coffee and shed a few tears right along with her.