Remembering Memorial Day
The Legacy of Vietnam
May, 2017, marks the 48th anniversary of my husband’s death in Vietnam. I don’t like to pin it down to May 17 (1969) because of the peculiarities of the time difference between where I lived at the time in Connecticut and where he died in Southeast Asia. The 8000 miles between us made it seem that we were days apart. Perhaps when managing this kind of tragedy, we play with anything that offers freedom from exactitude.
The Life-Cycle of Grief
Each year, remembering this event takes on a different shape in my inner world as it reverberates through wherever I am in the present. This “anniversary” is the only aspect of the experience of his loss that is locked in time, irreparably, so I note the similarity of the weather, then and now, and who I am, today. I remember that it was finally spring, trees were blossoming, and I remember the commencement of the grief process back then as I reabsorb this moment from long ago, again. Each year at this time I pay more attention than usual to my life navigation and where I’ve sailed from that lightning bolt of catastrophe.
The most important thing I’ve done in all the years since his death was to understand the experience of war and loss by writing about it. Richard Hoffman says about writing difficult stories that you can never entirely redeem the experience, but you can make it beautiful (human) enough that there is something to balance it. When we restore balance, we integrate our experience and feel our own truth. It becomes manageable. Writing […]
By Ruth W. Crocker|May 26th, 2017|22nd Infantry, Grief, Healing from grief, tragedy, Vietnam, Vietnam War, war, writing, Writing about war|0 Comments
The Unexpected Blessings of Book Publishing
I am grateful for a year of blessings. My book launch on May 17, 2014 was beyond my wildest dreams. More than 100 people came and crammed into Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT. Since then, the bookstore has sold more than 120 copies (not bad for a small town!) and I was honored to present my book to President Obama at the White House on Memorial Day. The book continues to be one of the top sellers on Amazon. I believe that the success of my book is related to the fact that many people need to hear and speak about those years during which the Vietnam War ravaged our spirits in this country. Because I am telling my story of how I became a widow at age 23 in 1969, and how I survived and eventually met, in 2006, the men who served with my husband, people are responding to me with their stories. I am honored to hear them. The power of stories and storytelling for healing is amazing. Bless this year, and all of you.
An excerpt from Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War:
“I like to think that a rough-cut wisdom sustained me through my earlier life when I arrived at the beginning of adulthood, met incomprehensible tragedy and thought I had nothing left to live for. Sorrow does leave footprints, but healing is the courage just to continue, to begin again and again – many times over. I’m still standing, still believing. Hope works from within, rebuilding, even when we feel hopeless. It […]
