A Message of Thanks

In the six days that this blog has been online, the greatest surprise, the greatest magic, to me has been the healing I have felt, personally, by sharing along with you the wonderful memoirs and poems you have sent in and the incredible, accompanying emails.

I have been given a rare gift for which I am extremely thankful. I am seeing and sharing the pain we've all felt for so many years from both sides. While the pain came from two different directions, mine as a widow, yours as vets, pain is pain and there's no getting around it, pain hurts. What I am seeing is, there's really no difference in how we've dealt with it through the years. Each of us carries it along with us, but it's buried -- packaged much like an onion, to use that as a metaphor.

In my life, each time I've faced one of those memories that hurt, it peeled a layer off of that onion, and there was a small healing that took place within me. I've been through counseling at many different stages in my life, two divorces, the hellish nightmares, anger at Doug for dying, anger at myself for not dying, too, I raged at God for taking someone so good, while prisons are full of evil ... and I've seen the Moving Wall and relived the agony as it brought me to my knees. Each layer I've peeled off has been a small step forward, one step closer to healing.

Thank you.

God Bless America, and God Bless you ...