Condolences

I just finished this book, in which a New York Times reporter writes about his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book provided more insight than the many news articles I've read, and, near the end, got me to thinking about someone with whom I used to be friendly.
The writer, Dexter Filkins, gives the reader a look at some of the people exposed to, and behind, the mayhem. So maybe when we see that two more soldiers have died in Afghanistan or Iraq, we can move beyond the desensitization and consider that they were someone's son, brother, father, husband. They had interests. They had feelings. They lived. They're dead.
For what? Afghanistan, ok. The people ultimately behind 9/11 took sanctuary there. But Iraq? The weapons of mass destruction never materialized. I guess you do what you have to, but when I've been irresponsible, people haven't died as a result. Regardless of what I think about the war, people have died. People with names. People in the book.
Which brings me back to the person with whom I used to be friendly. She had a son who joined the Army and went to Iraq. He came home from Iraq and went back. Then he came home and shot himself. And she seems to be on a mission to ensure that other service members get the help they need before they kill themselves. She bought my son a nice book for his birth, though she always wished girls upon me. When my second son arrived, I sent her an announcement, gloating a bit, that I had foiled her by having another boy.
I suppose as a mother you have to channel your grief somehow, lest you fall into a despair similar to that which claimed your son. Maybe she can get a small measure of consolation by effecting something positive from this personal tragedy. You carry this child and change his diapers and nourish and love and endure the hurt and the angst. Then he shoots himself, tormented by a bus full of burning Iraqis, mostly women and children.
I can't say I though about her much until I read "The Forever War." Life intervenes, after all, and each of us contends with idiosyncratic demons. I sent a card but recently wondered whether I expressed my sympathy adequately. I don't think so, but I remain skeptical that an adequate expression exists.