Sand

Steve will be arriving here in a couple of hours. Tomorrow, he’ll leave for Iraq.
If any of you have visited Aaron’s message board on fallenheroesmemorial.com, then you know my sister and I've asked Steve to bring us back some sand. Though the embedded foreign sand had collected on some of Aaron’s things, his wallet, photos, stuff that sand clings to, the sand was too fine and could only be caressed between my fingers. That’s okay, but I fear I’ve rubbed the grains too much. I wonder what happens to it. Did the sands of the Jolan District disintegrate into the oils of my fingertips? I’m not being dramatic here. I’d really like to know. Is a part of Fallujah within me, or did my body slough it off as waste?

I’ve had a fixation with sand for a while. My sister understands that. Below is an excerpt of some of the manuscript that was edited for “Timeless”:

Imagining a gift for me, one to be treasured, one for the three-month mark of time, my sister/best friend, Lisa, the one who really pays attention to what people are saying, what time it really is here in the world we are supposed to live in today, this moment, what day an appointment is on, what a person talks about, those kind of important details which seem to escape me most of the time, must have listened, I mean really listened to me. She heard my obsession with time and sand (yes, I have one with sand as well) and she bought me the perfect gift. Fashioned from crystal, its body is filled with sixty long minutes of khaki-colored sand. The head and foot of the hourglass are supported by Mahogany; its delicate form protected by three spines of hardwood. Turned and lathed. Three spines. Symmetry without center. On a circle of gold that crowns the head of my hourglass are the words Lisa claimed for me. Psalm 147:3: HE HEALS THE BROKEN HEARTED AND BINDS UP THEIR WOUNDS. I’ve just this moment turned the words upside down. Another hour will go by. The passage of sand will mark it for me.

I have a dirt clot from Aaron’s grave and last week I took a clot of dirt from a square box at a Catholic funeral. This mound sets on Aaron’s dresser and I’ll keep it for a few months before I relinquish it to Maria Moreno, the mother of Mario Moreno. Mario had just returned from Iraq recently and was killed on a motorcycle. At the graveside, I went up to Sgt. Patrick Moreno, one of the Screaming Eagles, and sole brother of Mario, I handed him a small envelope and said, “Here, take some dirt from within your brother’s grave and keep it in this for a while before you give it to your mother. There’ll come a time when she’ll want to be as physically close to your brother as she can be.” Sgt. Moreno looked a little confused, so I brought some home with me just in case he didn’t follow through. He probably thought I was whacked.

I have a half pint-wide-mouth-Kerr-canning jar that sets on my computer desk. Two sticky labels tell its story. One is the Parable of the Soils: “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

I know. The patience part really gets me too.

The other label:
Our Good Ground
This soil was taken on December 14, 2000 from the very spot that supported the mailbox of MaMa & PaPa in Amherst, Texas

Steve will fly back into Lubbock on December 14th. With patience, I'll wait for the soil Steve rescues for me. Greg and I’ll pick him up at the airport on our anniversary. You should duly note that the sand I captured from my grandparent’s homestead was also on December 14th.

The soil in the Jolan District has what I want. Some of my son. His blood. I know there couldn’t have been much left after that firefight. I’m not counting on the cross Allie gave Aaron or the broken circle Lisa gave me when I went to Panama. The united circle spelled Best Friends. On the back of mine: Love, Lisa. Aaron wore mine both trips to Iraq, while I wore Lisa’s. Well, I still wear hers. Guess it’s mine now.

But the blood. Where does it go? Does it disappear into the depths of the soil? Does the soil hold the DNA? I bet Roger could help. Ask him, please, Aunt Linda.

My questions aren’t rhetorical. I’m really interested and I don’t work well with the math/science side of my brain, though I am intrigued by science. There’s a great deal of research I want to do on the history of Iraq in general, Fallujah in particular, and this infamous district that Aaron was killed in, from its biblical days, from its genesis. This area, as I've mentioned before, is near the bend of the Euphrates. The Euphrates is full of history, I know that. I guess it's this spot in particular. When you look at an aerial map of Fallujah, the Jolan District looks different from the other areas in Fallujah. Perhaps they've created a new map since April and November of 2004.

When you really want to understand something, you’ve got to go to its origin. I'll break-out my old History of Civilization school book, the Internet, that kind of thing. But I think the Weeping Prophet, Jeremiah, will flesh-out some of the gaps in history for me, though it’s easy for me to get lost there, too. Just so much history there in Mesopotamia.

Don’t worry, I’m not intrigued by the macabre, but I am a big CSI & Law & Order freak, though no one can ever touch Quincy for me.

Regardless, the sand will be a treasure.