letters and numbers

I know the artist. Her name is Jenn Hassin and I heard her story before she heard mine. She took a class with Karl years ago and he was surprised by her story so he came home and gave it to me. We ran into her again when we did The Telling Project and we gave her our stories.

We were invited to a send off for this art piece, titled Letters of Sacrifice. Over the base is chicken wire and inserted into the chicken wire are condolence letters. There are 6,820 condolence letters. I was one of five people who each added a condolence letter this weekend, for the five most recent deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I looked on Military Times for Yauch and O'Brien, Williams and Chevy, Martinez and Rice, but I could not find their numbers. Jenn pointed out to us which rows corresponded with which years, 2006 - 2008 comprising the largest section. 2006 - 2008 being when Williams and Chevy died, when Karl drove over a bomb, when I shared a cigarette with a friend who was sent home by friendly fire, when I laid on the floor and cried because I didn't want to see any of those letters.

Jenn said she is often asked about the empty chicken wire at the top of the piece. It is an unfinished piece, she points out, because men and women are still dying in ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. She pointed out a letter she inserted with the family of the dead soldier. Karl shrugged while I looked for the numbers of his friends. He didn't need to know where they were, he said, because he knew where they were. I don't know what he meant: they are in his heart? in the ether? in the ground? I didn't ask, because apparently I was the only one who wanted to assign names to the letters. It's easy for me to go down the rabbit hole: when I start looking on Military Times for men Karl knew, I start searching for men and women from my home town and the town I went to high school in. I am trying to know them, these 6,820 people I will never meet.

If we took a moment of silence for each of these people, we would be silent for 4 days, 17 hours, and 40 minutes... I am tempted. If we donated one day of our life to each of these men and women, we would spend 18 years, 8 months, and 1 week devoting our lives to them, which is funny, given that some of them were younger than 18 years, 8 months, and 1 week old when they died...

Obviously I'm using the term "funny" loosely here. My definition of "funny" is much different than it used to be. As we stood around Letters of Sacrifice, shivering in the cold, a Vietnam veteran cried, but Karl and I laughed, not at the sacrifice before us, but about the life around us. We can stand next to a memorial for 6,820 service members who've died and laugh because we carry them with us every day. I did not know there were so many of them, but they are with me. They are in the ether. They are the air I breathe. They are my freedom of speech, my grief for Karl, my hope for my children.

I did not know them. Any of them. I don't know if they were good men or bad men, good women or bad women. I don't know if they drank too much or drove too fast or fed the homeless or walked little old ladies across the street.

As we stood there, someone asked Karl what he wished civilians knew about the 6,820 letters before him and he mentioned the webs that spread from them to their families, friends, and communities. Then he mentioned that there were innocent lives lost on the other side and webs that sprang from them. Those people, on the other side, killed by our side, they are also the air I breathe, my hopes, my fears.

All these lives. They are the beat of my heart, the glance I throw Karl when I see him across a crowded room, the hug I give my children at night when I tuck them into bed. They are my gratitude that Karl is here and my anger that he is missing. They are the sounds of taps and the tears in my eyes when I see homecoming videos. They aren't anyone I know, but they are every one of us.