Shouldn't Have Fallen

Katrina Nelson
10-28-08
Writing for Spc. Lex S. Nelson

Shouldn’t Have Fallen

I’ve made this drive so many times before and in so many different ways. Sitting in shotgun, only always after the short wrestling match to win. In the tiny back seat of a rusted out Dodge Spirit, on the floor in the back seat of a Ford Taurus. One time on the move from the city to the country I slept on a mattress piled into a red fifteen-passenger van. Sometimes we took turns sitting on Elm’s lap to steer the wheel. There was always a fight happening, or one that just happened. This drive has been made while passing snow banks as tall as me or dodging rabbits on the road. We’ve driven in the dark, in the middle of the afternoon, during rainstorms, and always with a memory keeper.

But this time was different from the others; this time we should’ve have done it. This time there was no fight for shotgun as I sat in the front sit of a black Bonneville. This time black ice covered the road as Spank drove. This time we followed close behind a dark maroon Jeep that held five of our own. This time a reindeer cause the Jeep to hit black ice. This time the snow-covered banks softened the Jeep as it rolled two times toward the side of the mountain.

As the funeral procession stopped to fuel Cal expressed worries about the black ice on the road. We we’re all exhausted and sad, so we didn’t listen. We should’ve listened. We should’ve stayed the night at some creepy five-room one level motel with a blinking vacancy sign, but that would be too much like a horror film. So we didn’t, but we should’ve.

Before the black ice and before the creepy blinking motel signs we should’ve stayed in Salt Lake and made the drive in the morning, but we all dreaded this drive and wanted it to be over. We should’ve been home wrapping Christmas gifts. We should’ve been home all toasty and warm reading the book of Luke, and recreating the story of Christ’s birth. We should not have had to make this mournful haunting drive that sucked the light out of us each mile marker we passed. We shouldn’t have to live with one more loss, but he fell so we must drive.

He shouldn’t have fallen. He shouldn’t have been part of that war. There shouldn’t have been a war for him to be a part of. Specialist Stones should’ve come home from that desert place where bombs and guns were an everyday. Home to the valley with the Great Lake. Home to his family with his goofy Army issued Birth Control Glasses. He shouldn’t have come home in a box draped with the red white and blue of the stars and stripes.

…….and we shouldn’t have to make this drive.

As I watched the Jeep slid toward the side of the snow-covered mountainside thoughts turned off. I should’ve waited for Spank to bring the car to a complete stop, but I was bare foot and running down the snow bank before he had the Bonneville in park. As I ran through thigh high snow toward the upside down maroon Jeep I should’ve whispered a prayer, but I could only think about how slow I was moving. When I reached the Jeep I pulled open the back door with a force of ten soldiers. I placed my hand on the babies face strapped in the car sit, and I should’ve heard something, but he was silent. My heart should’ve been beating but it was silent. I numbly unfasten the car seat and lifted the baby into my arms. He looked at me blank and wide-eyed. As I ran up the hill away from the Jeep to the road the baby started to cry a soft painless cry. I reach the Bonneville and handed the baby to his brother. Spank was running up the snow bank with brother and sister on each hip. With the small part of the family safe Spank and I went to check on our brother and sister.

They should’ve been hurt. Someone should’ve been hurt. Those were the words that loosely escaped the Highway Patrol Officer’s lips as he came upon this black ice accent.

So we stayed the night in the creepy five-room one level motel up the road. As the sun came up, out shining the blinking vacancy light, I whispered the payer of thanks I should’ve whispered the night before. I whispered a prayer of thanks as I stood looking at the little bodies warm and sleeping in the make out sofa bed.

Elm, our patriarch and father, meet us at the motel to finish the drive that was 21 years in the making. As we finished the funeral procession up the hill to the cemetery miles away from the snow-covered mountainside, and worlds apart from the desert nation at war, to cover his flag draped box with the same earth that covered the light pink box of our mothers, we heard the guns ring from valley peak to valley peak in the air for a soldier that shouldn’t have fallen.

Elm gathered his other little grown up children minus a son, our brother, friend, protector and memory keeper for the drive home that we should’ve have taken.