engraving on the inside

Then tragedy struck our lives, when my husband's younger brother was killed on September 11, 2001, along with thousand of other innocent people. He made it out okay and spoke to his wife to say he was going back in to help those that were still trapped. He was identified only by the engraving on the inside of his wedding band.

Attending my brother's memorial service was an eye-opening experience for the both of us. For the first time, we saw our own marriage was almost like my in-laws. At the tragic death of the youngest son they could not reach out console one another. It seemed as if somewhere between the oldest son's first tooth and the youngest son's graduation they had lost each other. Their wedding day photograph of the young, happy, smiling couple on the mantle of their fireplace was almost mocking those two minds that no longer touched. They were living in such an invisible wall between them that the heaviest battering with the strongest artillery would not penetrate, when love dies it is not in a moment of angry battle or when fiery bodies lose their heat; it lies broken and panting and exhausted at the bottom of a wall it cannot penetrate.

Recently one night, my husband told of his fear of dying. Until then he had been afraid to expose his naked souls. I spoke of trying to find myself in the writings in my journal. It seemed as if each of us had been hiding our soul-searching from the other.

We are slowly working toward building a bridge—not a wall, so that when we reach out to each other, we do not find a barrier we cannot penetrate and recoil from the coldness of the stone or retreat from the stranger on the other side.