I have fought long and hard over this decision. At a time when I have faced the greatest challenge of my present life and future, I have battled what I should and should not share of this work. The excerpt below is somewhere within the first quarter of the manuscript that I’m currently working on – about Dustin Brim – a 22 yr. Old U.S. Army soldier that died shortly after being deployed to Iraq – and some stuff called Depleted Uranium. It is not my nature to share my writings premature of the final draft. However, due to personal reasons, I have made the decision to open a crack into the book so that no one forgets what has happened and what is important. It is my genuine hope that your heart is touched, your spirit inspired and your will ignited. I covet your prayers, Lonnie
…ONE NATION…
They came from all directions. All walks of life. All manner of race, religion, beliefs, grief, burdens and in abundance. They walked like the dead movements of a robotic act. Literally hundreds of people came to this small area known as Sea Pines Memorial Gardens. It is almost worthy of a scream for the absurdity of how such a name could be given to such a place. All over the nation, there are memorial Gardens. Yet, why a garden? The only thing planted is something that will not grow ever again. That is the hard, cold reality and fact. However, there is always that thing called “hope.”
It must be the hope that keeps the memories growing while the pictures fade and the faces of all grow older and weary. The hope that when it is the turn of another, their life lived, once planted in the “Garden”, their spirit and the truest part of their being will continue to flourish regardless of weather, climate, politics, arguments, disasters, births, joy, pain or sorrow; immortality.
How often has one walked through a cemetery to pass over one headstone, one marker, one indentation in the ground to traipse to a more drawing marker or memorial, all the while neglecting the dozens that surround it? It is so easy to lose sight of the individual grave for so many reasons. Maybe it wasn’t attracting. Maybe it wasn’t anyone known personally. Maybe it was a bad day and there wasn’t enough time to ponder over each and everyone. Maybe there are just too many. Maybe it reminds us that one day, some day, we all have the same appointment to share the same quarters. In silence.
Silent neighbors are supposedly the best kind to have, but, in a cemetery, it is as lonesome as an eagle’s feather in the desert.
By 2:00 p.m., October 2, 2004, the crowd of people once gathered had all but faded away from the place where Dustin Michael Brim had been laid to “rest.” For the preceding hours they had all gathered, as mentioned, from all walks of life, race, religion, politics, young, old, male, female, etc. The reason being: They were people that cared. They were people that hurt for Larry and Lori Brim in the loss of their son. They were people that felt it to be their patriotic duty. They were people that felt as though they were a part of a community. A community that cared and shared. They were a part of sharing one another’s pain and sorrow in equality to the joys and elation of other times. By the right side of Dustin Brim’s permanent reminder, a nation was gathered. One nation. One people. One country, one heart, one desire, plainly, one spirit.
As the crowd dispersed and went their way, the “nation”, in a matter of minutes went back to the diversity and divergence of its present day. Everyone going their own way and into their own thoughts. It was a sad day, sad events and sad circumstances, but, life goes on and so do the individual concerns. Some had to go get groceries, some had to meet friends or family. Some had to fix the leak in the bathroom, some cut grass or some meet others for dinner that evening. Life went on.
But, in that casket, that place of total silence and solitude, that place where the world and its worries are no longer heard, there was no peace. Laid to rest? No. Entered into peace? Yes. The peace; yes, because Dusty (as he was known) had entered the kingdom of heaven and the arms of his savior, his Lord and his truest belief. His spirit removed from the dust and dirt and into the arms of a loving God.
Yet, there in that casket, deep into the soil of an earth with billions of different opinions, was a fury of an argument. There was no rest in this place and there might never be. Though Dusty’s spirit had moved on to bigger and better things, his physical remains and his life lived on planet earth not only cried out, but screamed out, just as so many millions of veterans before him. But this time, as in the past, it was a new argument. Though sequestered in that small area lay a symbol of something gone very wrong, the silence could not, would not and will not remain. The argument can be heard if one dares to stand by the site and listen to the memories of gunshots fired in wars around the world from years past and present. Even tomorrow, when a shot is fired, a question will be asked: “What was the price of this life?”
Lonnie D. Story [send him email] is the author of “The Meeting of Anni Adams” and is working on “Without A Shot Fired: The Dustin Brim Story” Lonnie is a featured columnist for www.populistamerica.com.