She had not been expecting a letter. It came three months after the funeral. It was a funeral with all the trimmings. Complete with the rifle salute, an honor guard and a flag, presented to her, with the “thanks of a grateful nation”. That phrase, “the thanks of a grateful nation” still pissed her off. The whole thing pissed her off. He shouldn’t have had to go.

And now, there was this letter. Her hand shook as she looked at the envelope.  His handwriting, so familiar to her, so loved by her, on the outside, addressed the envelope, home.  It was the postmark that was telling. The Iraqi postmark was dated the day after he died. He must have mailed it the day that the bomb blew their dreams away.

She wasn’t expecting this. She didn’t deserve this.

They had laughed about his going. “It’s not like I’m going to be in a MASH unit, babe. I’m going to be in Baghdad, in a hospital. It’s going to be safer than living here in Seattle! Besides, the Army paid for my nursing degree… they have to get their money back somehow.”

Her hands shook as she opened the letter. It was dated October 23, the day before he died. She blinked a couple of times, to clear her eyes. It wasn’t a long letter, a few lines written here and there, over the course of the day, as he had time, but it was the fact that he had written the lines.

She leaned back against the wall, and slid down it, to sit on the floor, to read it.

“Hey Babe, I can’t even begin to tell how freaking hot it is here. The oven is cooler. I don’t see many of our guys here at this aide station. I see a lot of the locals though. It’s kind of cool. They are beginning to trust us to treat them. I treated a baby the other day. Cute kid. The mom was having trouble with colic. Seems that’s a universal thing. That and teething. If you get a chance, could you send me some teething rings? I know that it sounds stupid, but they are hard to come by around here, and some of these moms could use the relief!