Death Coming Up the Hill

April 1969Week Fifteen: 204There’s something tidy in seventeen syllables, a haiku neatnessthat leaves craters of meaning between the lines but still communicateswhat matters most. I don’t have the time or the space to write more, so I’llwrite what needs to be remembered and leave it to you to fill in thegaps if you feel like it. In 1968, sixteen thousand fivehundred ninety-two American soldiers died in Vietnam, andI’m dedicating one syllable to each soul as I record myown losses suffered in 1968, a year like no other._______________________January 1968Week One: 184The trouble started on New Year’s Eve when Mom came home late. Way too late.Worry about Mom— and about Dad—knotted my gut while Dad paced theliving room like a panther ready to pounce. “Where the hell is she, Ashe?Those damn activists . . . I shouldn’t have let her go. Well, that’s the last time,the absolute last time she mixes with trouble- makers. It ends now!”He looked at me like it was somehow my fault, but I knew better. Hehad to blame someone, and I became an easy target. But it mademe angry at him— and at Mom, too. Why couldn’t they just get along?What I wished for the new year was peace at home, in Vietnam, and theworld. A normal life. Was that too much to ask for? The door creaked open,Mom stepped in, and Dad pounced. I crept up the stairs, closed my door, and tuned out.?  ?  ?Later, Mom tapped on my door and came in, timid as a new kid lateto school. And she smiled even though she’d just had a knock-down, drag-out withDad. There was a light in her that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.She wanted to check on me, to make sure I was okay, to tell methat May 17, 1951, was the best day of her lifebecause it was the day I was born, and even though things had been rough,she had no regrets. Not one. Then she hugged me and whispered that maybe,just maybe, there was light at the end of this dark tunnel. “You neverknow what’s coming up the hill,” she said, then left me alone, worrying.