Comfort from afar
K.J. HASCALL / Hungry Horse News
It's amazing how sometimes the world just spins into perspective.
On Monday afternoon, a large packet landed on my desk from Roseville, Calif. I receive similar manila envelopes practically daily and they are usually filled with junk. This one, however, was filled with something more.
Inside was a white envelope addressed to Kathy and Charles Taylor from a woman whose son serves in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, the same brigade as Hungry Horse's Pfc. Nicholas Cook.
A note accompanied the white envelope, which asked me to pass the letter on in sympathy.
I was going to write a column about the hike I took with my fiance Shawn this past weekend to Apgar Lookout. I was going to write about the slog through the snow (this greenhorn spent too much time in Nebraska evidently and forgot the snowshoes!) and how it was all worth it: the crystal-clear view from the summit of snowy peaks reflected in Lake McDonald's glassy surface was breathtaking.
But a sympathy card from California changed everything.
When a town loses a son to war, there is a sense of community-wide mourning. This is evidenced in flags flown at half-staff and veterans who stand on sidewalks holding flags.
Though a newcomer to this community, I feel the loss, and the fear. A best friend from high school is married to a lieutenant in the army. Her husband is serving in Afghanistan in an armored calvary unit. When they married a year ago, my teary-eyed thought at their wedding was 'please let him return home safely.' Another friend from high school (and prom date) served one tour in Iraq last year and returns there soon.
There is no one in this country unaffected by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Far more eloquent writers than I have written of the bravery and tragedy witnessed in those places half a world away.
Yet how many words have been devoted to the kindness of strangers, who reach out into the seemingly inescapable vortex of grief, and offer comfort?
Perhaps the woman who sent the sympathy card will read this column. Perhaps not. Either way, it has profoundly affected me, though I did not read the letter's contents. How blessed I have been to hike a mountain on a Saturday afternoon without a care in the world, without the loss of a friend, brother, sister, father, mother, son or daughter to the wars weighing on my heart.
Thank you, Nick Cook, for serving this country. Thank you, Kathy and Charles Taylor, for your sacrifice. And thank you to all the other sons and daughters whose lives are threatened constantly so far from home.
K.J. Hascall is the managing editor of the Hungry Horse News.