It gets me every time; the 3-Volley Salute followed by Taps. The sound of the first shot fired transports me back to the front row at my brother’s graveside service; encompassed by grief as I fix my eyes on a coffin containing his uniform-clad body. The shots that follow reverberate through my heart bringing back to life the places of pain that over time have grown dormant; shudders running through me from head to toe. And when finally there is silence, the gentle sound of Taps fills the air, as if wishing to soothe the abruptness of the pain that was just thrust upon me; a haunting accompaniment to my falling tears.
Today as this tradition came to a close, I felt as these memories flashed before me—of a coffin lowering into a grave, of the feeling of dirt filling my shoes as it fell from the shovel while I put dirt onto his open grave, of the sobs that came in crushing waves breaking out of my chest with overwhelming intensity—gratitude. Time passes. Details and images in my mind grow fuzzy. But traditions like these take these memories, frozen in time I leave further and further behind me, and brings them for a moment into my today. They remind me that even if things get harder to remember, this fact remains: I am a marked woman. Marked by the life of my brother Noah, marked by the love I had for and received from him, and marked by the losses I know because he is no longer here.
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