ll the family had arrived for his homecoming. Mom and Dad flew in from the East coast, Aunt Mary drove up from Southern California, and Todd and Jenny staggered in from college. The clan had gathered to see Jimmy, my youngest son, come home. The house was bursting at the seams and filled with the smells of cooking. The women all pitched in to prepare food for the masses. There would be a large crowd at the gathering, everyone loved Jimmy.

I had awakened early this morning from dreams filled with laughing children—my children. Now as I sat before my vanity mirror brushing out my hair, I gazed at my reflection and marveled at how much I had aged in the two months that Jimmy had been absent from our lives. When did the few feathers of gray at my temples become a crown of silver? And surely there hadn’t been that many crow’s feet about my eyes just a few short weeks ago. Sweeping my hair up into a no-nonsense bun, I completed my toiletries and finished dressing for the day ahead of me.

I didn’t know how I would get through the emotions of this day. We’d all been praying for Jimmy to come home since the day he left, none of us realized it would be so soon. He wouldn’t let me see him off at the airport the day he left, saying that he would rather remember me here at home waiting for him to come back.

“Mom, I’m not a kid anymore. I know what I’m doing, I’ll be ok,” Jimmy said giving me a hug and kiss before shaking his Dad’s hand and giving him a quick hug. “I’ll be back before you know it”. With that he turned and walked out to the street to the waiting cab, never looking back. I wanted to run after him and hold him back but Mike, my husband, held me by the arm and pulled me close.

“Let him go Susan. We have to let him go”.

I sobbed incoherently into his shoulder before finally pulling away from him and going back into the house. It is never an easy thing to let your child go off to war.

Over the next few weeks I was obsessed with the news—CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, I couldn’t pull myself away. It was tearing me up to watch the images of those young men crouched behind buildings and vehicles returning fire in the streets of An Nasiriyah, An Najaf, and finally into the streets of Baghdad itself. Somewhere in all of that sand and terror was my son, my Jimmy. I scanned the pictures hungrily hoping to catch a glimpse of him as I worked on his quilt. I needed something to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied, if only for a moment. So, I worked on his quilt. It was a lovely thing in red and green plaid flannel, his favorite. I couldn’t wait to wrap him in its warmth and love. The quilt grew along with my anxiety. But now it was done, the quilt and the uncertainty. Jimmy was home. Oh, I had to hurry a bit to finish it—we hadn’t expected him home so soon. But, it was done now; all of it come to an end.

The others were downstairs. I wanted a few minutes alone with Jimmy before everything started. I entered the room quietly, why I don’t know. Looking down at Jimmy lying there with his eyes closed, I remembered how he had always looked so cherubic in his sleep. No one would have guessed looking at his face in repose that he had such an adventuresome spirit. His beautiful blonde curls were gone now, replaced with a short G.I. buzz cut. He’d always said the girls were jealous of his beautiful long hair. His cheeks were pale, not the flush of pink beneath the skin that I remembered.

I shook out the quilt that I had been clutching to my chest and tucked it around him. I had been so fearful he would never see it, and I was right—he never would now. Tucking it up around his shoulders my fingers brushed against his cold skin and began to tremble. Hot tears began to flow and rained down upon his icy cheek as I leaned into the casket to kiss him.