Joy returns when a son is out of harm's way

The Boston Globe

It's the first time in a year I've seen Rosemary happy. The strain is gone from her face. The tension in her neck, her eyes, the way she held herself tight, the way she was braced for tragedy - all vanished, like a soul exorcised, like night dispelled by day.

Relief has done this. Her son, Mark, is safe, back in the US, out of Iraq. And Rosemary is back, too.

I didn't even know she'd been gone. I didn't know until I saw her last week, walking across a lawn, that for a whole year she'd been weighed down, trudging, afraid of the next step, the next minute, the next day. I knew she was always worried, and sometimes terrified. I knew her fears were incessant. But she functioned. She showed up. She participated. She smiled. She even listened.

But always, always, my best friend Rose was hearing other things. What ifs. Death counts. Bombs exploding. Her husband, Richard, is back, too. There is a spring in his step again, his smile genuine, talking, laughing; the future, not just the past, in his eyes.

Mark is in Texas, they said, relief in every word. Mark is with his wife. Mark and Amy would be flying to North Carolina on Monday night. And Rose and Richard were flying to North Carolina to be at the airport when they arrived.

They waited a year for this. They waited longer for Mark to return to them than for him to be born. I remember when they were young, what they waited for then: glimpses of each other, Saturday nights, a place to be alone, time to be together. "Richard asked me to the prom," Rose said way back when we were girls and love was all about proms and phone calls and glimpses of each other. The dance was at Thayer Academy and I drove there after work to see Rose and Richard dressed up. They walked off the dance floor and out into the night, holding hands under the stars, to see me. Rose, a wisp of a girl, her hair dark and shiny; Richard, a boy still, his face smooth. Both of them happy because though they could imagine tragedy, they didn't believe in it yet. They believe in it now.

And yet, I saw the boy and girl in them last week, lighthearted and joyful. A friend who lost her 11-year-old daughter to cystic fibrosis many years ago sums it up this way: "All my son has to do for me to be happy is stay alive." There isn't a moment, never mind a day, when she isn't grateful just because he is.

War does this. It makes you grateful when someone comes home. And illness does this. It makes you grateful when there's a treatment, when someone survives. And other people's tragedies do this, too. They make you count your blessings and be grateful for what you have.

Rose and Richard have their son back. It's no small miracle. It's a reason for joy. But joy is short-lived in this world because it's not all miracles and starlit nights. It's work and competition and disappointments and struggles and responsibilities and setbacks. And many, many tragedies. So many sons and daughters going off to war and coming home broken. And not coming home at all.

But there are some nights that are all stars. And some days that are all miracle. And they're to be acknowledged and celebrated, and after they're over, they're to be remembered.

I lost the pictures of Rose and Richard I took the night of their prom. But I never lost the memory. Rose was in love. Rose was happy. And I was happy for her. I feel the same way now. After a year of anguish, Rose and Richard are, for the moment, happy again.