A Community of Remembrance

Tommi telephoned! It was wonderful to hear her voice – simply wonderful, and in no time at all we were talking as though she had just gone to town for a few errands and called only to wonder if there was anything she could pick up for me before coming home. The feeling of home covered the thirty minutes we shared together, and I rested in them – full exhale. Two weeks of Tommi concentrate can make for a whole lot of missing her when she’s gone.

We talked projects on deck, traded headline highlights from recent topics in the news, and drifted to “girl talk” for a few needed moments of feeling the feminine that is outlawed by the uniform she wears. (See Tommi’s blog, Sentinel 47: Keeping the Gate, for her own telling of a story along these lines.) Of course, we did get to her shopping list before she hung up, but there’s joy in shopping lists from a soldier on deployment; it can be hard to know how to stay in touch, and sending things can be so much easier than figuring out what to say in a letter – the gap between worlds being so far across. So … would I send some of the 3-M hooks and something heavy to hang across the window that will keep light and as much heat as possible out? Oh, and did I think I could find one of those little white boards, the kind they use in college dorms for hanging on the back of the door? And don’t worry, she’d send money for postage. And could I send coffee beans, too? You can’t get good coffee over there … oh, and number four filters?

The package will go out today or tomorrow and travel for ten days to reach her – no matter. ln days ahead Tommi and I will again build a habit of email exchange and find the occasional treat of instant messages. It’s a world of work for both of us, and the days pass. In the meantime, I am encouraged by friends who join me in remembering Tommi. Kat at Keep the Coffee Coming sent a song out yesterday for her, and Ken at Digital Common Sense passed along a moving dedication to heroes, naming Tommi as one of his own. There are, of course, many others keeping Tommi in prayer and remaining mindful of her and all the sons and daughters who have been sent overseas to fight a war. It matters. Knowing there is home helps keep a soldier safe. Together we become a community of remembrance, and it is from this place that I take my greatest encouragement and my most certain hope that we will bring all our children home safely.