3/16/08
Semper Fi
Have you ever had an accidental shopping buddy? They arrive at the grocery store within minutes of you, and your cruising algorithms fall into step with each other's. Up and down the aisles you go, accidentally winding up in front of the pickles at the same time as each other, simultaneously selecting salad greens and jelly. It is often an interesting glimpse into the life of a complete stranger.
I had a whole family as accidental shopping buddies today: a tall, square shouldered youngish man and his wife, their small daughter, and the woman's sister. The man was a bit loud, and I gathered that he was a recently decommissioned officer, a Marine, home (hopefully for good) recently. He and his wife and sister-in-law were engaging in the plebeian task of grocery shopping, but they were having more fun at it than I have had in a good long time. Although finding myself in the same aisles as them every single time, we were on alternate routes, so our carts crisscrossed each other's about ten or twelve times.
Each pass, I couldn't help but overhear snips of their conversation, patches of laughter seemingly out of place in the sterile red-and-white of our local Meijer. I never caught exactly what was so funny- maybe it was several things- but I did hear them prank calling another relative on their cell phone, then roaring in laughter at the result of this.
In the pasta aisle, something tickled their funnybone so bad that they literally startled the entire aisle of shoppers with their laughter. It wasn't raucous or drunken laughter, just pure fun with a touch of insanity. The man laughed until he had to wipe tears away from his eyes, a full-bodied belly laugh that I can still hear.
I ran into them again, five minutes later, standing in front of the yogurt. The man had just finished another good hearty blowup of hilarity and was once again wiping tears from his eyes. He shook his head, passed a thick hand over the small circle of hair on top of his head, and mumbled the quietest thing I'd heard from him yet:
"God, I hope I don't have to go back."
His wife sobered and put her hand on his arm, her lips white. I grabbed blindly at a container of cottage cheese and darted down another aisle.
I hope he doesn't have to go back either.
I've laughed like that before, and it was only after a particularly nightmarish time in my life. The laughter cleansed the past weeks away, veiled the worries that still lay hidden inside my soul, and drowned memories.
Who knows what horrors that man saw. Who knows what emotion he's been through, what panic greeted him every morning. I don't even know if he was in Iraq. I know nothing about him beyond what I gleaned by accident. All I know is that he is home, and he is safe, and he is healthy. He has his wife and his child back, and a cell phone on which to make prank calls. He has cereal and yogurt and barbeque sauce and cheese and Ziploc bags- synonymous of normalcy. He has laughter that masks any terror that he might not be able to talk about yet.
Wherever you are, belly-laughing decommissioned Marine: I thank you for your service to this country. I don't agree with the war anymore, haven't for a few years now, but I appreciate each and every person who has trudged through the sand and mud and sun to honor the commitments that they made.
I hope that you come back safe, with your families and your world intact.
I hope that this nightmare ends soon and none of you have to go back over there, ever.
And I hope that when you come home, that you are able to laugh just a little bit softer, knowing that there are no terrors to drown out any more.
I had a whole family as accidental shopping buddies today: a tall, square shouldered youngish man and his wife, their small daughter, and the woman's sister. The man was a bit loud, and I gathered that he was a recently decommissioned officer, a Marine, home (hopefully for good) recently. He and his wife and sister-in-law were engaging in the plebeian task of grocery shopping, but they were having more fun at it than I have had in a good long time. Although finding myself in the same aisles as them every single time, we were on alternate routes, so our carts crisscrossed each other's about ten or twelve times.
Each pass, I couldn't help but overhear snips of their conversation, patches of laughter seemingly out of place in the sterile red-and-white of our local Meijer. I never caught exactly what was so funny- maybe it was several things- but I did hear them prank calling another relative on their cell phone, then roaring in laughter at the result of this.
In the pasta aisle, something tickled their funnybone so bad that they literally startled the entire aisle of shoppers with their laughter. It wasn't raucous or drunken laughter, just pure fun with a touch of insanity. The man laughed until he had to wipe tears away from his eyes, a full-bodied belly laugh that I can still hear.
I ran into them again, five minutes later, standing in front of the yogurt. The man had just finished another good hearty blowup of hilarity and was once again wiping tears from his eyes. He shook his head, passed a thick hand over the small circle of hair on top of his head, and mumbled the quietest thing I'd heard from him yet:
"God, I hope I don't have to go back."
His wife sobered and put her hand on his arm, her lips white. I grabbed blindly at a container of cottage cheese and darted down another aisle.
I hope he doesn't have to go back either.
I've laughed like that before, and it was only after a particularly nightmarish time in my life. The laughter cleansed the past weeks away, veiled the worries that still lay hidden inside my soul, and drowned memories.
Who knows what horrors that man saw. Who knows what emotion he's been through, what panic greeted him every morning. I don't even know if he was in Iraq. I know nothing about him beyond what I gleaned by accident. All I know is that he is home, and he is safe, and he is healthy. He has his wife and his child back, and a cell phone on which to make prank calls. He has cereal and yogurt and barbeque sauce and cheese and Ziploc bags- synonymous of normalcy. He has laughter that masks any terror that he might not be able to talk about yet.
Wherever you are, belly-laughing decommissioned Marine: I thank you for your service to this country. I don't agree with the war anymore, haven't for a few years now, but I appreciate each and every person who has trudged through the sand and mud and sun to honor the commitments that they made.
I hope that you come back safe, with your families and your world intact.
I hope that this nightmare ends soon and none of you have to go back over there, ever.
And I hope that when you come home, that you are able to laugh just a little bit softer, knowing that there are no terrors to drown out any more.
Labels: groceries, grocery, home, hope, Iraq, laughter, Marine, Marines, return, Semper Fi, Semper Fidelis, shopping, war
