One Mother’s Anticipation, One Mother’s Dread in Wartime

We were waiting in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, part of the end-of-the-day crush of harried moms picking up the essentials of family life.

In my cart, atop the dog food and detergent and notebook paper, lay a pair of foot-tall, brown-skinned, ceramic angels, wearing wings made of feathers and red velvet gowns.

In her cart, alongside a jar of cashews and a box of tissue, were a half-dozen skeins of pastel-colored yarn.

“You’re getting a head start,” she remarked, as I lifted the angels and lay them on a conveyor belt surrounded by Halloween candy displays.

Her comment made me feel sheepish. I’d never shopped for Christmas this early; hadn’t come to Wal-Mart for holiday decor. “I just couldn’t resist,” I explained. As I’d wandered the aisles, the shelf of angels had caught my eye and I’d felt inexplicably drawn to buy.

“What about you?” I asked, gesturing toward the bundles of yarn in her cart. “I guess somebody’s getting handmade presents this year.”

She smiled weakly, but didn’t answer, just turned away and began unloading her things. We stood in silence as the line inched forward, then suddenly, she blurted out to me: “I wonder what Bush said today. Did you hear him?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t even known he was giving a speech. I’ve been tuning out, growing weary of updates on war. “I just don’t want to think about it anymore,” I told her.

“I have to,” she said, her eyes clouding suddenly. “I’ve got a son who’s over there.”

*

While we waited in line, she shared her story. Her son is in Special Forces. After eight years in the military, he was due to be discharged last Sunday. Then, just days before, the orders came down. “Cancel discharge. You’re shipping out.” Out to Afghanistan, where units like his will perform the most dangerous jobs of war. “His wife shipped out with him,” she told me. “She’s Special Forces too.”

The cashier looked up from tallying orders. “Your son’s in the service?” she asked. “What branch? What does he do?”

“Army. Special Forces,” the woman told her. “They’re the ones who parachute out of airplanes and drop down behind enemy lines.” It was the explanation she always used to answer questions from the elementary school students she teaches.

And while there is much about the military I don’t know, I do know what Special Forces means. They do more than parachute out of planes. They are the most highly trained soldiers our country provides, and the least likely to come back alive.

The journalist in me wanted to probe: What does it feel like to have the abstract of war assume such a presence in your life? But the mother in me made me hold my tongue. How would I feel if it were my child on the front lines? How would you feel if it were your son?

Scared, proud, angry, patriotic . . . a kaleidoscope of emotions registered on her face, in her nervous chatter, the way her hands shook as she signed her check.

“It must be so hard,” I offered softly, uncertain of what else I should say. She shrugged her shoulders helplessly and looked away.

During the day, she said, she tries to escape by focusing on her lessons, her students. “Still, a lot of the new parents, they don’t know my situation, so they talk about [the war] a lot,” she said. “I just try to keep quiet, keep my mind on what I’m doing.”

At night, she knits and watches TV, flipping from one all-news station to another, her hands and mind working overtime. She’s lost count of how many blankets she’s made. “This is my third trip here this week,” she says, chuckling at her obsession. “I keep running out of yarn.”

The waiting is the hardest. She hasn’t heard from her son since his deployment, and she won’t until his mission is done. “Eight years ... and he was about to come home,” she said, as our eyes meet for a final time. “Sometimes I think this can’t be happening. Not now, not to me, not to my son.”

As I watched her walk away, I thought about the purchases we had made. I bought Christmas decorations, anticipating the holiday season ahead. She stocked up on soft skeins of yarn, as a hedge against the torment she faces. Our choices represent our circumstances, the hopes and fears of our nation.

*

At home, I unpacked my Christmas angels and felt suddenly overwhelmed. Were they really affirmations of faith in the future, or a frivolous indulgence mocking others’ pain? By preparing for the holiday, was I standing up to terrorism or desperately trying to pretend nothing has changed?

I cradled them in my arm for a moment, while I readied a box in which to store them away. And as I looked down on them, I was struck by the serene expression on their faces and the grace in their small hands, clasped in prayer.

I dropped to my knees and made a place on the end table for the angels to stand, even though Christmas is still months away. And I prayed for that woman and her son, and for everyone who is making sacrifices to keep us safe.

She knits blankets to bind her to a soldier she once swaddled as a baby. I display my angels to remind me that there is something bigger than terrorism, than hatred, than war. The season of peace on Earth is coming, even though it may seem far away.

*

Sandy Banks’ column runs on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.