It doesn't happen frequently, but it does happen. I awakened this morning around 3:30. That is simply too early to be awake! This morning it took me a moment to realize that my eyes were filled with tears and that my cheeks were wet.
Isn't it true that tears have a way of communicating that for which there are no words to express? I have no other explanation for the tears in my eyes. I learned from my niece yesterday that she was notified by a causality officer in the U.S Marine Corps that her dad's remains had been positively identified through the DNA of a bone fragment recovered in one of the two recent excavations of his crash site.
From my brother's earliest years, he wanted to be a fighter pilot in the wild blue yonder. Since he started wearing glasses in young adulthood, being a pilot was not an option, but he could fly as a navigator. His quest to fly and serve his country was unrelentingly a sense of calling he pursued with urgency. He volunteered to be deployed for a combat assignment early.
Upon hearing that his remains had been identified, I remarked that the news is the best Christmas present ever. Perhaps bittersweet is more descriptive of how I processed the information. In my mind, I was immediately carried back in time to the worst experience of my life. I'll never forget learning his plane went down in the Christmas Bombing Raids of 1972 over North Vietnam.
We lost Ronnie at Christmas time in 1972. He has been returned to us at Christmas time in 2023. The fifty-one-year gap has at times been the catalyst of much pain. Yet, during it all, the proven dependability of God to meet us at the point of need has never wavered.
In addition, the support of immediate family, extended family, friends, military families associated with the National League of POW/MIA Families and many others have provided a support system for which we will forever be grateful.
The sense of peace with finally having answers regarding Ronnie's fate is a gift. It dispels the possibility that Ronnie's life over the past 51 years could have been anything other than in the presence of God.
All My BEST!
Don
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