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#Post#: 3502--------------------------------------------------
If You're Gone
DIR By: Maggie Flannery
Date: October 14, 2018, 6:11 am
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A/N: Just a very short little drabble in the sad/ Alternate 60's
verse for Sam & Colleen Lindgren. Song used: If You're Gone -
The Byrds. Timeline: February 1968 was one of the worst months
due to the Tet Offensive.
February 1968
“Hey, Colly looks like you’ve got mail…a bunch of it.”
Glancing up from unpacking one of the last boxes in the sitting
room Colleen was met with an image of her best friend, Helene
dragging in bundled parcels of letters from Walt Kline, the
local postman. It had been a bitterly cold day with snow in the
forecast. She and Helene had finally finished setting up the
living room and place was finally looking like home. The
fireplace was roaring, the record player was primed with a
selection of well loved records, a combined collection that made
building a life together all the more real.
“What in the world. They’re all from Sam. Every single…”
Colleen’s hands shook as she took each bundle, they were the
letters she had written to him and he had tied with his old boot
laces, something he had always done. Her heart rose into her
throat as the walls of the tiny clapboard house she and Sam were
supposed to call home until they were old and grey closed in on
her.
“If something happens to me they’ll send someone. They don’t
send letters unless you’re MIA or POW, Colly. But nothing’s
going to happen, I’ll be back after eighteen months.”
Sam had told her this late one night a week before he got his
papers to leave. They’d had an eventful, if rushed day. They had
married quietly and quickly down at the court house and then
made it back to her mother’s house for a family dinner and
reception with their nearest and dearest. He only had a month
to go and he’d be home. She had the proof circled in bright red
felt tip on the kitchen calendar since he had told her. There
was a solid knock on the front door and Colleen knew. Her mind
reeled as she got up, she felt like she watching herself in slow
motion. The Byrds played on lamenting a lover having gone.
‘If I need you, it's to me you're everything
If I have you, if I love you just the same
If you're here, the night is rightly gone before.’
Two of them. Dressed to the nines in their uniforms and stone
faced stood on her doorstep. She felt her legs go out from under
her as she clutched the doorjamb and screamed. Begged them to
leave her be and that there had to be a mistake. She couldn’t
remember their names but what she’d been told was seared into
her mind forever.
The official notice and his dogs tags were handed to her. His
body was coming home in due time, which in normal civilian
language meant a week.
“On the behalf of the United States Army we would like to offer
you our deepest condolences, Mrs. Lindgren.”
‘If you’re gone, then there is nothing that remains.’
“He can’t be gone, Helene. He just can’t be gone.”
The cold pieces of metal in her hand told her otherwise as she
tried to momentarily block out all the memories of his face, his
smile, his voice and all the could have beens and should have
beens of the life they should have had together.
“He just can’t be gone.”
#Post#: 3504--------------------------------------------------
Re: If You're Gone
DIR By: Wolfy
Date: October 23, 2018, 12:40 pm
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HTML https://hollow-art.com/files/bases/2016/02/20160210/22505/felicity-jones-crazy-2848196.png
I read this and the first thing that came to mind was one of my
least favourite scenes from We Were Soldiers ( but also a
favourite scene, too ). It so made me think of that one scene
when Hal Moore's wife, Julia, along with her friend whom is also
an army wife, Barbara, take the telegrams to those wives whom
have lost their husbands, as opposed to having a cab driver
deliver them, and it brought back a flood of emotions that have
been totally pent up since the last time I watched that movie.
This drabble is a heartbreaker and I feel so, so sorry for Col
right now. This is every army wife's worst fear and it's so
tragic.
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