The years that followed were a blur of deployments, promotions, and paperwork. I served in Afghanistan, then Iraq, then back home for training, then overseas again. Each time I rose in rank, I sent them something. Postcards from dusty airfields, holiday cards, sometimes just a small note.
Thinking of you.
Silence.
I still bought them gifts every Christmas, always addressed to the house where I grew up. Never a word back. Never a thank you.
One year I sent my mother a silk scarf from Kyoto. Another time I mailed my father a rare pocket watch from Germany. Each time, I pictured them opening the box, looking at each other and saying nothing.
I wondered if they even remembered my birthday.
I still have every medal, every commendation, lined up in an old wooden box. My hands, those same hands, are rough now. The nails short and cracked. The skin weathered.
I used to think of that as ugly, but now I see it differently.
These hands saved lives. These hands pulled wounded men from burning wrecks, steadied the trembling shoulders of young soldiers, folded flags at funerals.
These hands became mine.
And every time I returned home, if you could even call it that, I’d pass the old house on Cedar Street and feel nothing.
They didn’t come to my officer commissioning. They didn’t show up when I received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal. And when I made Lieutenant Colonel, I found out they had attended my sister’s gallery opening that same night, just an hour’s drive away.
