A BlueBell Patch, A Son

        I have always vividly remembered that moment, just before I found out. The spring beauties were peeking their delicate pink heads out that day. The Dutchman’s Britches had just begun to bloom and the new greens contrasting with the dark-as-night soil left my eyes dazzled and my soul at peace.

        The creek slowly trickled by as I knelt next to the bluebell patch, the wetness of spring seeping through my jeans and onto my knee. The blue bells, ranging from pink to purple to blue, were just beginning their short life.

        Then suddenly, at the thought of this new life blooming all around me, an uneasy feeling washed over my body and I looked around in the balmy woods; a silent prayer for my son on my lips. A memory, a picture that flashed before me: Edward, as a young boy, picking those blue bells by their tops as I yelled and ran after him, Garner snapping pictures around us.

        I didn’t know anything was wrong. It was nothing unusual. I'd had similar feelings ever since Edward enlisted.

        I picked a few bluebells, snapping their young stalks without so much as a thought. I began the short trek home, enjoying the feel of mud sliding beneath my feet.

        I hummed to myself as I climbed up the stairs of the back porch, scraping the muddy soles of my boots against each stair as I did so. I opened the door and my heart stopped.

        Garner sat at the kitchen table, slumped over a small stack of envelopes. He clutched a letter in his shaking hand.

        I swallowed, trying to ignore the first thought that came to mind. “What’s in the-“

        “Mary, he’s dead.” Garner, never one to beat around the bush, said it in a ragged exhale of pained breath. It was a knife to my chest, a bullet to my heart. I couldn’t breathe. The bluebells fell to the ground.

        And that's where the memory abruptly stops. I rarely think about how Garner and I sobbed in each other’s arms for the rest of the day. The wake, the funeral, all a blur of pain and emptiness. I try not to think about that now.

        Every spring I have a bouquet of bluebells that sits on the windowsill above my sink. When Garner’s not around I talk to Edward like he’s still there; not gone, not killed before he had a chance to fulfill his dreams.

        I keep the picture of Edward as a toddler picking bluebells by their blooms on my nightstand. It’s the last thing I see before I go to sleep and the first thing I see when I wake up. Garner doesn’t like it. He always hates to think about pain. But I need Edward here. I need to know at some point he existed in my world. Otherwise there’s a part of me that’s just an empty void I can’t live with.