My son Reuben spent the better part of his four years in the United States Army in the greater frontier of Alaska; Fairbanks to be specific. There he must have had a million emotions. I remember him calling me on his 21st birthday telling me how badly it sucked and how he wished to God he had never joined the Army. I'm sure he was upset mostly because of the duty station choices made for him right out of basic. He asked me once what he did to piss the commanding officers off to the point that they gave him that particular duty station. "Why Alaska?", he kept asking, but after a bit longer, and a few more pouting nights, he figured it out. He may not have loved it then, not right there and then, but today he'd give anything to go back. Seems the boy left something up there worth the time it would take to chip ice cycles off his nose again.
We see pictures of the great Northwest and we saw AWWW and OOOOH when we are shown photos of the Northern Lights, their green and pink hues swimming across the sky at night, or maybe what is actually during the day since half the year is spent virtually in the dark that far away. We see the moose, the hills, the mountains, the streams, the first snow, and we think to ourselves how great it would be to travel just once to the area. Maybe we'd take a boat from one little island inlet to the next, see a whale or two jumping out of the dark and ominous abyss. Maybe we could see ourselves as passengers on the little planes with landing gear designed to float on water; maybe we just want to get away from the hassle and hustle of the cities we live in now, and a trip that far away somehow makes sense.
Reuben decided over a year ago that he was unable to fill up the wants and the desires that leave holes in his heart concerning Alaska. Give him the snow, the ice, the cold, the wind. He'll even weather this winter, one of the worst that area has ever seen - - he'll do it BAREFOOT for the chance to find that missing piece, that mishap-shaped hole he created, the one that fits perfectly into the center of his wounded yet beating heart. Reuben left more than a few skivies in the washing machine at Ft. Wainwright, he left the love of his soul. That piece of history cannot be repeated, and it can never be recovered unless it is recovered for good. I miss my old Reuben, I really do. I miss the one that laughed, and cut up, the one that put the JOY in my day. He's somewhere inside that man's body, I can see it every once in a while when he smiles, but then suddenly it disappears again - and it is gone.
I asked him what he dreamed about; just something to pass the time, maybe get him talking again. He told me he dreamed of holding her again, of kissing her. He didn't have to say her name. I knew it. She knows it. He's sorry he left...and I am too. I would give my own son away today if it would do him good to go. I would give him to her and pray for their lives together. Until then, he is a frozen tundra I suppose, suspended in a time much longer to live than most. A time where every minute is an hour and seconds don't even exist. He's just waiting on the Spring to thaw him into something resembling the man he was before he went the first time; but time doesn't work that way son, it never does.
I love you Reuben.
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