Understanding

I traveled through time last week.

Okay, all I really did was clean out a closet. But what I found took me back nearly three decades, to a day I never could quite explain.

The envelope was worn and the letter dog-eared and crimpled. It was written in pencil by a passionate young soldier who looked like Richard Gere. It was written to me.

Mark was on an airplane when he wrote it, leaving Oregon for his Army post on the eastern seaboard. In simple, transparent words, he put his heart on paper, and mailed it off to me.

He planned to talk with my dad and come to an "understanding". Mark was an optimist. It would've taken a diplomat to resolve their difference. Mark and my father were
both soldiers. Neither was a diplomat.

As I read the letter, I closed my eyes and began to journey back.

And then, quietly, it was that day once more:

Several weeks had passed since I'd received the letter from Mark. I was at work at a small accounting firm. At midday, I climbed into my car to drive home for lunch. I backed out of the long lane, which ran past the parking lot for a local cocktail lounge. Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. There Mark sat, on his beloved motorcycle.

But it couldn't be Mark, he'd left on a plane. So I didn't stop, because I knew I had to be seeing things, but still, I couldn't keep myself from looking back.

All logic shouted no. it was an incredible imitation-right down to the resolute jaw, the smoldering look in his eyes, the exact color of his hair, and, of course, the motorcycle.

It couldn't be him. But my stare was locked, and I saw Mark looking so intently at me, so strangely sad.

I looked out the window all through lunch, expecting a motorcycle to boil into the drive with a furious Mark abroad. I expected a tongue-lashing for not even stopping to talk. Even as I expected all that, my practical mind dutifully reminded me that it could not have been my young wild-hearted love.

When I drove back to work, the young man and his motorcycle were gone. After work, I hurried home, thinking there might be a message from him. It didn't make sense, but I still expected it.

My father met me at the door with three words. "Mark is dead." I felt my legs go weak and my head began to spin.

"He was killed in a traffic accident." It happened that day, he said, in south Carolina.

My heart broke, and my tears fell like rain on the hard concrete of the driveway.

Because I had lost him.

Because I had seen him.

Because I had passed him by.

Although Mark and my father never did reach their understanding, I now visit them in the same Cemetery in Portland-a very honorable place for two soldiers to be.

Even rugged soldiers need flowers sometimes. So I bring them. And I remember.