Footsteps Marching

SOMETIMES WHEN THE NIGHT IS SO DARK IT SEEMS TO GLOW, AND THE ONLY SOUND I HEAR IS THE SOUND OF MY OWN BREATH, I SEE THEM MARCHING PAST.

The first time I saw the parade it only lasted a second or two and i was able to return to sleep without dreaming.

I recognized those whose names I had heard sitting in the kitchen listening to my Mother’s reminiscences

Leading the march was Mom’s cousin Lottie Quinn, and Katherine, Mom’s Irish twin, whose very name made her weep.

Walking slightly behind them was Marm, Ellen Quinn King, my maternal Grandmother whose memory seemed to be embossed in gold throughout our household for the remainder of the years I spent within its walls.

I began to forget about the march until the war began and a gold star appeared on the Lundy’s window across our courtyard. That was the same year my third grade classmate, Eileen Farren, died quietly in her sleep. Sister Teresa told our class that Eileen had rheumatic fever, and she was now one of God’s angels. That night I watched while she and John Lundy walked together leading the march.

I don’t remember seeing the march again for a very long time. Perhaps I slept too soundly because I danced so much and laughed even more. And if the march continued it did so quietly without invading my dreams.

But the night it came back I thought it might go on forever, and I would never wake up. I watched as my Dad took the lead and his footsteps seemed to shake the bed. But nobody else heard them or if they did, they never told me. Maybe I was afraid to ask them if they had.

The march never really stopped after that night, but it came more quietly, and settled softly into my slumber, almost like a companion. And life went on, quietly, without my watching the minutes tick away and listening to my heartbeats begin to slow down.

When his, my lover’s, began to falter, I wondered, but tried not to think too much about it. I couldn’t bear the pain of his loss until the moment it could no longer be denied.

The march that night seemed to last forever with him at the lead, and my whole body seemed to bleed with tears I had never shed.

It has taken a long time and I no longer wait to heal. I almost welcome the pain that accompanies the march. It seems to soften the cadence of the marchers, and brings a grim reality to their repetition.

Because now I know the march will never end again for me.

I sense the cadence has become slower and sometimes perhaps it may be wishful thinking on my part, the marchers for a brief second make eye contact with me.

I sometimes wonder if others watch the march nightly but I dare not ask for fear of ridicule.

It has become a part of me, a part that has no denial, and I wonder if when the moment comes for me to join them, if I will be ready to travel.

I pray that happens,.