Dearest Cynthia,I am sorry this letter does not come with roses and a box of chocolates. I am so sorry, Cyn, that it is yet another day and I'm not home with you. I know you are crossing dates off the calendar and I know you have not stopped whispering my name over bent knees and clasped hands. Its almost as though when everyone is quiet down here, I can hear you pray:Lord, keep him. Keep him from getting hurt in the war. Keep him from running to the wrong shelter. Keep him, Oh Lord, from falling.And then there are those days when I hear the prayers that you don't pray. The ones you keep locked up in your heart like a treasure. As though speaking the words into thin air is too dangerous. As though you are too scared of the thought of it. And so instead, you sing hymns. While all the time, the unsaid prayer dances off every corner of our home:Lord, keep him far from death and bring him home to me.I hear you pray, Cyn, but baby, my heart is breaking. I am so terrified. Yesterday, I saw a mother burn while she held her child. I heard her cry and knew she cried not for herself. I saw her look at her wilting child as both flesh ripped apart in the flames. It was when she arched her back that her painful dilemma hit me. She had held her baby at arms length- as if to keep her fire from the child. But at the same time, not wanting to drop her child to burn alone.And so she held her baby.            And so she cried.People said they heard her pray in her cries. People said she was screaming the name of her child.I don't believe them, Cyn.I believe she was living and dying in love- building walls with the brokeness she had left in her and hoping that her last hold on another life, her child, would bring the slightest chance of survival.Dearest Cynthia, this is for when the war is over. For when we finally pack our weapons and come home. This is for when I refuse to tell you war stories over pancakes and wine; the color of spilled blood- on my shirt, in my palms and on my mind.       This is for the nights I am unable to sleep next to you because I dream dreams of fire and of burning skin, of pain and of fear.This is for when I am slow to touch you; your face, your hair, like smooth sawdust in my hands. My hands, the very hands which carried bodies, both wounded and lifeless, big and small.This is for when your eyes hold questions and doubt while I bring my war to our home:My heart is heavy, Cyn. My soul is burning with the hatred of this land. My eyes are red from all the tears I've shed for the bodies buried beneath my feet. All this and I am afraid to come home to you, baby. I am afraid all the ways in which I have been shaken by the war can never be made calm with your morning hymns- your voice like country song in my ears.How do I come home to you broken and hardened? How do I stay away from you when every pulse in my being beats to the tune of your heart?How do I pull you into my fire when I cannot stand to see you burn? How do I keep you away from the fire when you are burning anyway but alone?And even now I hear you say the prayers you never pray:Lord, heal him while you heal me. Take his wounds and make them mine too.Dearest Cynthia, I am sorry this letter does not come with roses and a box of chocolates. I am sorry, Cyn, that it is yet another day and I'm not home with you. I know you look out the window for a man in uniform with a medal; and eyes like cinnamon. But baby, I am only a hero if I come home to make you whole.