 Emilia Parrish |
We had decided to have a natural childbirth. After Noel's death my mother
became my Lamaze coach. It was so hard to go to the class and see all the
other happy couples, and there I was-with my mother. I didn't want to hate
them, but I did. They were so happy and I was so miserable.
My son was born on December 24, 1970. When it was time to go to the hospital
to deliver, everyone asked me where my husband was. At first I would tell
the truth and say, "He's dead, he committed suicide three months ago." But
I would get these horrified looks. So I just started saying that he died
in Vietnam. It was easier.
I named him Noel, after his father. I had such mixed emotions when he was
born. It was just amazing how many gestures and expressions he had that were
so very much like his father's. I loved him to death, but I resented him,
too. And I kept thinking, "I don't want you to take his place. I want him."
I never screamed and hollered the way that I should have. I had to go back
to work immediately after he was born. A few weeks later, I had two baby
showers. Life went on as though nothing had happened.
My husband was my high-school sweetheart, a gorgeous man with Paul Newman
blue eyes and beautiful curly hair. When he got a low lottery number, he
enlisted rather than waiting to be drafted. He chose the Marine Corps because
he thought he was a tough, macho guy. They sent him to Vietnam right after
boot camp. He was stationed with the 3rd Tanks Battalion in Quang Tri, near
the DMZ, and I know that he saw a lot of combat. I could never get him to
talk about it. I do remember one story. He said they had access to all the
liquor they wanted. One evening there was incoming artillery and some of
his friends died because they were too drunk to move.
I didn't know exactly when he was coming home. On Thanksgiving Day, his family
and mine were celebrating together, and I got a call, "Emilia, I'm home.
I'm at the airport. Come get me." When we got back, everyone was there having
Thanksgiving dinner. He was more quiet than usual, like he was in another
world. The service never debriefed him. They brought him home from Vietnam-boom!
straight back to civilization-with nothing in between.
We got married soon after he got home, but it was a real anxious time. He
was stationed at the Marine Corps base in Vallejo and having a lot of problems
with alcohol. He knew it, but he just didn't know where to turn. I called
the base many times asking for somebody to help him, somebody to do something.
I even talked to the chaplain, but he just kept saying that he would be okay.
When it got worse, first they demoted him to PFC, and then they discharged
him five months early. It was an honorable discharge, but just barely. It
was easier to just get rid of him than to try to help.
When he finally came home, we stayed with my parents for a while. I was working,
and I was pregnant, and he was trying to find a job. He wanted to be a policeman,
but he didn't get hired because they saw that he'd been demoted. That was
a big disappointment. He got more and more depressed, his drinking was out
of control, and who knows what else he was doing to keep himself sedated.
My parents thought he had malaria because he would start shaking and break
out in cold sweats. He was real fidgety, couldn't sleep. I had to be careful
when I walked into a room to let him know I was there. You could never walk
up behind him without saying something because he would turn around and attack.
When he began to feel really out of control, he went to live with his brother,
Neil. We had been married less than a year.
The last time I saw him was a week before he died, and he scared me to death.
He was completely out of it. I thought he was drunk, but it could have been
something else. He was dirty. He was always an impeccable man, and there
he was with dirty clothes on. He tried to be loving, but I was repulsed.
This was not the man I had fallen in love with. This was not the man I married.
My last vision of him was-not him.
He called me at 3:00 in the morning the night before he died, to say that
he was sorry, but I had heard it so many times before. I didn't think he
was serious, but he had bought a gun and he shot himself in the heart.
About ten years ago, I found a suicide support group near my home. It was
the first time I had thought to look for help. Everyone else in the group
was mourning a recent loss, and I was talking about something that had happened
over twenty years ago, but when I started to tell my story, it felt like
it had just happened. It was still fresh in my body, mind, and soul because
I had never been through a grieving process. It seems that every time I tell
my story, it gets a little easier. I can talk about it all now, but it's
taken thirty years.
I'll be fifty-two in May. I have never remarried. Sometimes I wonder about
being so alone. I guess it's the trust factor. I have a hard time trusting
anyone with my heart. It is only recently that I have come to understand
how angry I was at Noel for leaving us. He should have been there when his
son was born, and now his son has become a father, and he will miss his grandson.
He loved babies. He was a gentle man. I think Vietnam ripped his heart apart.
The bullet just finished what the war had started.