I SHOULD HAVE SAID 'I LOVE YOU'

I Love You

     I have a notebook with my brother’s name on it – “Butch” – not his given name, not a name the teachers would accept in school because “it sounds too rough.” It was mom’s nickname for him before he was born. Good thing he was a boy, or mom might’ve been calling me “Butch.”

     Butch was my best friend, my protector. I kept his secret from mom and dad– that he had begun smoking cigarettes. Like father, like son? Perhaps. I have a six-page fading letter with no date on it that Dad wrote to Butch in May or June 1969. 

“I remember the start of your destiny, behind the nursery glass in the hospital. A red-faced little bundle a nurse pointed to and smiled. I waved at you. Sure, I was sheepish son, I had never been a father before. The idea grew on me after I changed a few diapers and warmed bottles.”

     Butch was 14 when he joined the Civil Air Patrol. I remember watching drill teams competing on a scorching summer day, everyone in full dress uniform precision execution directed by the drill instructor on blazing hot tarmac. The dance of military life. Dad had served in the Army. I never heard him talk about it. I guess there are things we don’t’ want to bring to life again.

    Dad’s letter continues, listing my brother’s military accomplishments, and my brother’s desire to be a pilot and become an officer.

“The night you asked me what you should do--do you remember looking into the dresser mirror? The one you saw could alone make his life’s decision. For he had to live that life, not his father, nor his mother could live it for him.”

      A year later Butch graduated as a helicopter pilot and Warrant Officer at Fort Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia. I was in North Carolina, but mom and dad were with him. Butch had 30 days leave before going to Vietnam. He visited me and fell in love with a fellow counselor. His leave at an end, Butch arrived home the night before mom and dad were to drive him to the airport.

     Butch telephoned from California to say he was shipping out that night.

“We talked a long while, but never said what we really felt. I should have said, ‘I love you son.’ “

ART: LJ Austin “Inventions of Farewell” 2023