The Longest Day: 6 June 1944

"You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you....I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory."

                                                                         - General Dwight D. Eisenhower 

When my grandfather landed on the beach

at Normandy, it was in slow motion. His fingers

danced across the barrel of his gun to a melody

of cannon blasts and baritone breaths. 

My grandmother swears she knew the instant

his song skipped a few heart beats and

stopped forever.

She still has the Western Union telegram

from the Secretary of War

STOP

offering his sincerest sympathy for

the great loss

STOP

of her husband who was killed in action

in the performance of his duty and in

service to his country

STOP.

The paper is brown with age and wrinkled

like my grandmother's hands were the last 

time I held them. She did not know my

name, but she remembered the way her

husband smiled the first time they danced,

the promises he traced into her palm with

calloused fingers and the color of his 

eyes when he kissed her goodbye.

I met him for the first time in October.

The white marble of his cross was smooth

and unblemished like the memories of him

I created from old stories and faded

photographs. He had been doomed to die a

dreamer, but the day I landed in Normandy,

the beach was beautiful.

"This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor, and the sacrifices of our fellow countrymen."