It was cold in the National Cathedral that rainy night forty-one years ago, and smelled of stale air and incense. Its ringing bells had often comforted me as I looked out the window of my first apartment. As a country and as individuals we mourned and celebrated there. At midnight, I sat quietly in a pew in a chapel as some of the names of the over 58,000 men and women who were lost in Vietnam were read aloud. There was a pause, and a father rose up slowly in front of me and quietly said his son’s name.
Cheryl Somers Aubin is widely published. She has Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and authored The Survivor Tree: Inspired by a True Story.