Dear Jerry

If you notice when my Mom was talking to me she had to stop and ask me for words.  I noticed she did this a few times while I was in Florida visiting her but I easily dismissed it like those moments when you have a word on the tip of your tongue and you just can't find it.  We all have those moments.

When I was talking to her on the phone, well that did not stick out to me either since the situation was very emotional and stressful and she was talking much faster than her brain probably could think.  So though I was aware of what was happening, I had no reason to believe it was anything but ordinary.

What I did not know at the time is that my mother had been experiencing some headaches and often found herself not able to find a certain word.  She had been sharing these things with my older sister, Val and though there was some cause to be concerned, no one really was alarmed.  Even so, my Mom was going to the doctor and trying to figure out the source of the problem.

With my most recent news, which quickly spread though the family like wildfire, Mom's problem was over shadowed for a little while with all the focus and attention on me --

It wasn't the kind of spotlight I really wanted.  But there I was in the spotlight and every single family member had their own opinion and unfortunately, every single family member felt the need to express their opinion to me.  There were too many voices coming from too many different directions and I was tying to hear them all, please them all.  In fairness to them and the privacy of our family, I'm not going to expound much on that but I will say, it was a difficult time for me to filter through all of that.

Remember my family had no idea I was even dating anyone and I was intentionally vague and misleading in that regard.  In addition to the pregnancy news, they were also digesting the fact that this man, this unknown person was black.  I didn't grow up in a very culturally diverse community so we were all treading on unfamiliar territory.  For all of the things I regret the most, I regret how all of this just dropped onto my family's lap.  My mother was the only family member I personally delivered the news to.

What kept nagging at my heart the most is that I had no way of contacting Newsome.  Shortly after I left Germany he moved out of his apartment and back into the barracks, a money saving effort.  So like myself, he was without a phone or means to make a long distance call -- and if you think a state-to-state long distance call was expensive, calling overseas was practically unaffordable.  Even if it was possible for me to use the call center, there was the time difference to contend with, the gamble that Newsome would even be home at the time of the call, and the amount of time it took the CQ runner to get the call, walk through the barracks to Newsome's room then Newsome get to the desk to take the call.  I could be 10 minutes into the call before I even got to talk to Newsome.  A call could easily cost me $100 without ever talking to him and it could take several attempts before I successfully reached him.

I finally got through in processing and was assigned to Headquarters Company, 1st Infantry Division.  Since I was an NCO, I got my own private room in the barracks.  That was nice but it wasn't exactly home sweet home.  The showers were an improvement from the big shower room with no private stalls in the barracks in Germany but let's face it, this was still barracks living;  privacy was minimal and it was a bustle of noise and constant activity.  I had a very small room with one twin bed and a wall locker.  That was it.  The walls were cinder block, cold tile floors --kind of like living in a cell without bars.

I was assigned to Division JAG and much to my disappointment, I ended up in Legal Assistance.  Though working Legal Assistance in the states was much different from overseas, I still didn't like it.  My sickness only got worse.  I was throwing up all of the time, unable to eat and only able to barely take sips of water here and there.  I had about 4 hours in the afternoon where I felt good but other than that, I was sick all of the time.  That certainly didn't help matters both in terms of feeling well and having clarity of mind.

In all of this that was going on, I still had to come to terms that I was having a baby.  I was at a new duty station, living in the barracks, dealing with my family, feeling sick, unable to eat, transitioning to a new job but most of all, worried about how I was going to reach Newsome.

Having ruled out the possibility of a phone call and a face-to-face meeting not possible either, I decided the only way to communicate the news was . . .  a letter.

So one night while alone in my barracks room, I wrote a letter.

Dear Jerry,