When I was a little girl, my dad used to sing me a lullaby.
hush baby girl
my sweet princess delight
daddy is here
daddy, your knight
never gonna leave you
never gonna go
and if i disappear
i'll always come back home
For years he'd tuck me in, sing the eight lines, kiss me on the forehead, and close the door after him to let me sleep, and even after I grew out of needing him to put me to bed I'd still sometimes catch him humming the tune around me or whispering it in my ear when I bent to kiss him goodnight. It' comforted me and, even as a rebellious teenager I lived in a world where nothing could take my father away.
What a stupid child.
That's when the war came and he established his duty to the "American Cause" as he would say by joining the Army. In full military drab with his freshly shaved head tucked under a tight cap he stood in our driveway hugging my sobbing mom and kissing my forehead and, just before he left, he handed me a postcard to "hang in my bedroom somewhere I'd see it daily until he came back".
The front of the postcard was a place I knew well: the waves crashing down on the sandy shore, but the words on the back made me choke up. In his fine print he'd written that lullaby. It was his way of promising me that he'd be back. He'd always come back.
At least once every month - if not weekly sometimes - mother and I would each receive postcards or folded letters or even just squares of papers. Mom would get some long love note and would go and lock herself in her bedroom leaving me outside to dwaddle about out in the living room to listen to muffled sobs through the wall.
Of course mine would always be the same. The genuine "I miss you baby girl" with some other cheesy dad remarks about boys and how if I had a boyfriend he'd kick his ass, etc etc. But at the end of every note he wrote out his musical promise and i went on trusting his word.
Then the letters became more and more infrequent and were shorter and shorter with hastily written apologies about not writing, short handed 'I love you's' and my comforting lullaby disappeared slowly line by line until it was only i'll always come back home. Sure I still believed him even with that.
Stupid stupid girl.
A year passed and the letters stopped completely. Naturally we kept high hopes and each morning I would begin my day by staring at the first postcard of the waves he'd given me on the day he left. He'd be back. He always came back.
Then the man knocked on the door with a crisp white envelope that obviously hadn't seen any days of fighting. Maybe it was him writing to tell us he was home? But why would he write? The man introduced himself as a Colonel, saluted us with tears in his eyes, and walked away with a bit of a limp to one side. Battle wound.
Mother read the note first and I knew the contents of it by the way the color drained from her face and her whole body locked up and began shaking uncontrollably like she was in shock. Carefully I helped her sit down and took the papers from her hand. A letter written by my father's C.O. apologizing to us, a compensation letter from the government, and a death certificate. My father's death certificate. In his C.O.'s note, he said that my father died a hero saving children from a bombing. Unfortunately after helping the last ones out he failed to escape himself and no body could be found.
Something clings around in the envelope still and I pulled out a set of dog tags dirty and worn down with age. This was all they'd recovered.
When my dad said he'd return I never thought he meant he'd return in the form of an envelope and some metal. Even to this day there's only one thought that comforts me. Even as I packed away every last letter he wrote me into a box and put it under my bed. Even after the funeral and when I grew up and got married without him to walk me down the aisle. Even after a whole life missing him. Ever since that day I dreamed of angels singing over him. Singing him that lullaby he used to sing to me. Singing and lulling him into an eternal sleep.
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