PART 1
My mom promised she would wear a bright crimson dress to my wedding, yet she passed away while serving in Iraq when I was only twelve years old. Years later, her fellow soldier arrived at my wedding ceremony wearing that exact shade of crimson, and I assumed that was the big surprise until he handed me a worn envelope. What had my mother kept hidden from me for all those years?
“Mom, what happens if you do not come back home?” I asked softly while watching her pack her duffle bag.
My mother paused her folding of the heavy green uniforms and turned to look directly into my eyes. She asked gently, “Why would a sweet girl like you ask such a heavy question tonight?”
“Because soldiers get hurt and die over there all the time,” I replied with a trembling voice. I was twelve years old, which meant I was old enough to understand the dangers of a war zone in Iraq, yet far too young to ever imagine living my life without her.
Mom walked over and sat right beside me on the edge of my bed. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and said, “Feeling scared is completely normal, Hannah, and I will admit that I feel scared sometimes too.”
“Then why do you even have to go away?” I pleaded while staring down at my sneakers.
“Because there are innocent people and fellow soldiers over there who desperately need medical help, and saving lives is simply what I was born to do,” she explained calmly. My mother, Rachel, worked as a dedicated combat medic in the United States Army. She possessed a magical ability to make almost anything feel better, whether it was a badly scraped knee from the playground or a terrible afternoon at middle school. However, on that quiet evening in our home in Boise, Idaho, she could not make my overwhelming fear disappear.
“Please promise me right now that you will come home safe,” I whispered while clutching her sleeve.
She pulled me into a tight hug and rested her chin on top of my head. She murmured softly, “I promise you with all my heart that I will do everything within my power to return to you.” Then she leaned back, kissed my forehead, and smiled brightly. “And do not worry so much, sweetheart, because I will be back before you even know it! I still have to be there in the front row for your wedding day, wearing a bright crimson dress so you will spot me right away.”
I let out a small laugh through my tears and asked, “Why on earth would you wear bright crimson?”
“Because every single person in the room will be staring at the bride, so I will need something truly dramatic to steal a little bit of your attention,” she joked with a wink.
“You are going to embarrass me in front of everyone,” I teased back.
“Making you blush is officially part of my job description as your mother,” she replied cheerfully. At that moment, I had no idea how many thousands of times I would replay that exact conversation in my mind.
Mom raised me entirely on her own without any help from a partner. I never knew anything about my biological father, and whenever I grew curious and asked about him, she simply explained that some adults were just not ready to become parents.
“Were you ready when you had me?” I asked her one evening while we were washing dishes.
She smiled warmly and handed me a towel to dry a plate. She said, “Not even close, sweetie, because I had to learn how to be a grownup on the fly simply because I had you.”
We lived together in a modest, cozy apartment in Boise where the small wooden kitchen table doubled as my homework desk every afternoon. Mom worked exhausting, long hours at the base hospital, yet Friday evenings were strictly reserved for the two of us. We would cook big stacks of blueberry pancakes for dinner and watch classic comedy movies on our old television. She always let me pick the movie if I helped her mix the pancake batter in the large yellow bowl. Usually, I accidentally poured way too much sugar into the mix, yet Mom always pretended not to notice the extra sweetness.
Whenever I felt anxious about school projects, she sat down and listened without checking her phone. Whenever I had a silly argument with my classmates, she never automatically took my side just to appease me. She would often tell me, “Being a loyal friend does not mean always agreeing with everything they say, because sometimes it means being brave enough to tell them the honest truth.”
She certainly was not a flawless superhero. She frequently forgot dental appointments, burned the morning toast until the smoke alarm chirped, and occasionally fell fast asleep halfway through our Friday night movies. Yet I never once doubted for a single second that I came first in her entire universe. That deep bond was precisely what made her overseas deployment to Iraq feel so terrifying. For the very first time in my life, loving me fiercely was not enough to keep her safely by my side.
I moved in with Grandma Evelyn’s sister, my wonderful Grandma Ruth, right after Mom boarded her transport plane. Grandma Ruth cooked all my favorite comfort meals and kept a framed photograph of Mom right beside my pillow. Even with her kindness, everything in my daily routine felt completely hollow and strange. I missed hearing the familiar jingle of Mom’s house keys turning in the front door lock. I missed sitting on the counter and telling her every boring detail about my day at school.
Mom called us on the satellite phone whenever her busy schedule in Iraq allowed a brief break. Sometimes we got lucky and talked for twenty whole minutes, while other times we barely had two minutes before sirens blared in the background.
“How is my absolute favorite girl in the whole wide world?” she would always ask the second the line connected.
“You are only allowed to have one daughter, Mom,” I would always reply with a giggle.
“Well then, you are definitely winning the competition by a landslide,” she would tease back. I would rush to tell her all about my science classes, Grandma Ruth’s delicious pot roast, and whatever minor drama had happened on the school bus.
One evening, I broke down crying over the phone because her deployment had forced her to miss my thirteenth birthday. “I know how much it hurts, sweetheart, and I wish more than anything that I could have been there to light your candles,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Everybody else had their moms cheering at their parties,” I sniffled into the receiver.
There was a brief, static-filled silence across the ocean before she spoke again. “The very day I step off that plane back in Boise, we are throwing you a massive second birthday party with chocolate cake, balloons, and presents.”
“Even though I will already be much older by then?” I asked hopefully.
“Especially because you will be older and wiser,” she answered warmly.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and asked, “Are you still planning on wearing that bright crimson dress to my wedding someday?”
“You can count on it, and I have already decided that I will dance terribly on purpose just to make your guests laugh,” she declared proudly.
I laughed out loud and begged, “Please do not do that to me.”
“I am making zero promises on the dancing front,” she chuckled.
During her weekly calls, Mom frequently mentioned another army medic in her unit named Lucas. He was several years younger than her and apparently terrible at telling funny jokes during their downtime.
“He told a joke in the mess hall today that was so painfully bad that I almost reported him to our commanding officer,” she said during one Sunday afternoon call.
I heard a deep male voice shouting playfully in the background of the tent. “Tell Hannah that my joke was pure comedic gold!”
Mom laughed brightly into the phone and said, “Do you see the kind of nonsense I have to deal with out here?”
A moment later, Lucas took the receiver to say hello directly to me. “Your mother unfortunately has zero appreciation for high-level comedy, kiddo.”
“She told me that you are actually super annoying,” I informed him bluntly.
“That is simply her unique way of expressing deep sisterly affection,” he replied smoothly.
After that afternoon, I often spoke to Lucas for a minute or two whenever Mom called home. He always remembered to ask about my history grades and never forgot that I was desperately trying to teach myself how to play the acoustic guitar. Mom told me that Lucas had quickly become like the younger brother she had never had growing up.
Then, during a dangerous convoy ambush near Baghdad, Lucas was severely wounded by shrapnel. Mom rushed into the line of fire and helped save his life on the dusty roadside. I only learned about the terrifying incident a few days afterward when she finally had a chance to call.
“Is Lucas going to be okay?” I asked anxiously as soon as she told me what had happened.
“He is battered up pretty badly, but he is going to make a full recovery,” she assured me softly.
“Are you completely okay, Mom?” I pressed, gripping the phone tightly.
“I am just very tired, sweetheart,” she admitted quietly.
“Was it really scary out there?” I whispered.
“Yes, it was the scariest moment of my life,” she confessed honestly, before adding firmly, “But he is alive, and he is going to be all right.”
After surviving that ordeal together, Mom and Lucas became even closer friends. I felt deeply relieved knowing she had a loyal partner watching her back in the desert. At the time, I never could have imagined just how vital Lucas would eventually become to my own life.
The very last time Mom called home, I was feeling frustrated about a difficult algebra test. “I studied my flashcards for three whole hours last night, and I still got a terrible grade,” I complained miserably.
“Take a deep breath, and when I get home we will sit down and figure out what went wrong,” she promised soothingly.
“You always say that whenever I mess something up,” I muttered.
“Because it is usually the truth, and everything can be fixed with a little patience,” she replied.
I heard Lucas laughing loudly nearby in their medical tent. “Tell her that I failed high school algebra twice and still turned out fine!”
