Do you still love me?

The question stings. So badly, tears well up as I read it.

It feels unfair. The answer so obvious, how could he have ever not known it?

I have always known.

He was the love of her life. My mom loved no other like my dad. He was the one she chose to be her husband and father of her child. He knew she loved him. Then. Then was before he went to war.

War is a thief.

I have always known.

Penned letters to my mom from Vietnam are all I know of my dad’s thoughts: confusion around our military’s involvement on foreign ground; a selected soldier’s desire to become all he could be despite the imposition; the unbearable yearning to be at home with his bride and child whose future he was dreaming; and the deadly, terrifying, lonely days and nights between replies.

Do you still love me?

War robbed my dad of life. It deprived him of freedom and demanded duty, hijacked his hope and left behind uncertainty, stole his faith and stoked his fears.

I should have known.

Every question is fair in love and war.

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