A surge of emotion tugged on my heart as I stared into the past, back when my family was whole. Like so many young men in the months after 9-11, my father had joined the service in a patriotic fervor and had been killed in action in Operation Enduring Freedom on his first tour of duty. I was nine at the time. We met the military aircraft bearing his remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the dignified transfer, as the solemn ritual is called, and wept openly. Mom had received a personal letter of condolence from then President George W. Bush; the respectful gesture did absolutely nothing to assuage her grief.

My father’s homecoming, taking place upon the sprawling sylvan grounds of Allegheny Cemetery with its magnificent gatehouses, statuary, and mausoleums, had seemed like a scene out of a storybook to my young and innocent eyes. After a lone bugler played “Taps,” the American flag was carefully removed from Dad’s casket and two soldiers, in full dress uniform, folded it with mesmerizing precision into the symbolic tri-cornered shape, and reverently presented it to my tearful mother. My gaze strayed to a starling singing in the dense tree canopy. I thought that was my daddy, saying goodbye.

Which reminded me, it had been too long since I visited his grave.

I flipped through several more pictures, each one chronicling a different part of my life. Me sitting on Dad’s shoulders with a Kennywood Amusement Park sign above me, hair braided in neat rows and decorated with a rainbow of beads. Me snuggled on Mom’s lap as she read from a stolen copy of A Wrinkle in Time, the borrower’s card tucked inside the front endpaper pocket inscribed with the names of children who had checked it out over the years, the last one being Josie (smiley face). Mom had chuckled over the astronomical library fees she had probably accrued over the years while I was sure the Library Police would show up at any moment and haul her off to jail. Pictures of birthdays, Christmases, Fourth of Julys. Most were of just me, the only child, with Mom presumably behind the lens. But on occasion there was Dad, home on leave, or Mom, on the few occasions she found a third party to hold the camera.

As the years slid by in each image, my mother’s pink-cheeked beauty slowly faded. She wore the toll of life as a military wife in the lines of her face. Later, after Dad died in battle, she wore military widowhood on her spirit and mind. She was never the same after my father died. But I liked to think that she was reunited up in heaven with him now, spending endless days in perfect contentment and fellowship, free from all earthly care, with her first love, her best friend. Devin and Josie forever.