"Letters from Home"

"Letters from Home"
By John Michael Montgomery

My Dear Son, it is almost June,
I hope this letter catches up to you, and finds you well.
Its been dry but they're calling for rain,
And everything's the same ol' same in Johnsonville.
Your stubborn 'ol Daddy ain't said too much,
But I'm sure you know he sends his love,
And she goes on,In a letter from home.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, and they all laugh,
Like there's something funny bout' the way I talk,
When I say: "Mama sends her best y'all."
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

My Dearest Love, its almost dawn.
I've been lying here all night long wondering where you might be.
I saw your Mama and I showed her the ring.
Man on the television said something so I couldn't sleep.
But I'll be all right, I'm just missing you.
An' this is me kissing you:
XX's and OO's,
In a letter from home.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, and they all laugh,
'Cause she calls me "Honey", but they take it hard,
'Cause I don't read the good parts.
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

Dear Son, I know I ain't written,
But sittin' here tonight, alone in the kitchen, it occurs to me,
I might not have said, so I'll say it now:
Son, you make me proud.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, but no one laughs,
'Cause there ain't nothing funny when a soldier cries.
An' I just wipe me eyes.
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

I guess it makes sense why this song makes me want to cry. I have been to so many going away and welcome home parties. When they go away you never really imagine that they won't come back, you give them a big hug, and tell them to be safe. Then all you can do is pray they come back.

My friend Megan's husband left right after they got married. He has done at least two tours in Iraq. I remember she said that she was so depressed the entire time he was gone she couldn't do anything. She wouldn't here from him for days...she would just cry. Once his Lieutenant called her because her husband was having a hard time getting through to her on the phone. When the man said who he was, she fell to the ground, expecting to hear the worse.

I remember back back in the day, Cristin's cousin used to send me love letters from boot camp. I think I might still have them somewhere...

I just don't know what I would do if Bobby went to war...
My brother tried to join the air force when I was in 9th or 10th grade...
My dad wanted to be in the military...
My uncle killed himself after coming back from war...

I remember being on base one day after a boy came back from war. He had died and the funeral procession started from the base after his body arrived via plane. As the base was covered with men in uniforms saluting the hearse, I cried.

It's sad, and I know that why we do it, and I know why they do it. I just know that I pray for everyone who is over there protecting us and our country, giving their lives for our country.

Tim (Part 2)

After meeting Tim, and eventually moving in with him and my boyfriend, I realized what a great guy he was. He was a southern gentleman. He worked for my favorite chef (K-Paul) in his home town of New Orleans. He would make the best food, I will always remember that. We spent a lot of time together, and I loved it.

We were both under 21 at the time, but there was a bar around the corner from the apartment and we got in there, and always got served. We spent so much time there playing exotic photo hunt with occational help from Al the bartender. Sometimes my boyfriend would come out, but he was not a very social fun loving guy, he was kind of old, even for his age he was old. After drinking we would walk to another bar where I knew the bouncers, plus I used to be a promoter, so getting in was easy there too. My boyfriend would give Tim some cash and tell him to buy me some drinks.

Tim and I would drink and dance all night long. I did my best to be a good wing man for him. I knew when to dance with him to get attention from girls, and when to walk away so they could step in. It was a really great relationship. Overtime, our friendship turned into something a little bit more than that, at least for me.

I remember during a break, I think it was during the winter, I was sitting at my favorite dive diner with my ladies. I was texting Tim, and then he called me. All of a sudden it was like I was in elementary school all over again. I was giddy, to say the least, when I finally calmed down, and got my friends to calm down, I answered the phone. I told him that I liked him, ya know, like that. He said that he knew.

Obviously there was the whole boyfriend thing, so Tim and I stayed strickly friends. Though my (ex)boyfriend admitted at one point that he thought I was having an affair with Tim. There was one time when the boy was going out of town and I was going to stay at the apartment with just Tim anyway, and when I came back after work, the boy was there. He obviously didn't trust me enough to leave me there with him. Our friendship made him uncomfortable.

I know it's not really appropriate to tell someone you have feelings for them when you're in a relationship, but I don't regret it. In fact, I'm greatful that I had the balls to do it at the time. If I hadn't told Tim about my feelings, I would have regretted it to this day. I mean, only a few months after I told him, he passed away.

I have a heart shaped pillow on my bed that he gave me, which reminds me of him every day. Every time I make chicken with Chef Paul's Poultry Magic, I think of him. When I take a shower, and see my tattoo that I had made, especially for him, I think about him. I think that it was the perfect tribute. I didn't get his name tattooed on me or anything, I had a tattoo designed for him, that would make me think of him. Since he was from New Orleans (which he did teach me how to pronounce like a local) I have a marti gras mask, that is bright and vibrant like he always was, and it has ribbons on it in case I decide to put his name in it later. It's perfect, and as they say, only the good die young, and Tim was a pretty great guy.

Tim (Part 1)

The Lost Trailers
Album: Trailer Trash
Song: Favorite Friends
Copyright 1997 G. Stokes Nielson/ Two State Brothers Music(ASCAP)

We couldn't leave the woods 'til the bottle was done,
Then we'd all go fishing in the dusk bitten sun.
Not old enough to drive, but we knew if we could,
We'd have all the women in our neighborhood.

But we never thought that one of us would go away,
No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves.
The fairytale ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

Well, the funeral was nice, or that's what you're supposed to say,
We all sat together staring out into grey.
It was hard to believe that out of five faithful friends,
Four were left broken while one rode the wind.

And the nights out on the town fell few and far between,
Cause all we talked about was how great things used to be,
Our innocence ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

It seems like the best of us always fall to early grace,
And the road will keep rolling on, but angels are hard to replace,
I guess it was crazy luck, to have someone like that to lose,
But he couldn't stay long, God must have missed him, too.

Now Charlie is in college, and I hit the road,
And Al is building churches in New Mexico,
Steve is running from the law, but that's nothing new,
We all say we'll meet back home but we never do.

And the woods burned down long ago, the old neighborhood is gone,
And I can't get drunk no more, cause I hate drinking alone.
But I know in the end we'll get back to our favorite friends.
Cause life is much better when it is shared with our favorite friends.

I'm at work, listening to my ipod when this song came on. The first time I heard it I cried, it still evokes memories of Tim when I listen to it now, and brings tears to my eyes. I can talk about how much I love Tim another time; this is more about what happened to Tim.

At college I lived with Tim and Scott, Tim and I were friends with Russell and Ryan (who is a girl) and we spent a lot of our time together. Scott was my boyfriend at the time, but he wasn’t much fun, he spent a lot of time at home. We all graduated in the same class, and I met Tim’s parents for the first time that day.

The night before graduation, the snow was terrible, I guess that’s upstate New York for you, and Tim’s parents were on there way in on the train. They called him for a ride to the hotel, and I lent him my car, because I was the only one with four-wheel drive. The next day, the first thing they did was thank me for letting Tim borrow my car, they are from New Orleans, and they weren’t big on snow.

“We’ve heard so much about you! How are you doing?” and “Congratulations!” They are really lovely people. We talked a little bit after the graduation ceremony, but I didn’t really see them again. After the graduation I went home for the weekend because I was coming back to take another class the following week. Everyone else went home for three weeks because they were coming back to get their bachelors. Tim, Russell, and I talked about meeting back up after they started school again, but it never got to happen.

Just a few weeks after graduation, I was just waking up from a nap and checked my voicemail; I had been avoiding phone calls from my friend Ryan, for no reason in particular. To my best recollection the voicemail sound something like this…



“Hey Claudia, its Ryan; Tim and Russell got in a really bad car accident. Tim died and Russell’s in the hospital. Call me back.”



I remember thinking to myself, I know hadn’t been returning her calls, but that’s a pretty fucked up joke to play to get me to call you back. Regardless, I call her, she explains it.

Russell and Tim were on their way to the mall, in the middle of the day, sober and everything. They must have hit a pothole or something, because all of a sudden the car spun out of control. As the car was spinning it played Russian roulette with who might be the one to die, because cars were still coming, it was just a matter of which side got hit. Tim took the blow to the driver’s side of the car. He absorbed most of the impact, and died, saving Russell’s life. Russell slammed his head into the windshield and the passenger door window. The accident happened in Massachusetts, and a bunch of people were driving up there to see Russell in the hospital. I don’t remember if she explained it that well, or if those were just details I picked up over time.

I mumbled something to Ryan about how I would call her back. I slowly lowered my phone away from my head and it fell out of my hand onto the floor. I started walking to the stairs to find my mom. I started to breath heavy, and cry. Before I knew it, I collapsed in the middle of the staircase, hysterical. I was screaming and crying. My mom tried to console me but I could just stutter out something about Tim and Russell and car accidents.

No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves...