STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF MY FADING WORLD

Now in my eighties, I find myself looking back on a life that seems to slip further away with each passing day, fading in ways I never thought possible. My parents are gone, and so are the men I served with in Vietnam — my Army buddies, my commanding officers, all of them gone. Even the best friends I had in high school, those who once seemed so full of promise, are no longer here. One of them, tragically, took his own life.

From a large family, not a single uncle or aunt remains; even my cousins, the ones I grew up alongside, have dwindled — three gone in just the past few years. But the hardest of all is the loss of my younger brother. His absence is a deep ache, the kind that never quite fades. He was a good man, and I miss him more than I can put into words.

It’s as though my former life is slowly evaporating, leaving behind only fragments of memories that come to me at their own whim, when I least expect it. The trauma I carry — well, it’s a part of me now. It doesn’t just fade away. It resurfaces when it chooses, sometimes in the quietest moments, sometimes with no warning at all. Most people who know me understand that; they recognize it’s not something I can control, and they accept it. It’s part of what made me.

And I wonder — when all is said and done, when I’m gone, will anyone remember the way I remember? Will…