Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear

Rachel Porto, 23, is the widow of Marine Corps Cpl. Jonathan D. Porto, 26, who was killed in Afghanistan on March 14. Together they have a three-month-old daughter, Ariana. Rachel, a native of Aberdeen, Md., graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2008. She is currently living in North Carolina outside of the family's last duty station, Camp Lejeune. She blogs atA Little Pink in a Word of Camo.

Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear
By Rachel Porto

A cassette tape is waiting for me. It sits in a small bubble mailer on my night table. It stares at me when I walk in the room; it beckons to me as I walk out. But still it sits there and waits. It is the last thing. The last thing he sent to me from "over there."

There is no note inside, just a regular old-school cassette tape. The outside of the envelope is addressed in his handwriting. "Love, Poppa Bear" is written on the back. I've opened it to look inside, but I haven't yet drawn up the courage to listen.

I know what I can expect to hear. The same things he always told me. He'll tell me how much he loves us and misses us. He'll sing to us--he always sang to us. Probably our favorite songs, maybe some new ones. He'll talk to the baby, he loved talking to her and she loves to listen to him. The first time I saw her smile was when he talked to her on the phone from "over there."

It will be filled with promises. He will promise us he's coming home, promise us everything is ok, promise that we're almost done and that we'll see each other soon. It's these promises I am most scared of, hearing them anew from lips that will never again utter them to me. Promises I held on to so tightly for the first three months of the deployment. Before... before the fateful ringing of my doorbell at 0530 on March 15. These promises have taken a completely new meaning for me since that morning. Promises to come home turn into, He's already home, just not the way I ever imagined. Promises of seeing each other soon have turned into, I've got a lifetime to wait. Promises of everything being ok have turned into, I am now in charge of making it ok.
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Promises a Marine widow cannot bear to hear