Hallie, Did You Know? (A Goodbye Poem for Marshall and Corrie)

Hallie,

did you know?

Did Marshall wear his uniform,

stiff, in the expected way

like wooden stands placed

behind tall flowers to 

keep them up straight

in award-winning gardens?

Did he come to you

to say he would leave 

Harvard and fight 

overseas with an eager face 

like a child serious about 

a lemonade stand as a

business? He had wanted 

to be a pilot, but he

was too tall.

Hallie, when he decided

to be a navigator, did you

try to talk him 

out

        of

                 it?

Hallie, 

did you know?

You know he trained 

as a navigator on a 

plane and was stationed

all over the United States.

Because your husband was

a ship commander, did you 

believe, Marshall

believed, he’d 

survive the German attack?

Did he laugh and say, “The

Germans don’t have 

anything on me,” to 

reassure you of his confidence

when he took his leave?

Did you hug and kiss 

him, or did you stand 

back after you had 

picked a small hair 

off of his uniform?

Hallie,

did you know 

that was his 

last 

goodbye?

The legend goes 

Marshall’s plane was

shot down by the 

Germans over the 

storm gray waters of

the English Channel.

The crew’s bodies 

were 

          never 

                    found.

Hallie,

did you replay 

your last goodbye

like I did when

I watched my 

daughter die?

Did you scream 

in the open and

walk without a 

place to walk to,

or because you

were from  

that generation,

you kept your feelings

tucked in and your  

back, stiff, like wooden 

stands placed behind

tall flowers to keep them 

up straight in 

award-winning gardens?

Hallie,

We had a body.

a small hand curled,

for a short time, to 

hold on to, and I 

can’t imagine when you

knew nothing,

could hold nothing 

except Marshall’s shirt.

Like me,

You had a second

child, too, and 

did you allow yourself

the time to fall apart?

Hallie,

did you speak

of Marshall again,

or just work in 

a garden you 

planted in his 

memory?

Hallie,

did your 

second son,

like my only son,

ask when 

Marshall 

               (Corrie)

         would 

                 come home

                                 again?

By Rebecca T. Dickinson Copyright 2020 R.T. Dickinson

Dedicated to Mimi and Mom.

In memory of my grandfather, T.L., great grandmother, Hallie, great uncle, Marshall, and my daughter, Corrie.

This is the fifth in my goodbye series. July is Bereaved Parents Month

This free verse poem is about the loss of my Great Uncle Casper Marshall Durgin, Jr. and his mother during World War II.