The Healing Wall

I.



I ignored the Wall -
for a long time
I had managed to keep out unwanted reminders
of the memories of what I saw and did and felt
and the Wall threatened to violate this self-truce.
For a while, I refused to go to the Wall.
I came close, but could not bring myself to go down
into that black hole -
So I stood there alone, on the perimeter
of the large descending block of black, cold stone,
and watched from my vantage point on the hill above.

Concealed by the autumn shadows,
hands pocketed, I turned my back and walked away,
mumbling to myself in a voice so low
even I couldn’t hear what I was saying,
“Not today, I cannot do this today.”


II.

I visited the Wall.
One evening in the late summer of the year,
when the cool winds blew across the Mall and the
early evening sun was crisp, I went to the Wall, again.
I stood where I had stood before but refused to go,
And without ever deciding,
without ever giving consent
I found myself moving toward it,
pulled by some force I could not see,
drawn by memories I could no longer deny.
I began the slow descent into the dark hole,
not wanting to but needing to go back into
what I had spent twenty-five years trying to forget.

At first tentative, I stood next to the first point of the Wall-
looking down the long descent of widening black granite,
wanting to turn back, but I had committed,

At first tentative, I stood next to the first point of the Wall-
looking down the long descent of widening black granite,
wanting to turn back, but I had committed,
this time I needed to go.
I walked down the path, head down,
unable to look up at the Wall -
afraid I would see a name, recognize a name, any name.
Perhaps a name I had seen before, a death I knew before
his family knew. Perhaps a friend, someone who died and I didn’t know.

I couldn’t look but I could feel its presence -
As I descended, it cast a silent, shadow, growing on me.
As the sun went down, the darkness deepened.
I stopped where the walk meets in the middle,
joining the two parts of the Wall together -
the deepest part of the Memorial
and slowly, my eyes began their climb up the Wall.
Groove by groove, name by name,
I saw what I knew would be there -
names - hundreds and thousands of names
carved into the cold hard flesh of that stone -
first names and last names
carved by the trauma and devastation of the bombs
and the mines and the sniper fire -
and the yells and the screams
of young men dying and not knowing why.
I heard the haunting sound of the death
of all of those soldiers whose
names I had seen and passed on to those places back
home who would receive the telegram
“We regret to inform you. . .”
I saw the names, blurred as they were,
I saw them and I could not move.

III.

I touched the Wall - down in the deep hole where I stood,
I moved forward - not wanting to
but needing to feel it ,
needing to trace the edges of at least one name -
not to remember, but to forget.
I touched the smooth stone, gingerly at first, with one finger
feeling the contrast between that and the rough place where the

stone had been violated by the name carved into it -
And, in the stillness of that moment
(I remember the stillness, particularly the stillness),
I did what all who go there must do,
I put my whole hand, palm down, against the stone -
first one hand and then the other, softly first,
Then pressing my palm harder against the Wall until
The full weight of my body leaned against it.
Braced by the stone, held up by its quiet, dignified, strength,
I became connected to the Wall,
connected to everything that happened, everything I had felt,
everything I had avoided for over twenty-five years.
Then I was no longer leaning against the Wall,
I was becoming part of the Wall, or the Wall part of me.
The more I tried to pull away, the more I couldn't move.
It began to pull out of me
emotions I had not felt since I was there,
since that first moment I saw and knew
I had been part of someone’s death -
reliving the moment of lost innocence,
remembering the emptiness,
feeling again, the sickness in my heart
I had kept numb for years.
That is when the first tear came, and then a second,
followed by more -
Slow tears, warm tears from down deep inside the hole of me. I became a
prisoner of the Wall, captive by its silent,
vigilant, roll call of death.

Then I began to move my hands over the Wall -
over names I did not know, slow at first, and then faster, almost
frantically -
at first not knowing why -
but then knowing -
I was looking for one name,
I was looking for the one groove my hands
would know the best,
the one that would confirm what I always knew
to be true but was afraid to admit,
a name that wasn't there but should have been -
mine.

It was that sudden realization,
that revelation of surprise,
when it all rushed in,
when it all came back in on me - overwhelming me,
forcing me to face what I had not been able to face before,
the source of my guilt, my one great sin -
I had lived. I had come back home.
I was no more deserving than any one of these names,
but I survived.
My hands connected to the Wall,
I gave it back - and the Wall took it, all -
the hurt, the pain, the grief, the guilt, the shame.
For the very first time since coming home -
I cried about the War.
These were not slow tears,
they were fast, they were hot and they burned.
I wept for me and I wept for every single family
and town those names, those grooves, touched.
I leaned against that Wall and
it held me up
and I finally let go.

When I was empty, out of tears,
the Wall let go and I pulled away.
I looked around and saw others who had done or
were doing the same as I had done.
Each of us in our own way, letting go.

We looked at each other - we didn't speak, but we knew
and shared, in silence.
It was there, beyond the Wall,
I began to heal.


IV.


I left the Wall
I ascended from that deep hole.
Tired, emotionally exhausted,
I looked back where I had been.
I knew my pain had not magically left me -
I carry it with me today -
but I carry it, it no longer carries me.
This was the healing I could not find before -
The Wall told me my name was not there
and said “Go live your life, you do not belong here.”
And so I do, live my life now, beyond the Wall.
As I turned to walk away,
I overheard a small boy,
unaware of war and all its tragedy,
ask his father - "Why are there so many names
on the wall, Daddy?”
and his father’s soft reply echoes in my heart, even now-
because I knew he too knew the Wall
the way I knew the Wall -
he replied with the only answer any of us
who have been there have to give -
"I do not know. I do not know."


Epilogue
To this day I do not know why
we have carved so many names on so many walls,
but we have.
But what I also know is there are many casualties of war
we never see carved on walls -
deaths not recorded by grooves chiseled in stone -
kept secret, even from those of us who need to know
the most.
So, as we gather together at this
and all the other walls of war in the world,
let us also honor those of us who lived
with a silent, vigilant, prayer -
a prayer ever present on our lips
and in our hearts. . .

No more walls, please, no more walls.


(c) Patrick Overton
Rebuilding the Front Porch of America, 1997