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The Customs Forms: Objects of Gratitude

I’m deep into recycling old papers one day when I come upon a small handful of very thin ones, all the same size, with “US Postal Service” printed on them.

I know these papers. Customs forms, the documents I had to fill out whenever I sent my son Owen, a U.S. Marine, something in Afghanistan.

At first I saved all my copies of the forms, in case he didn’t get his boxes. What we’d do then, I had no idea. But I saved them.

And here they are. And now that he’s safely back on U.S. soil -- for good, I think --  I could recycle them,  and celebrate as I stuffed every single page into the recycling bin.

But then I think, they will always remind me of how much I missed him and how glad I am he is back. And I start to put them back in their folder.

Owen had told me of some guys he knew who were out on the front, up in the mountains where it was really dicey, and they didn't have any supplies up there like cooking stuff, and could I send some? So I did. But in the end, neither of us ever heard whether they got the stuff or not.

And here they are now, frozen in time, etched in my mind as I read:   First line: "SNACKS (COOKIES AND CANDY)" – I’m waffling here, can we count all that as one?? I just can’t itemize every bag of crackers, dry soup, skittles and stuff, there’s not ROOM.  Next line:  "SOAP PADS." Then "1 METAL POT," then "4 SPOONS."

The pot is an old one with a blackened bottom. For Marines in combat, the rule is, subdued is better than shiny. Bright metal might mark a target -- the guy who's heating up the soup -- for enemy fire.

A second form reads much like the first – but with towels and soap, a metal cup. The cup, I thought, would help measure stuff for the pot. The towels, well, they’re dish towels, but they'd certainly do for people too.

Each page is a relic that raises more questions than it answers. In my mind’s eye they crouch there still, enlisted men and officers in darkness on a barren hillside. Out there on the front lines -- did they ever get the pot, the soup, the soap? Did it help?

How many times did this deployment make, and did they make it out of there? How many deployments, how many MREs, and did the trail mix, the granola bars ever find them? Are they home now, safe now, with their own loved ones?

Somewhere out in the Helmand desert or perhaps the mountains beyond, when this war is fading into  memory, someone may find a dented, blackened Revere ware pot with a worn black handle.

I am crying as I put them -- these flimsy talismans of our love, hope and fear -- into the recycling bin.

For more information about Lisa Tracy and her work, visit her website.

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