Yardstick for Pain

Memoir of Young Love

The hardest thing I’ve ever gone through was September 13, 1969. I was living at my childhood home in Ohio with my parents at the time. I had recently married my high school sweetheart in January of 1969.

In our hearts we were still newlyweds, but Uncle Sam had other plans for Doug, trained as an Army combat medic. In May, he was sent to Vietnam.

We shared a wonderful life from January to May. During the months before he left for Vietnam, we lived in a mobile home on base at Ft. Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. We were military-poor, but we didn't care. We were together and we were happy. We loved and laughed and planned our future for when he returned.

We would get an old Victorian with lots of bedrooms, oak woodwork, a huge kitchen for entertaining, and a large front porch with a wooden swing. There we could cuddle and talk, read a book, or just swing and watch Mother Nature’s pyrotechnics together.

We wanted three children, two boys and a girl. Our sons would be tall and handsome with their daddy's bowed legs, legs that loved to dance, and they would have his sense of humor and infectious laugh.

They would grow up to be good men, respected for their strength of character. Like Doug, they would be smart, and kind and gentle husbands, loving and playful with their children, as well as proud and fiercely patriotic.

Doug decided our little girl would be, (in his words), "Pretty like her mommy, with big blue eyes and just a hint of tomboy to defend herself from her big brothers." In my heart, I knew she would always be Daddy's Little Girl.

Saying goodbye at the Columbus Airport in May, was soul-crushing. I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but it was a foolish promise and one I wasn't able to keep. One thing I can truthfully say is, it never once occurred to me that Doug wouldn't return home safe.

Our letters were upbeat and full of hope. The intimate moments we shared and memorized were longed for and always in the letters between us. But what we wanted and what we actually had, broke our hearts and we counted down the days to our Hawaiian R&R —-which was never to be.

On September 13, 1969, the world as I knew it stopped.

I was working as a secretary in the office of a manufacturing company a few blocks from my parents' home. That afternoon, mother called me at work. "Honey, you'd better come home. There are some men here from the Army and they want to talk to you about Doug."

I dropped the phone on my desk and with my heart in my throat, I ran out of the building. I didn't stop running until three blocks later, in front of the home where I grew up, the home where I had always felt safe and loved.

I was filled with fear and dread. Parked in front of the house, looking out of place, was a large black car with printing on the side. I gathered my courage and climbed the front steps to the front door.

Just inside, in the foyer stood two uniformed men locked to attention. Their hands behind their backs, hat tucked under an arm. Their faces were somber. Daddy and Mama stood nearby. Daddy had his arm around Mama's waist and she was crying quietly.

[Dear God, why are they here? No, wait, I don't want to know. Please, please go away.]

"Mrs. Kempf, we regret to inform you that your husband, Sp4 Douglas S. Kempf, was killed in action while performing his duty as a combat medic in Vietnam on September 5 ..."

I didn't hear the rest of what the man had to say. Daddy said I fainted where I stood, just inside the front door in the foyer. When I came around, I was lying on the couch in my parents' living room -—and then I remembered.

Oh God, I remembered, and I wanted to die, too. I was devoid of any feeling, except soul-numbing grief. My whole world had turned upside down. How could everything still look and sound so normal?

The sun still shined through the front windows with Mama's white curtains swaying in a light breeze. The birds still chirped in the gnarly apple tree I climbed as a child. Somewhere, a neighbor mowed his lawn, and I could hear children laughing and playing in their yards.

Only a few minutes ago, that had been real. Now it clashed with this new reality and I felt I was losing my mind.

Why? Why?

Then I focused hard, until only the couch was real. I was on the couch where Doug and I first held hands and hugged; the couch where we had our first disagreement, then kissed and made up. The same couch where I often sat in front of him on the floor while we watched TV and he ran his fingers through my hair. The same couch where he nervously asked me to be his wife and I said I would.

Nothing would ever be the same again. My life was changed forever and I felt helpless and alone, though I was surrounded by people who cared and also grieved. All I could do was cry.

I remember fighting a growing anger, as well. God, how could You do this? Why would You reach inside me and rip out my heart? And always, the question, Why?

There was so much grief and hurt. I went through the following weeks, months and even years in a fog. There are things about that time I can't remember, but there is one thing I will never forget. That was the first and only time I ever saw my father cry.

That day was the worst day of my life. But that day has carried me through other bad times, too. There have been things that happened since then when I've said, "This hurts. Yeah, this really hurts -—it hurts like bloody hell! But I will survive, because I know what REAL hurt is."

For the rest of my life, that one day became my yardstick for measuring pain. I knew with a final certainty that nothing else could, or ever would, hurt me that bad again.

When I look up at the night sky, it isn't stars I see, but little openings in heaven's floor where the love of my lost one pours through and shines down to let me know he’s happy.