Cowgirl Grit

21 May 2012

The Door Bell and It’s Haunting Sound:

Today marks the 7 months, 12 days & at this moment 9 and a half hours when my door bell rang. The one time I opened the door to a sound that forever changed my life.

I will never forget the way the doorbell sounded at 6am on 09 Oct. 2011… I was awaken from an already rough night of sleep, heart was heavy and the dreams were bad. I was tossing and turning not knowing why exactly I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Joshua’s voice and concern before his mission that Friday morning. I will never forget the way I felt after the doorbell rang and I peaked out the window and saw the tale-tale signs of a uniform with a black shiny vehicle parked outside my driveway… I leaned my forehead onto the cool door, closing my eyes as tight as I could, praying that I would wake up and that this was a very bad, bad dream… my husband can’t be gone, this stuff only happens in the movies! This can NOT happen to me.

I will never forget as the doorbell rang again with my head against the door, my heart sank, I couldn’t breathe… I opened the door. There stood two men with solomon faces that told me everything that I needed to know. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t breathe… they asked me, “are you the wife of CPT. Joshua S. Lawrence?” — I just stared at them… again, they asked, “Ma’am are you the wife of Joshua S. Lawrence?” all I could do was nod my head and move out-of-the-way as the stepped into my house. I wanted to scream, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, you have the wrong woman… the wrong name! This can’t be happening.” But, I couldn’t say anything all I could do was sit and not pass out as they sat and told me, “ma’am there has been an incident… one of which CPT. Joshua S. Lawrence was killed in action on 08 Oct. 2011 in Kandahar City, Afghanistan.” — as they started talking I just stared at them, I asked them, “can I please go back to bed? You are not real, this isn’t happening… you have the wrong man. Joshua was my soul mate, we had plans.” The gentlemen just looked at me with such sorrow it infuriated me.

They shook their heads and said, “ma’am you have to call a family member. We can not leave you here by yourself.” — with a dry mouth and a shaky hand, I called my mom and dad and I all I could say was, “Joshua is dead and I need you now.”  I don’t remember anyone showing up, or what people were saying. All I could think about was the sound of the doorbell and the solemn look on those mens faces. I never thought a doorbell would be the marking point of my life changing, but it is a sound that is forever engraved in my mind.

*B