Waiting for news

I listen so much news about Iraq most of which just passes over me.
I watch, listen and read all the arguments about it. For me however, it
is different, it is real. A police car pulled up outside my house today
and I froze, somehow both of my hands involuntary moved to my face. The
police officer got out of his car, smiled at me and went next door. My
stomach did a complete turn and I felt sick. I had just been listening
to the news on the radio, the report of another British soldier been
killed. I went inside and sat shivering even though it is hot; it took
me ages to get a hold of myself. Each news report sends the same
gripping shiver down my spine.

Yesterday afternoon I had this strange feeling it felt as if someone
had poured very warm water down the inside of my stomach, it was the
oddest of sensations and has made the waiting for news worse because my
sons out there. You linger around the radio, put the TV on for news,
even go online to see if there has been any update, I check messenger
just in case my son is there, its how we keep in touch, and how he lets
me know that he is all right. You wait and you wait. Then when they
release the name of the young man who died, you feel relieved and then
guilty all at once knowing that someone is going through the pain of
loss.

Sometimes I try to ignore what is going on, shut it out and get on with
life but its hard. I listen to the news and my head goes into my hands,
I do not want to hear but I have to. I long to click onto messenger and
find my sons name there, the little box coming up and his words 'Hi
Mam, can you send me some more wine gums' but I know he wont be there
tonight not if there's fighting going on.

Not long ago he came home on leave, seeing him standing there outside
the railway station still in his desert fatigues, his skin so tanned
and his smile so very wide, his eyes full of tears, tears of joy. My
son was no longer a boy but a man. It was clear to all where he had
been and where he was going, he was coming home, two weeks later he
returned to the desert and the heat. Now I wait for news, I wait for
his voice over the phone or on messenger for his little man to turn to
green and his name to appear in that little box in the corner of my
computer screen. It will say to me the words he will not utter; it will
say 'I am safe Mam'.

Son keep your head down and as promised, I will have a full Sunday
lunch with one of my home made apple pies and rice puddings waiting for
you when return home a few days after my birthday in November, your
tour of duty in Iraq over.