Mother's Plea is Denied After Her Son is KIA

                                         

Margaret Mary Coleman O'Donnell and her son, Joseph Thomas O'Donnell in September 1944
 (3 months before the birth of Joe's first child, Sharon Anne O'Donnell who was born on January 1st 1945 while Joe was fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in Europe.  This photo was taken near Grandma and Grandpa O'Donnell's apartment in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.

 

                                                         Below is a letter dated October 25, 1951 my Grandma O’Donnell  received  twelve days after Joe was killed in action on Heartbreak Ridge in Korea on October 13, 1951.

Today, almost 70 years later, I remember another day, i.e., the day my sweet Uncle Joe arrived at our front door at 62 Interboro Parkway in Brooklyn to pick up his daughter, Sharon, who was at my house for the afternoon.  When my mother answered the doorbell and I saw it was my Uncle Joe, I went running to the door to implore my Uncle to allow Sharon to stay longer since we were having so much fun playing together.   I didn’t think he’d say yes since it was quite an inconvenience for him to leave and come back again later.  I was pleasantly surprised when his face lit up in an understanding smile and he agreed to my request.   I remember that moment very clearly as well as my feelings of love and gratitude that I felt towards him.   Kids have an innate sense of who a person is and I sensed my Uncle Joe’s goodness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      
 

A Letter from my Mother, dated May 19, 2021 Part II

 

....continued from "A Letter from my Mother dated May 19, 2021" posted on 5-24-21

After spending time in quiet solitude identifying our tear and “drawing” the contents of this particular tear, we broke into small groups to share (testify) our lamentation.   The others in our group were witnesses to each others’ testimony. 

Here is a brief excerpt from our workshop information which might help to explain the experience:

“Lament is a relational act in which testifier and witness are transformed.  Testifiers, in being heard to voice anew and afresh, learn from the utterances that emerge between the witnesses and themselves.  Testifiers hear their testimonies again as if for the first time.  The witnesses, because of the relational imperative implicit in the testifiers’ desire to connect and engage, are exposed, vulnerable, and through such an encounter, changed.”

The next day, May 19, 2021, we were given this directive:

LETTER WRITING

Who do you desire to hear from regarding your tear? Who would most understand your tear? Who might offer you comfort and direction? Who offers a safer space to share your tear? What might this person want you to hear?

We were told to think of ourselves as the transcriptionist, and to allow this person’s words to come through our pen/pencil onto the paper.  We were told not to worry about proper grammar or spelling, but simply to let the message flow through our hand.   We were told to empty ourselves and allow our chosen writer to express his or her thoughts.  

Once again, I knew instantly that my mother was the one that I needed to hear from.  I knew she was the one who would most understand my tear.  Actually, I didn’t know how much comfort I would receive because I knew how deeply her heart was broken by her brother’s untimely, violent death.  Nonetheless, I wanted to connect with her and hear what she had to say.   I sat alone in silence and in solitude in my recliner in the far corner of my family room and I began to transcribe the letter my mother was dictating to me.   It was so very easy to put down on paper since I didn’t have to give it any thought.  I just wrote what she wanted to say to me.   The letter seemed to take “no time at all” and when I was finished, I was a bit surprised by what she chose to say to me.  When I was reading it back to myself afterwards, I realized that my mother’s message might also bring comfort to the rest of Joe’s family.   Joe’s death brought a deluge, a massive flood of tears. 

Here is my Mother’s letter:  

 

                                                                                                  May 19, 2021

Dear Mare,

First I want to say how much I love you my dear daughter. 

I have some things I’d like to share with you about your Uncle, my beloved brother, Joe.  I know you were deeply affected by your Uncle Joe’s untimely, violent death as we all were. Even though it was 70 years ago, it was in many ways just a heartbeat away. And, you are very accurate in your feeling that the entire family was devastated by Joe’s death. Yes, we were all literally heartbroken and his loss stayed with us as you so aptly described, as a blanket of grief covering us. Of course the immediate intense pain lessened over time but loosing Joe was a wound that never completely healed.

Mary, I have certain deep-seated memories of that time also. I remember the disbelief and the numbness, the anger and the excruciating heartache.  

I also remember how the family came together and prayed and how Marie, Sharon and Diane were surrounded and supported by our love and caring. Joe was no longer around to take care of his beloved family in a physical sense but believe me, Mary, I know now that Joe’s strong and beautiful spirit surrounded and protected them always in all ways. He was with them when Sharon and Diane married and he felt happy with their choices in spouses. He was thrilled when each of his grandchildren was born. He knew, even though you wondered about his awareness. His body wasn’t present but his spirit was alive and present and rejoicing.

Even when Marie died so tragically he was with her and welcomed her, as she was truly the love of his life. We couldn’t understand or accept this second tragic death but I hope it will comfort you to know that Marie died instantly and landed immediately into Love’s embrace.

I can’t really explain this after-life experience because it would be beyond your current level of understanding but believe me, Mary, it is an indescribably joyous existence where love and community are all that really exists and matters. Try to accept the fact that we are all connected, and there is no sorrow, there are no tears except for the tears of joy.  Truly, my tears have been turned into dancing.  I’m so happy, so at peace with all those people I loved while on earth.

Try to accept this reality. I’m still aware and understand you now better than I ever did when my body restrained my spirit, When you feel some sadness let your mind imagine us all together again in perfect joy and peace. And, Mary, remember that even now you can come to me at any time, for I’m here to support and comfort you.

Daddy, Aunt Anne and of course, Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and all the rest of our large and loving family send their love to you and to the entire family.  Until we talk again, remember I love you.                               Love, Mom

 

 

A Letter from my Mother, dated May 19, 2021

 

I believe a brief explanation is needed since my mother passed from this life on November 19, 1998. 

From May 17th until May 21^st, 2021 I attended a Maryknoll Mission Institute Zoom program sponsored by the Maryknoll Sisters of Saint Dominic of Ossining, NY. If you are not familiar with these wonderful women, I suggest you look them up and, even better, plan on attending one of their marvelous Mission Institute programs.

The particular program I signed up for was entitled, When Tears Sing: A Way Home to the Heart of God and the presenter was a guy by the name of William (Bill) Blaine-

Wallace Ph.D. He is an Episcopal priest and pastoral counselor, who lives with his wife on a farm in northern Maine. 

 

Bill Blaine-Wallace has ministered in parishes, hospices, mental health and educational settings. His passion is the stewardship of conversations that matter.  He helps religious communities and other organizations create spaces for conversations that move beneath the veneer of the presentable and tidy to the hard wood of life-the-way-it-really-is.  We were told that we would be able to share, in a safer space, conversations that matter, i.e., conversations below the veneer of our more domesticated social discourses.  And, after spending a week in this beautiful community of love, we did just that.

 

After hearing some of the background basics from our presenter, we were asked to “Look back over your life. Identify a tear. A tear that may still break open your heart.  A tear that possibly made for a turning point. A tear that transports you back to sadness, hope, joy. A tear that represents work you may still be called to.

Imagine walking inside the room of your tear. Who is there? What else is in the room? What does the tear teach you about what matters? Does the tear suggest who or what might be let go of, what needs to be held onto? What does the tear have to say to you? “

After a brief moment of deliberation, I felt for certain that I needed to identify the tear that has been a part of my life since the time I was six and a half years old, the monumental tear that occurred when my Uncle Joe was killed in Korea.  Since I’m not much of an artist (my sister, Meg, inherited all those genes) my visual representation of my tear contained primarily stick figures, multiple other tears (of the entire O’Donnell Family), the images of guns from the 21 gun salute at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery on Jamaica Ave. in Brooklyn, rosary beads in the hands of my sorrowful, kneeling mother and grandmother, a cross, a wooden box containing Joe’s coffin sitting on a sidewalk outside of the funeral home on Bushwich Avenue, a side table containing reminders of Joe’s travels during WW II, decorations from a Halloween party in the courtyard up the street from my house on Interboro Parkway, my mother, in our basement  attempting to share a “party time” with her brother’s children when she, herself was numb with grief.  All these things represented cloudy but heartbreaking moments in one of the biggest tragedies of my lifetime.    

We were separated into small breakout groups where we were each given the opportunity to share our tears.   I testified to my pain, and the others in my small group were witness to my lamentation.  It was a beautiful experience and it was healing to be held and supported in this beloved community.  

Before I go on to describe the next day’s assignment, I will once again share a brief summary regarding my Uncle Joe O’Donnell’s death.  I have shared this story many times before, but in case some have not heard it, I’ll include it here:

Remembering Uncle Joe once again this Veterans Day 

The night before my Uncle Joe O'Donnell left for Korea, he and my Aunt Marie stayed up all night talking. They wanted to spend every possible moment together, as they knew there was a possibility that Joe might not return.  The trip to La Guardia airport the next day was solemn and somber. We were all so terribly sad.  I was only 6 and 1/2 years old at the time, but until this day, whenever I pass the airport, I still feel the blanket of sorrow that covered us, Joe's family, as we hugged and said our final good-byes.
When Joe arrived in Korea, he had no way of getting to his post.  Since there was a desperate need for officers at the front, Joe arranged to share a jeep with an Army Chaplin, the Rev. James Meeder.
During their quiet ride together, Joe told Father many family stories about his wife and two little girls and spoke unabashedly of his tremendous love for them.  The next day, Joe shared in Mass and Holy Communion with Father Meeder and the rest of his platoon before leaving for the front.
Even though he was a strong and brave young man, my Uncle Joe was not what I envisioned as a warrior.  Although he had served his country for three and a half years during World War II as a member of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, and had fought and survived the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge, when I think of Uncle Joe, I remember a kind, sensitive and unusually gentle man.
I remember a man who drew pictures in his letters home so his two little girls would get some idea of the people and places their Daddy was seeing.  I think of a devoted son - a son who composed an original poem for his mother one Mother's Day, adding a note of apology at the end because he wasn't able to get to a store to buy a "real" Mother's Day card.  I have no doubt this poem meant more to my grandmother than all the most expensive store-bought cards she ever received.
On October 13, 1951, 1st Lieutenant Joseph T. O'Donnell was killed in action while leading his men, soldiers of the 38th Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, up a hill called Heartbreak Ridge.   On the day the news of Joe's death reached us at our home in Brooklyn, my Grandma - a reserved and ladylike woman - ran out in the street screaming, attempting in vain to run away from the most horrendous news any mother could ever receive.  My Grandma had six children, but Joe was her only son, and he was just 29 years old.
I remember the bitter cold day in January when we brought Joe's body to its final resting place.  The six year girl in me can hear the loud and frightening 21 Gun salute, and the final, mournful sound of a bugle playing taps. But most of all, I still feel the sadness on my Aunt Marie's face as this 26 year old mother of two was handed the folded flag of a grateful nation.
Now, many years later, I walk up State Street and pass a memorial to another forgotten war, Vietnam.  There on the silent, dark monuments are the names written in bronze, too numerous for me to count.  I slow my steps and purposely allow my eyes to fall reverently on the names of the young Americans who gave their lives in service to our country.  I offer a silent prayer for them and for their families.  I learned at an early age the pain and sadness that lingers forever when one so young, one so beloved falls on a battlefield.    And, it causes me to think these thoughts once again.  May we continue to remember them.  May we never look lightly on war and may we work feverishly, unrelentingly to maintain the freedom and peace they died to preserve. 

 

 

Part 2 to follow