Where They Lived

I'll conclude my Memorial Day series of posts with the May 2012 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, containing a sad article entitled "Where They Lived."

Author T. A. Frail and photographer Ashley Gilbertson teamed up to document homes where grieving parents have preserved intact the bedrooms of their dead servicemember children.

There's a balance between remembrance and getting over it.  I hope never to have to walk in those shoes and I will never criticize any family's choices on such a personal matter.

My heart goes out to all those thousands of families whose lives have been shattered forever.  May peace be yours.

By the way, the photo above is of the bedroom of Army Pfc. Richard P. Langenbrunner, 19, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Langenbrunner committed suicide on April 17, 2007, in Rustimayah, Iraq.  This bedroom, with its PC and telescope, looks like the kind of bedroom I would have loved as a teenager.  I can't even imagine the kind of wartime stress and hurt that would have caused a 19 year old kid to kill himself.