I didn't cry when they draped Ken's casket with a flag.  He had earned it.  I watched as they folded it--snapping in the creases as I had seen them do so many, many times before for other Marines.  The colonel knelt in front of me and presented it to me from a grateful nation.

I was the one who was grateful.  Grateful that he chose me.  Grateful that he loved me.  Grateful that he had lived an exemplary life.  Grateful that he was held in highest esteem by family, friends and church.  Grateful for the fact that he had given his life to Christ.  Grateful for the total confidence I have that he is with God.  Grateful for the 57 years we had together.  Just plain grateful.  He was extraordinary in every way.  Totally unpretentious.

And now, I just wish he was here.  I wish I had told him how proud I was of him.  But I didn't know him as a hero, just as my husband.  I never saw him fly--even though I spent twelve years of his career with him.  I pretended that he had a normal job.  He would go to work in the morning, and we would all eat dinner together every night.  He very seldom mentioned what he did that day.

Those twelve years were the most influential years of my life.  I went from being a kid to being a Marine Corps wife.   From not knowing how to do anything, (I mean anything) to being a totally competent woman who picked up the pieces of all our lives, and moved us.  Over and over again.  Ken was always somewhere else--doing God knows what for our country.  I was alone a lot.

It is a wonderful thing to be adored.  He adored me.  (I know, that sounds maudlin, but he did.)  Now, nobody does.  Not that I need to be adored, I don't.  But it was nice.  Looking back, I remember him telling me I was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him.  That he didn't know what would have become of him if I hadn't married him.  I think he imagined that I was something more than I really was.  To be loved by someone is the greatest gift in life.  I have definitely been loved.  What a blessing.