by Ryan Manion
“I don’t know, Amy,” he told me on the phone one night. “Am I really doing all I can? I think about Travis and I just…” He paused, searching for his thoughts. “I just want to be living a life I can be proud of.”
Death has a way of making those of us who survive question our life decisions. Initially, it throws us into a deep pit of doubt, but it also gives us a chance for reflection that we may not otherwise have. We think of the one we lost and immediately review our own life as though it, too, has passed.
We look at the relationships we’ve formed and the milestones we’ve hit, and we assess them with the grades we believe they’ve earned. The difference is, we have the ability to make choices that will alter our futures in a way that the people we mourn do not. When Brendan went through this exercise in 2007, he reached two conclusions:
First, he was on the right track in his career. He was going to throw himself into his new training and would dedicate every exhausting run in the sand, every cold, sleepless night, and every ache in his muscles to his friend Travis. There was no doubt in his mind that, very soon, he would be a Navy SEAL. And very soon after that, he would join the fight. No more waiting on the sidelines, as he felt he’d done in his two previous deployments. He wanted a direct shot at the forces of evil that threatened the American way of life and robbed us of good guys like Travis.
But second, he was still missing something critical before he could feel like his life’s mission was complete. That was what he told me when I traveled to visit him in California in June 2007, following his completion of the first phase of the six-month BUD/S program. We had just finished eating at George’s at the Cove, a fancy restaurant in La Jolla, where we had toasted the end of Brendan’s initial round of SEAL training.
“So, you graduated Hell Week.”* I smiled at him and held my glass of champagne aloft. “Now what?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see what the Navy has in mind.”
I felt a gray cloud of “What ifs?” looming over our table. What if we have to continue this long-distance relationship? We can’t keep this up forever. What if he has to deploy immediately? What if we can’t make this work? I tried to initiate a serious conversation about where we were headed, but Brendan’s thoughts were elsewhere. I was ready to plan my future, but it was awfully hard, not to mention frustrating, with so many variables in my way. Every question I posed ended at the same dead-end response.
“I don’t know, Amy,” he said with some finality. “We’ll see.”
Okay, that was it. I had just flown all the way across the country to celebrate with him and he’d been acting like a weirdo all night. I was at my absolute wits’ end trying to keep things together. I’d been as patient with this chaotic schedule and our limited communication as I could possibly be. I’d endured two deployments, one a full year long, and was bracing myself for another set of deployments on the horizon with the SEAL teams. I had had enough.
“You know what? I’m just going to get a flight home in the morning,” I shot back.
Brendan suggested we take a walk by the beach to cool off.
“I don’t need to cool off. And I’m in a dress and heels. I’m not really interested in a walk right now.”
“Ten minutes, Amy? That’s all I’m asking.”
“Fine.”
As we walked along the San Diego shoreline, I began to understand why Brendan had been acting so strangely. He shared how deeply affected he was by Travis’s death only a couple months before, and I felt guilty for not having been more sensitive to his feelings. He was such a tough guy, I saw him as invincible. It was easy to forget that he was also very sensitive and that he felt things so deeply.
“I just can’t stop thinking about him,” he told me. “I just never thought it would be Trav, you know? I had a care package sitting on my kitchen counter that I never even got to mail to him.”
I gripped his hand a little tighter as we walked but didn’t say anything in response.
“There was still so much he had left to do, too. He would have had such an awesome career in the Marines. He would have been such a good dad, a great husband. He never got any of that. He never got the chance to have what we have. He didn’t have anyone that he wanted to spend his life with.”
We had stopped walking and Brendan turned to face me. I realized that it had been a long time since I’d seen him dressed in anything but lacrosse shorts and flip-flops. Did he have to borrow that button-down from a friend? It didn’t look familiar.
“Amy, Travis didn’t have anyone he wanted to live out his days or have adventures with, but I do. It’s got me thinking.” He started to fumble around looking for something in his pocket.
“Life is short. I know this hasn’t been easy on you, and I can’t promise that things will get any easier from here. I just couldn’t imagine a life for me that doesn’t have you in it. I want you to live here. I don’t want roommates anymore and I don’t want long distance. I just want us to start our lives together. I love you.” He was down on one knee now.
“Will you marry me?”
I was shocked. I was also very embarrassed about the hard time I’d been giving him only minutes before. Man, did I feel like a jerk. But more than anything, I was ecstatic.
“Of course!”
We chose July 12, 2008, for our wedding date in Annapolis, which gave us a little more than a year to plan. It was a perfect time line, because Brendan had been given the heads-up from his leadership that he would likely be assigned to SEAL Team Five, which wasn’t slated to deploy until October. That gave us a full three months to enjoy just being newlyweds in Southern California. And believe it or not, that felt like an eternity. Once again, however, we’d have another curveball to handle.
At the last minute, in May 2008, Brendan was reassigned to SEAL Team Three and—surprise—was required to deploy immediately.
“Wait, what?” I stared at him blankly when he told me the news. “Brendan, we have a church, a DJ, invitations out, and 250-odd people who think they’re coming to our wedding in July. And you’re telling me you’re not even going to be there?”
“I’ll fix this,” Brendan assured me. Sometimes he was so calm it was irksome.
But he was also a man of his word. On Saturday, July 12, 2008, in front of all of our friends and family, I became Mrs. Brendan Looney. And two days later, on Monday July 14, my groom was gone again. He remained assigned to Team Three, and the ink was barely dry on our marriage certificate before he rushed off immediately after our wedding to meet the rest of his platoon on deployment in Iraq.
Brendan returned home in October, and we were both grateful that it had been a shorter deployment for him since he had joined it so late. But that temporary victory was soon followed by a permanent loss. For it was his next deployment—to Afghanistan—that claimed his life. If only he had been assigned to Team Five as we had expected, things might have been different. Sure, he’d have had a longer deployment that first time around, but he might also still be here today.
I still have the accident report from Brendan’s death filed away. I can’t bring myself to read what happened to him and his friends in their final moments. When I look back on the eight years that Brendan and I had together, I’m struck by all the close shaves we had. We almost had a shot at a different life.
“What if?” weighs a lot.
What if Brendan had stayed in Intelligence? What if they had never lifted the restrictions on color blindness that allowed him to join the SEALs? What if he had never been moved to Team Three? What if he hadn’t gone out on that fifty-ninth, final combat mission, which ultimately ended his life? What if he had stayed behind, or had been given some other responsibility? Would my husband still be here? What if he could have avoided danger for just a few more weeks? That’s all he would have needed in order to come home to me.
It’s a dangerous game to play, as you can imagine. And I’ve played it more times than I can count. But in the years since I lost Brendan, I’ve learned that there�
��s a secret rule to the “What if?” game that very few people know about.
It’s a two-way street.
People tend to forget that. You can’t simply imagine the thousands of tiny, lamentable decisions that made your life go wrong without also considering the millions of fortuitous choices you made that caused your life to go right. I thought I’d stay Mrs. Brendan Looney forever. And yes, maybe I almost did. But I also almost never met the man who changed me forever. We almost never dated. We almost never married. I almost missed out on one of the greatest blessings of my life. So let’s roll the tape back, and try the “What if?” game again:
What if Brendan had never driven down from the Jersey Shore that Memorial Day Sunday to meet his friends (and me!) at the Greene Turtle? After all, he almost didn’t. What if Brendan hadn’t rolled the dice on me and had opted instead for his junior ring date partner? After all, he almost hadn’t. What if I had decided that military life was too hard? That I was missing out on someone better when I felt lonely and frustrated waiting for Brendan to come home? After all, I almost did.
What a gift I would have missed.
“What if?” can be a deeply heavy and burdensome question. It will crush us, if we let it.
But if we accept the weight that that question heaves on our shoulders, we can become stronger in the process. In order to do so, we must discover gratitude. We must find perspective.
That’s what I learned in the mountains of Peru, surrounded by women like me. There are a lot of us out there, you know. We’ve all lost someone we loved deeply—a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband—to a war thousands of miles away that we only partially understand.
We’ve known the joys of finding that one person in the world with whom we wanted to create a home and plan a future. And we’ve known the heartache of losing it all in a single, unexpected moment. But most important, we’ve all had that same burning, two-word question weighing on our minds and testing our emotional strength at one point or another.
Over the course of the weeklong expedition, we conquered the literal and figurative mountain in front of us. We worked up a sweat together, we slept in tents together, we ate terrible, pre-packaged food together, and we shared our most painful and joyous memories with one another. And somewhere along the route, as we wearily moved from checkpoint to checkpoint, our burdens—and our spirits—lifted.
Some of these women had been strangers to me at the base of the mountain. But right around day three, just as I was tired and dirty enough to not bother mounting some defense that made me seem more okay than I really was, I found myself sharing things with them that I hadn’t shared with anyone else.
And they got it. I told them that I felt robbed and cheated and angry, and they nodded in agreement. I told them how I was sick of being the constant third wheel at dinner with my couple friends; that I was so over hearing my girlfriends complain about their spouses—who actually get to come home to them each night after work. I told them about my struggles with “What if?” and my occasional thoughts that my suffering was meaningless and might have been avoided. I wondered if this was all for nothing. It was affirming to know that I wasn’t alone and that many of them felt the same way and wondered the same things.
And then, on the final day of our climb, we reached the top. We stood together and watched a golden sunset drip down past the peak of the mountain that we had just worked so hard to summit. I was simultaneously physically drained and emotionally refreshed. I was filled to the brim with gratitude and awe. I gave thanks for my strong body, which had carried me up; for my even stronger mind, which had pushed me through some difficult times; and for the friendship of some of the strongest women I’d ever had the great fortune to stand beside. In that moment, my doubts dissolved. I knew the suffering couldn’t all be for nothing.
It’s worth noting that my packing job proved to be a disaster. By no means did I have all the equipment or supplies to deal with all the unexpected incidents that happened along the route. But who knows? What if I had? I might not have made it up the mountain. My pack was light(ish) and I had the bare essentials. In the end, that’s exactly what I needed to succeed. We may think we need more to overcome struggles or to achieve our goals. But so much of it is already within us.
The woman Brendan left was a different woman than the one he had met just a few years before. He taught me humility and discipline. He taught me patience and grace. The relationships that we form and the experiences we endure will always change us. That is a fact.
I can promise you now that, if you haven’t done so already, you too one day will know the feeling of a heavy burden on your shoulders. You too will carry the load of “What if?” It will weigh you down for a bit, and that’s to be expected. Just make sure it doesn’t crush you. Allow it to make you stronger. When you’re in the midst of your own struggle, it’s hard to believe this is possible. But it is.
“I know this won’t make sense to you right now, but I promise you, you will be okay.”
This was the most helpful comment I received from anyone throughout my entire grieving process, and it came from a woman I barely knew. I wanted to roll my eyes when she said it. The Navy had connected me with Char, now a dear friend of mine, who had lost her husband five years before I lost Brendan.
It was a nice gesture to remind me that life goes on. I nodded and smiled politely at her words, but I wasn’t buying them. What does she know? I thought. She’s remarried and starting a new family. She can’t possibly understand.
I was wrong. Sometimes you’re too absorbed in your own struggle to imagine that there could ever be a life outside it. But there is. And it’s a good life at that. Just as I didn’t believe Char, you may not believe me when I tell you that. And I can’t say I would blame you if you don’t. But if you can give up any of your doubt, give it up to the possibility that life gets better.
Grief may cause you to stop believing in a lot of things: a benevolent God, a life plan, the goodness of other people. But you must always believe in possibility. It can be tempting to shut down and close yourself off completely. Don’t do it. Leave the door open, if only a crack.
The path to gratitude lies in openness.
This is why it’s so important to leave that door open to possibility. Discovering gratitude will help you find happiness once again. I would love to advise you to take notice of the many blessings in your life even when it feels like your world is crumbling around you. I would love to remind you to relish the good stuff of life, since that is what will bring you the joy you may be lacking—and that you so deserve. I believe that’s all true. But I know it is a lot easier said than done. So at the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, I won’t tell you to be grateful. I’ll tell you to be open. And I’ll trust that gratitude will find you along the way.
If you have ever experienced loss—whether the loss of a relationship, a career, or a loved one—you know that the void left behind isn’t easily filled. The role Brendan played in my life will never be replaced. But the gap that his absence left in my life has made me a more open person. I’m open to understanding the trials of others and listening to them with patience and empathy. I’m open to climbing mountains with strangers in order to learn more about myself. I’m open to embracing new and scary challenges, like the challenge of sharing my deepest and most painful experiences with strangers in a book that no one may read.
In each of these experiences, when I start with an open heart, I end with a grateful one. You have to experience the extreme fatigue, muscle aches, and frustration that come with climbing a mountain to appreciate the sunset at the top. Your suffering has the power to make you a more grateful—and therefore happier—person. Let it.
If, however, you have not experienced the kind of grief and struggle that help you connect with the pain of others, you may be on a different path right now. That’s okay, too. In fact, it’s great. Rather than stand idly by, you’ve decided to choose the road of empathy and you try to better identify with something o
r someone outside yourself. As you do so, let me caution you:
Don’t confuse empathy with pity.
People ask me if I believe Brendan’s death “was meant to be.” Honestly, I have no idea. I’m not even sure I know what “meant to be” means. What I do know is that, if Brendan had to die at so young an age and with so healthy a mind and body, this is how he would have wanted it to happen—in service to his country. Now, it’s not how I wanted it to happen, but I know he could have imagined no greater honor.
He knew what he had signed up for and he believed passionately in his mission and cause. And while I could be naive at times, I too knew what he had signed up for. Please, do not pity me. Over the years since Brendan was killed, I’ve had the great fortune to get to know hundreds of families of the fallen. No matter how many encounters I have with our Gold Star families,* I am always awed by the poise and strength they exhibit.
We may be tempted to sympathize with these families, to treat them like charity cases. This is a well-intentioned impulse, but it’s a misdirected one. To pity our Gold Star families would be to do them a great disservice. They are far stronger than most realize, and they can teach the rest of us a great deal. The most valuable lessons I’ve learned have come from the men and women who have gone before me, and who have grown from the grief that they may have believed, at one point, would ruin them. Get to know them. Learn their stories and the stories of their loved ones. You may be surprised at what you find.
* Hell Week is the nickname for the final five days of the first phase of SEAL training, or BUD/S. SEAL hopefuls are forced to train for several days with little sleep, in nonstop evolutions of difficult physical feats and psychological tests. They brave icy temperatures, carry heavy gear and equipment, and receive no more than five hours of sleep during the five days.
* Gold Star families refers to those who have lost a loved one who served our country.
