At peace

July 5 has come and gone, and Tommy didn't visit.

I can draw only one conclusion: He's at peace.

Tommy was my cousin -- rather, he was my mother's cousin. Their mothers were sisters. Tommy, however, was closer in age to me.

From the moment he grew tall enough to reach a gas pedal, Tommy was a frequent visitor to our house. Mom served as something of a surrogate parent to him. He sought her advice while reserving the right to take it.

Two of those times he went against her stick out in my mind. He had barely turned 18 when he decided to join the Army. One week at Fort Jackson, however, quickly made him how sage Mom's advice had been. He called and wrote letters, begging Mom to find him a ticket out.

Of course, she did. She and others worked to prove how Tommy was the only help his elderly mother had. His mother doesn't drive, and to this day she lives a sad existence in a little house in my hometown. Tommy, who had become quite adept behind the wheel, promised to help out his mom any way he could.

He was as good as his word after the Army granted his hardship discharge. Not wanting to completely bail on Uncle Sam, he chose to stay in the National Guard and cherished those weekends once a month and the yearly training that were part of his commitment.

Which brings us to another incident when Tommy chose to shrug off Mom's sage advice. One day, he was accompanied on his visit by a shy, brunette girl. That girl, he declared, was the one he planned to marry.

His betrothed was a sweetie, but Mom knew that a marriage at their ages would be doomed. Tommy, however, would not be denied his brown-eyed beauty, and they exchanged vows a short time later.

In mere months, Mom's prediction came true. Tommy was shattered. He vowed to win back his bride and, to her credit, she tried. She was often with him when he visited, but never were they to live under the same roof again as husband and wife.

On July 5, 1979, I was with Mom and my sister en route to my grandmother's when a radio broadcast was interrupted. There was a horrific auto accident south of town. A car was involved in a head-on collision with a coal truck. No names were available but, in a rare move for the veteran newscaster, he reported that both occupants of the car were dead.

We barely got in Grandma's door when the phone rang. It was Tommy's mother, and what she was saying was impossible. Tommy -- her baby boy, the closest thing Mom ever had to a son and the cousin my sister and I looked to as an older brother of sorts -- was dead.

He was only 21 years old.

A friend driving a powder-blue Ford Maverick had stopped by to pick Tommy up early in the morning. They were planning to go south of town to look for ginseng -- "sang diggin'," as my grandmother called it -- in an attempt to make some big bucks from herbalists who view the root as gold. Back en route to town, the friend decided to pass a slow-moving car in front of them. Unfortunately, he was on a curve, and he and Tommy likely only saw the coal truck that hit them only seconds before their lives ended.

It was my first closed-coffin funeral. A portrait of Tommy in his National Guard dress uniform sat on the coffin. That was, I think, the reason I couldn't accept that Tommy was gone.

I didn't sleep for days. I looked for Tommy to come in, roll his eyes and tell us how silly the authorities were to believe it was him in that car.

I held on to that fantasy as Mom helped his mother sort through the legal tangles of his estate -- left messy because of his tender age and the fact that he left a widow who was legally his wife but hadn't lived with him for almost a year. I looked for Tommy every time a car pulled into our drive.

It never was him.

Then, as July 5, 1980, dawned, a strange thing happened. Tommy made his presence known that day. I can't remember exactly how, but I knew he was with me that day.

It happened again and again -- each time on July 5. The most memorable is July 5, 1984. I had been expecting Tommy all day, but he so far was a no-show. Maybe it was because I was in Florida with friends, I thought.

I was padding along a deserted beach on the Gulf after dark when I began hearing footsteps echo with my own. I stopped many times and looked for someone behind me, only to find a beach vacant except for my presence.

Then it dawned on me: Today is July 5. I smiled, flush with peace. I knew who was with me. We walked along that beach -- Tommy and me -- for several minutes before one of my friends showed up. I was disappointed -- for Tommy, three was a crowd.

I received a few more annual visits from Tommy. Then, on July 5, 1989, they abruptly stopped.

That has left me bittersweet. After pondering on it for a while, I came to the conclusion that Tommy had made it to the other side and found the peace that for some reason had eluded him. I've often wondered if it was because Tommy was taken so young -- that he had been denied the life that was in front of him, so he came back once a year to claim just a scrap of it. I'll always be grateful that it was me he chose to share those moments with.

I'm thankful he's at peace, but I miss him. On July 5, and every day.

He didn't visit this year. And though I know in my heart he won't next year, I'll still be looking.

My home and heart are open any time he decides to drop by.