The Letter

by Marie Tillman

  * * *

  When Pat and I lived in University Place, we often took the same walk. We parked at the top of a bluff and walked down a steep stairway to the beach. Beaches in the Northwest tend to be rocky, so it was a different feeling than going to our Santa Cruz spot, but we loved it. We could always count on seeing dogs dash into the water after salty sticks and seagulls coasting on the winds from ferry boats, and sometimes we’d spot a family of sea lions. On one occasion, we took our walk and were about to climb back up the steps when we saw an old fisherman struggling with a line on his boat.

  “Go ahead and go back to the car,” Pat said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  He turned and approached the fisherman, and before I reached the first step, he’d clambered aboard the man’s boat and was helping him. I stopped halfway up the steps to watch. The fisherman was small; Pat towered over him. Though I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, it was clear they were laughing and the old man was really happy to have the help. I stood still, watching, and tears filled my eyes.

  Pat was always doing things, large and small, to help other people. No matter what he was doing, or how absorbed he was in what he needed to get done on a given day, he’d always stop; he’d always help the fisherman. I constantly imagined what the world would be like if everyone was like Pat.

  Sometimes—and this is hard to describe in words—when Pat performed an act of kindness, something about him just broke my heart, and I almost couldn’t look at him. He had this very innocent quality, this optimism about the world. Children have it, but they get older and this eagerness is often replaced with cynicism. That Pat was older, knew the way the world really worked, and yet held on to this idealism made him more special. When things didn’t play out the way he expected them to—like his early time in the military—it hurt me all the more, because his intentions were pure. I wanted badly for the world to meet him at his level.

  I don’t know where this part of Pat’s personality came from, exactly. I’ve talked to his mom about it, and she says he was always like that, from the time he was a kid. Sometimes I think some people are just different and have something inside them that’s really special, but no one knows why that is or where it comes from. He simply seemed more evolved than your average person, especially after he joined the military. Buddhists would have said he’d lived many lives before, growing wiser and more enlightened with each one. That made some sense to me. Right after he died, Kevin and I used to say that Pat had evolved so much in the past few years that he evolved straight off the earth. That was the only image that offered me any comfort during that time.

  And unless people knew Pat, they didn’t get it. They couldn’t understand how someone who was intelligent and well read could make the decisions he did, so they put him into a box as another macho guy who wanted to prove something to himself and the world. But it’s much more complicated than that. Pat saw the world the way he thought it should be. That it wasn’t always that way, well, that was beside the point. He chose to see it the way he wanted it to be.

  Though by nature I am much more cynical than Pat was, he led me to the periphery of his orbit slowly in our early years together, when we’d talk about current events or just our outlooks on the world. He pulled me in entirely when he decided to enlist. It was the first time I’d ever felt a connection to something greater than me. It was an embrace of a world where people don’t just sit around and let events transpire—​be it a fisherman’s struggle with an anchor, or a horrific act of terrorism—but instead take an active role in making things better.

  After Pat died, it was hard for me to find my way back there. First and foremost, my survival instinct told me that I needed to take care of myself, I needed just to get through. But when I was working for ESPN, glimmers of his perspective reappeared. Once, Maura and I went down to New Orleans to prepare for a massive television event: a Monday-night football game, the first football game played in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. We arrived the Sunday before the game and asked a cab to take us directly to the stadium. Our driver had recently returned to the city, but a lot of his friends and relatives were not coming back or were missing entirely. He remarked that the cleaned-up area around the stadium did not present a clear picture of the still-devastated city.

  At the stadium, I went onto the field to meet with one of the producers of the halftime show. The movable stage was set up in the middle of the field, and U2 and Green Day soon came out for sound checks and to play a few songs.

  I sat down on the turf to watch. Though I’d been moved by U2 when I’d seen them perform at Madison Square Garden that night with Carolyn, this was much more intimate. The bands were there to bring attention to the city’s urgent needs and to help promote Music Rising, an organization providing relief to New Orleans musicians. Sitting there, watching these great musicians interact with one another, without the glare and the cheers, I realized how they had chosen to use their power to help others. They recognized their ability to harness the energy of their fans and focus it toward a greater good. Somewhere in their journey, their eyes had been opened, and they couldn’t ignore the needs they saw. There was somehow a tremendous sense of human connection in all this.

  In our times, we have amazing new ways of connecting with each other and doing great things. Where the spotlight moves can determine who gets helped, what gets solved, how the world will change. As I sat there watching and listening to these real people preparing to move history a little, I started to find my way back to the world Pat had introduced me to. I wanted to help this grand connection in some way; small would be fine, but I wanted to contribute in some way. Here was something big enough to be worth a life.

  Somewhere in between the trip to New Orleans and the trip to Argentina, in ways slow and subtle, it had also dawned on me that while Pat’s life had been cut short, mine could be quite long. My grandmother was in her nineties. I might have a long life to live, and there was no point in not making the best of it somehow. Why not try to have some impact? Why not have a life that makes a difference for people? And here I had a tool to do that already at my disposal: a foundation, with a solid board made up of family and friends, and with a message that was as close to my heart as it could get. Just as I could now unpack Pat’s socks and shirts, and recall details of our life together without becoming too sad, perhaps I could also embrace his message of altruism without being swept away by the public obsession with his story.

  * * *

  I knocked quietly on the bright yellow Dutch door but turned the doorknob and walked in before getting a response. Dannie’s door was always open. Inside, scattered around the little kitchen, sat most of the family, home for Thanksgiving: Kevin; his new girlfriend, Kandi; Richard; Pat’s uncle Mike; and Dannie. Gram, Dannie and Mike’s mom, was in her usual spot on the couch, tucked in a blanket. The dining room table was set for the meal. I had spent many holidays before sitting at that very table, enjoying the fat turkey and lively conversation. This year I had eaten an early dinner at my parents’ house, but wanted to stop over at Dannie’s and say hi. My trips home were more and more seldom, and I hadn’t seen everyone in quite a few months.

  “Hi, Marie!” Dannie greeted me warmly, coming over at once to give me a hug. “Here’s the world traveler. How was Argentina?”

  “It was nice,” I said. “How have you been? Dinner looks delicious—I’m sorry that I’ve already eaten.”

  “Oh, by the time we sit down, you’ll be ready for another bite, I bet.”

  Dannie’s tone was lighthearted, and I recognized how hard she was trying. Everyone was. Let’s talk about food! Let’s talk about travel! Let’s talk about anything other than the person who’s missing today.

  I went over to Kevin and gave him an awkward hug.

  “How are you?” he asked. “How’s your family doing?” Our eyes met for a brief second before he looked away.

  “They’re good,” I said. “How are you?”

  “I�
��m fine.”

  “Good.” I felt like there should be more, but couldn’t think of what to say that was right. I noticed that he’d shaved off his beard, and his head was still neatly shaved, just like it had been for the three years he served in the Army. I remembered how he and Pat used to go down into the basement garage of the house in Washington and cut each other’s hair every week. They’d drag a chair from the kitchen down the back stairs and I’d hear their spirited banter over the buzz of the clippers. Then one Sunday night after Pat died, Kevin disappeared into the garage, and I heard the buzz of his clippers. He was down there by himself for a while but eventually came up and asked if I would help him.

  I’d walked down to help him, and saw that the hair on the back of his head was an uneven mess of patches. I gently put my hand on his head, then maneuvered the clippers in a sweeping motion to even things out. Then I switched them off, running my hand once more over his head to make sure I didn’t miss a spot, that the soft stubble on his head was now uniform. When I was finished, we stood for a second in silence, the loss of Pat all around us.

  I had mixed emotions seeing him now. I was happy to see him looking good. The sparkle in his eyes was back, and the loving, gentle way he touched Kandi’s arm when he sat down next to her signaled a new softness in his heart. I wondered why distance had grown between us and if it had been my fault. In some ways it was, but we both needed space to process Pat’s death on our own, and we were both making progress.

  “So, Marie.” Dannie jumped in after a silence. “Tell us about the trip. What did you do there?”

  “Um, just wandered around,” I said. I thought about telling her about Sigried, about Juan and the tango, about the markets and all the incredible food. But I kept self-censoring, not sure how it would all sound to them. I settled on a bland “I spent most of the time in Buenos Aires.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Dannie said, and everyone nodded.

  “Huge turkey,” I noted, gesturing to the just-cooked bird resting on the countertop.

  It was, everyone agreed.

  The first Thanksgiving after Pat died was horrible. I spent the day with his family, all of us trying to enjoy ourselves but heartbreakingly aware of what was missing. The next year was not much better and sent me into a downward spiral that lasted for months. Holidays were still my Achilles’ heel, and I anticipated a similar response this season to the forced cheer and hope for the new year; I just prayed the funk didn’t last quite so long. I was learning to cope with the waves of grief and was reassured that they were getting shorter and easier to escape as time moved forward. But even three years after Pat died, I found myself thinking about ways to avoid the holidays altogether.

  In the first year after Pat’s death, I clung to his family and abandoned my own, spending each trip to San Jose with the group that now clustered around the warm kitchen. I felt more comfortable in the midst of their misery, which closely matched my own. But as time went on, things changed. People think death brings everyone together, and it does at first. Then, as time passes and the shock wears off, differences between how people cope are revealed. Each of our relationships to Pat was like a fingerprint unique to each of us, and his loss was felt differently in each of our lives. Husband different from brother, different from son. I tried to understand what they were all feeling, and in some ways I did. But sometimes I didn’t recognize the boy they talked about, and as I longed for a connection that wasn’t possible, I felt even more alone. Our mutual love of Pat will forever keep us connected, but a distance had developed between all of us.

  I stayed for about an hour, tried to engage in the conversation, but I felt strangely self-conscious sharing my new life with them. I knew they wanted me to be happy, just as I wished happiness for all of them, but I was still uncomfortable. They weren’t judging me for moving forward with my life; I was judging myself, the sting of guilt—though less pronounced now—still lurking in my mind. While I had once felt more comfortable in the embrace of Pat’s childhood home than anywhere else, I now felt like an outsider intruding on their day.

  The ripples of loss spread infinitely out. I mourned the loss of Pat, but also the loss of his family. Without him, our relationship to one another changed. We would have to establish another connection—one that didn’t as fully encompass loss. I felt hopeful that someday, we would. With Kevin in particular, I knew I’d find my way back to a close relationship. Army life in Washington had bonded Pat, Kevin, and me together in an unexplainable way, and that bond between Kevin and me had further sealed after Pat died. Now we had retreated into our own lives and found different spaces to heal, but I knew that even a little time and distance couldn’t change what we had been through. Eventually, we would find our way back to each other.

  * * *

  The Pat Tillman Foundation was headquartered in Arizona, but Alex had made it work from his home in San Jose, and I intended to make it work from my home in Los Angeles. I was proud of the progress the foundation had made in its early years. The first thing we’d done was set up an endowment at Arizona State University, known as the Tillman Scholars program. The program selected students with leadership qualities and helped them start social action programs to benefit the community.

  But as I threw myself into my new role, reading every book about nonprofits I could find, I wanted to do more. I didn’t want the Pat Tillman Foundation to be merely a memorial organization; I didn’t think Pat would have felt comfortable with that. I wanted to take it further, to make it something sparked by memory but looking to the future. I met some resistance from people who had been working with the foundation from the beginning, which made sense. It had been running along just fine, honoring Pat and doing some good things along the way. But now that some time had passed and the foundation had found its footing, I felt it could be so much more.

  Two of the students in the first class of Tillman Scholars were Marines who had come to ASU after serving in Iraq. Spending time with them, we’d learned about their needs and how little support the military was really able to give them after their service was completed. It occurred to me at the time that someday the military might be an object of focus for the foundation, but the timing wasn’t right. That first class of Tillman Scholars came about just as Pat’s family and I were in the spotlight as vocal critics of the military, still mired in investigations and hearings.

  Now, though, things were different. The investigations, which at one point I had thought would never end, had ended. And what was more, though I’d loathed the public attention the hearings brought, one thing that had come out of it was that I had a voice people would listen to about military affairs. I wasn’t delusional; I knew I wasn’t Bono or anything, capable of moving hearts and minds with every word I spoke. But I did have a very public connection to the military and military issues, and I could use that fact to do some good. If even one person would listen, I felt I had a responsibility to speak up.

  The link between the Tillman name and the military was obvious and yet also perplexed people. I admit there was a time when I couldn’t go into a supermarket without fearing I’d see someone in uniform and be reminded of what I’d lost. And there was a time when I’d taken all of it personally—the way Pat had been used for propaganda and political purpose. But over time I had realized that while the administration involved in the fratricide cover-up were malicious, they were not malicious toward Pat. It could have been anyone, and they would have done the same thing. Their concern was the end result, not the object of their manipulation. When I stopped taking it personally, suddenly the hold it had over me lessened. And it’s not like we were the only family to lose someone to fratricide, or the only family that had been given a less-than-honest story. Ours might have been the most highly publicized case, but unfortunately it wasn’t the only one by a long shot.

  Pat had joined the Army and yet not believed in the Iraq War. In the same way, I didn’t agree with everything the military did but I saw its great purpose and potenti
al. I saw a shared sense of values and character in the men and women who volunteered to serve that inspired me. Service members choose a difficult road, and regardless of where our system is today, the military is something that people should value and take pride in.

  For all these reasons, I wanted to speak for military families, but first I had to conquer my lifelong fear of public speaking. This fear had held me back in life, from the time I had stood shaking in front of my high school class, tightly clenching my notes. And now my fear was certainly holding the Pat Tillman Foundation back, because I wasn’t able to take advantage of the many speaking requests we’d received to educate people about the work we were doing.

  I had assented to one appearance, and it hadn’t gone well. Alex and I were invited to speak at the Clinton School of Public Service, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I spoke for only a minute or two, and my role was really just to introduce Alex, who did the heavy lifting. My couple of minutes in the spotlight were painful, my voice halting, and I resolved to get some training.

  Alex had a friend in San Jose who worked for a public speaking company. At the time, I had no idea such a thing even existed. I figured some people were just naturally gifted in front of a crowd, and others, like me, were doomed to struggle through. The company worked mainly with CEOs and business speakers, but I decided to attend one of their training sessions to see if it might help. The company was located in a corporate office center in San Jose. I arrived early for my daylong session, and I made my way to the conference room, where a dozen businesspeople were arranged around the table. A folder of information sat at each spot, and I flipped through mine nervously, waiting for the class to begin.

  Our instructor, Melissa, inspired confidence from the moment she walked in the room. A petite brunette, she was poised to perfection. I wondered if one day of working with her could give me even a sliver of those skills. She gave us a brief overview of the day. We would each give a short presentation, which would be videotaped. Then, together, we’d watch the videos, critique the performances, and try again using techniques and methods the instructors suggested. My stomach dropped. The thought of watching myself on tape was as nerve-racking as the idea of getting up in front of this small crowd to speak. And I couldn’t imagine sitting politely while others critiqued my performance.