I MET MELISSA BROWNLEE Sinclair when I was at E. E. Smith High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She was the daughter of a paratrooper command sergeant major and elementary school teacher. We met at church, where she was working as a Sunday school teacher while still in high school.
We both called home the historic Haymount neighborhood of Fayetteville, adjacent to the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg. As much as anyone in the military can call anyplace home, we both were essentially raised there. My father was the commanding general of XVIII Airborne Corps, and my grandfather before him had commanded a special airborne task force under General James Gavin in World War II. They were West Point grads like I was, and so it was a minor miracle that I’d actually lived in one place long enough to label it “home.”
Melissa, on the other hand, had been born and raised in Fayetteville. Her father was an enlisted man who had risen from private to sergeant major in the Eighty-Second Airborne Division with a few intermittent tours in Korea as an infantryman and Fort Benning as a drill instructor. A decorated war veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq, Command Sergeant Major Brownlee was a legend on Fort Bragg and in Cumberland County until he passed away three years ago. Melissa’s hard-nosed mother, my mother-in-law, had kept their children firmly planted in the neighborhood, church, and school system while their father fulfilled his military duty away from Fort Bragg when necessary. It was a talent and ethos she’d passed to her daughter.
Melissa was tall, five foot ten, and had auburn hair and green eyes. She was the only woman that I ever truly loved and probably the only one I would, which was fine. By my assessment, few people enjoyed the type of relationship Melissa and I had, despite the fact that it was cut woefully short. I had looked forward to retirement with her, maybe somewhere along the North Carolina coast that we enjoyed so much. Wrightsville Beach, Topsail Island, and Cape Hatteras were all options we had been considering. We had saved as well as possible when raising two children on an officer’s salary, which was to say that we lived sparingly but had most of the things a family could want.
One day while we were still in high school, I caught up with Melissa after my long conversation with the preacher about going to West Point. I was being recruited by NC State and UNC–Chapel Hill to play baseball, along with a few other colleges in Virginia and South Carolina. The pressure from my mostly absent father to attend West Point was enormous but didn’t compare to the expectations of my mother. The traditional officer’s wife, my mother was beautiful, regal, and conniving. Her motives were pure—her methods less so. And so I turned to our pastor for advice. My baseball coach had already tossed his hands in the air, not wanting to face the wrath of my mother.
There was a lot of appeal to attending a school in North Carolina and playing shortstop for a Division I contender. Coach Jernigan, the West Point baseball coach, was putting the soft sell on me knowing that my mother was the closer throwing ninety-five-mile-per-hour fastballs at me every night. I loved my mother, no doubt. Fiercely loyal to everyone that returned the favor, she ruled the family with a white-gloved iron fist. My sister, Katherine, had run away to the Peace Corps for fear that my parents were going to send her to West Point, also. Kat appeared every now and then seemingly out of nowhere, announcing she was working for a new, different nonprofit to save some aspect of the planet. She rebelled enough for both of us, I presumed.
After a long conversation with Pastor Paul, I saw Melissa, who was cleaning up from class in the rectory. Her hair was radiating in the sunlight that shined a spotlight on her as she swept up some construction paper clippings in the hallway.
“Need a hand?” I asked her.
“No, thank you. I’m just fine,” she replied.
Not accepting the brush-off, I reached for the dustpan and knelt down to allow her to scoop the debris, which she did.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was dispassionate, uninterested.
Just then, Pastor Paul truly changed my life.
“Garrett,” he called from the end of the hallway in his hellfire-and-brimstone voice, as if from above. “Good luck on your decision between Harvard and West Point.”
Now Harvard had never really been an option, though I suppose if I had ever thought about it, it might have been. Catching his quick wink as he turned away confirmed to me that the pastor was doing me a solid by tossing me an icebreaker or perhaps a life preserver.
“Harvard?” Melissa said, taking the bait.
Not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with a whiff of dishonesty, I shrugged and said, “Probably West Point.”
No fool, Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. You’re the general’s son. You’re definitely going to West Point, and I’m not sure you’re smart enough to be going to Harvard.”
She was nothing if not blunt and honest, and correct.
“Well…”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “I’m sure you’re smart, but I’m in all the AP classes and haven’t noticed you gracing our presence. Too busy on the baseball field, I think.” She tapped her lips in a thinking pose that made my heart leap. Her hair flowed over her shoulders. Her green eyes were clear, innocent, and knowing at once. Her attire was a proper mid-calf Sunday school dress revealing nothing but the contours of a tall, slender, athletic body beneath. She wore practical pumps and carried a three-ring binder like everyone used to carry back before iPads and smartphones. The label on the binder’s spine read SUNDAY SCHOOL. There was a yellow smiley face sticker at the bottom.
“I do well enough in school, but I’m certainly not as smart as you,” I said in my failed attempt at self-deprecation.
“I know that,” she said. “But Harvard is a bunch of snobs anyway, right? I’ve heard a little about you, and it’s not all bad.” She smiled. “Plus, you’ve been here awhile, unlike a lot of the transients. Not that the transients are bad, but it’s hard to know the depth of someone without understanding their roots, their background, their faith, and so on. And you’re reasonably good looking, not that you should let that go to your head.”
I was simply going to ask her if she wanted to grab a doughnut, but here we were in a deep philosophical discussion about life, partnerships, and potential mates, which I soon learned was Melissa’s approach to life. She was simultaneously enjoying the moment while advancing her cause, that of her community, and that of the country in general. There was never a more solid or devoted patriot than Melissa Sinclair.
“I’ll take ‘reasonably,’” I replied.
“A tad generous, but it is Sunday,” she said, smiling.
“Thank God.”
“Indeed. And here we are meeting in church, another positive.”
Melissa’s mind was an amazing synthesizer of information, environment, and potential pros and cons. She was a rock-solid decision-maker, and anyone fortunate enough to have been in her hemisphere of influence, from family readiness groups, which helped family members of combat units, to friends and family, was better off today because of her.
“It would be proper of me to offer to carry your books—or book, in this case.”
“It would,” she said, smiling again.
For a moment, I was confused but understood where she was leading me, where she would always lead me … to do the right thing without preamble.
“May I carry your book?”
“Good job,” she said. “But you were right the first time.”
She led me around the corner into the classroom, where she had four boxes of religious textbooks ready for movement to the hatch of her dated Jeep Cherokee. These were thick hardcover books, and each box weighed at least thirty pounds.
“You’re clever,” I said, ferrying the boxes to her car.
“Aren’t I, though? But I’m also fair. I’m buying at Bell’s.”
We eventually grabbed that doughnut and Coke at Bell’s Feed and Seed, which she paid for, and spent some time getting to know one another, which consisted mostly of her talking and me listening, a positive harbinger of our courting, marriage, and life together. She shaped our life by bearing us two children, raising them to be wonderful, if not occasionally obstinate, kids, and providing me support and love like I could have never experienced with anyone else. As with all Melissa did, she loved me wholly so that I could focus on my tasks as a soldier and leader of combat warriors. It was one of her many ways of serving our country. No one leads soldiers without support, and the best leaders I know have firm encouragement that gives them the unfettered focus on the mission in front of them.
We learned of Melissa’s cancer together, me holding her hand in Dr. Winthrop Blankenship’s office at Walter Reed in Bethesda, staring at the opaque monochromatic mammograms with the visible lumps that had appeared out of nowhere so suddenly. Dr. Blankenship was a civilian cancer expert who had invested much of his career at the National Cancer Institute. He had been newly assigned to executive patients at Walter Reed, and we were hopeful that he would have new ideas and treatments to prolong our time together on earth. I stared at his impassive face, rectangular wire-rimmed glasses, slicked gray hair, and protruding jaw. He looked aristocratic, his Harvard medical degree hanging on the wall behind him.
Melissa was typically stoic when Dr. Blankenship said, “Malignant.” Her hand squeezed mine, and I felt fear like never before. When I’ve wrestled Al Qaeda terrorists in knife fights, I didn’t feel a whiff of the dread that washed over me when Dr. Blankenship began speaking. I realized that Melissa’s hand squeeze was not her flinching—she never did—it was a reassurance to me that I would be okay. As strong as I appeared to all the men and women in my command, our allies with whom I coordinated, and to our nation’s enemies, I realized at that moment the source of my strength was Melissa’s wellspring of love and determination. Ever since that first day in our church, she swept me into her magical world of home and family, knowing that I would be an utterly lost mercenary without her grounding.
“No!” I shouted at Dr. Blankenship, who undoubtedly had heard it before. He handled my fear and rage like a consummate professional by nodding warmly, but I persisted. “There’s got to be a mistake.”
They just stared at me, waiting for me to realize that there was no error, that the doctor would never make such a diagnosis without triple confirming the data. On the ride home, Melissa said, “It will all be okay. I’ll do the treatment, and we will figure it out from there. We will discuss it with Reagan and Brad and make arrangements going forward.”
She continued to lay out a methodical plan for our family to handle her treatments and the disruption that they would cause to the rhythm of life that she had created for us.
“Reagan knows enough that she can work with family readiness groups … Brad can take a lighter load if necessary at Chapel Hill … You’ve got a deployment coming up, so we need to make sure you’re set for that … Your mother will want to help…”
In typical fashion, she discussed everyone but herself. She was selflessly mapping out the legacy she had created: her family. More than anything, she wanted her family to not only survive but to thrive. Minimal disruption. Like a magician, she was able to leave her incredible power and force behind in her wake with no visible effort apparent to the casual observer, though as her husband, I saw the strain reflected in her weakened eyes, the crow’s-feet diametrically making her more beautiful yet showing the weight she carried for all of us. Now her presence was tangible to me every day. Perhaps it was the harrowing guilt that I carried, but I was so fortunate to have her present in my dreams.
Melissa died the way she’d lived, gracefully and with dignity. My children, Brad and Reagan, were by her side, loving and comforting her.
And I had been merely on the way.
The plane droned on, the four Pratt & Whitney engines moaning softly, lulling me back to sleep. Melissa’s face floated in my mind as I drifted. I recalled the letter waiting for me, penned by her weak hand as she lay dying and I was fresh off the al-Baghdadi kill.
My dearest Garrett,
Time seems to be spinning faster, and I’m afraid I won’t see you again before I slip away, as you paratroopers like to say. I’ve loved you madly since that day you pretended to have a shot at Harvard. You’re the knight in shining armor that every young woman hopes one day will arrive; I’m glad you were mine. No, you didn’t save me, and I didn’t save you, but we lived life as life is intended to be lived. My prayers are with you and Joe and Randy and Sally as you make our world safer. My sadness related to missing you now is replaced by years of happiness having you by my side. We produced two wonderful children with Brad and Rea. Continue to guide them as we’ve done. I’ll no doubt be reaching down and reminding you to not give Brad a hard time about his music and to support Rea in her efforts to—in her own way—follow in your footsteps. Continue to be kind, gentle, and firm.
Always seek. Be Brave. Be True.
Yours forever, Lissa
P.S. Steadfast and Loyal ;)
I had memorized every word of her deathbed letter, its strength and directness affirming our selection of one another as life partners. The last sentence about seeking, bravery, and truth was an uncharacteristic note, but I attributed that to the fact that death’s door was opening slowly, confronting her. Brave and True was the motto of the West Point class that graduated a year prior to us. Ours, Steadfast and Loyal, was how Melissa and I often ended our letters. I assumed that given her friendships with several members of the preceding class, including Jim and Donna Tharp, that they had visited and as her mind was winding down, she mentioned both mottos.
Melissa’s face appeared in my beta sleep state of mind. “Naomi, Demon Rain, and True Bravery,” she whispered in my hallucination. The words scattered to the back of my mind, but her image hovered vividly. Her lips pursed and moved softly, her gentle smile pushed up her cheeks, and her eyes glistened, reminding me how her death had so entirely crushed my spirit that it was nearly impossible to move forward.