This is a link to a story that NPR broadcast this morning about the Section 60 mothers: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91737118#share

I have talked to some of these women and e-mailed many more and I am on the e-mail list that sent the message around when NPR expressed interest in doing this story. My son is not buried in Arlington Cemetery's Section 60 at his own request: he wanted to be closer to home and to us if it came to this, but it leaves me feeling very alone sometimes. There are days when I wish he was at Arlington, if nothing else, to give us a firm identity in the national conversation. Other days I am grateful that his grave is only 15 minutes away, close to all of us.

And then there are the days like today when I wonder just how all of this came to be.

The Section 60 mothers did talk about the friendships they have formed this way and yes it is a horrible way to meet people, but the friendships are a blessing our sons gave us when they could no longer give us anything else. I am so grateful for the women who have become my friends in the time since Thomas died: Laurie and Linda and Elsie and all of the others (I ask permission to use their names here), women who are all very different from each other and from me except for this one overriding fact of having lost our sons in war.

Time to dry the tears for today, and move on.