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thedrifter
12-30-06, 07:38 PM
Family of slain Marine trying to cope with loss
An AP Member Exchange Feature By ANDREA DOMASKIN The Forum
The Associated Press - Friday, December 29, 2006

FARGO, N.D.

Leandra Opskar has used her husband Bryan's cell phone for the past year and a half. His voice greets callers, "You've reached Sergeant Opskar, I'm not available. Call me later, bye."
Bryan's family likes to hear it, says Leandra, a bubbly special education teacher at Fargo's Longfellow Elementary School. She suspects Bryan's fellow Marines call sometimes, too, based on the unfamiliar numbers that pop up.

Sgt. Bryan Opskar died July 23, 2005, in Iraq. The 32-year-old Marine was killed when a roadside bomb exploded while he was on patrol. He and Leandra had married seven months earlier.

She carried his cell phone until it snapped in half as she was preparing to coach a recent cheerleading practice at Fargo North High School. She later replaced the phone but kept Bryan's message.

"I guess he's saying, 'Ditch the phone, Sweetie,'" Leandra said, holding the phone parts in her hand.

Near her were two bags filled with holiday gifts for her cheerleaders. One bag is made from an old camouflage uniform of Bryan's. His shirt pockets are now her purse pockets.

Leandra and Bryan were married Dec. 31, 2004. They met 12 years earlier, when she was a college student and he was a hockey player in Fargo.

After the wedding, Leandra taught through the end of the school year. She was preparing to move to North Carolina when Bryan died.

She stayed with her family in Montana and Minnesota and with Bryan's family. She went to New Zealand, where she once lived and taught.

Leandra built a small cabin in Bryan's honor about 90 miles from Kalispell, Mont., and spent the anniversary of his death there. Her family and a fellow Marine or two helped.

"Bryan's put me in places where I needed to be when I needed to be there," Leandra said. "He hasn't let me go, and I'm so honored."

When Bryan's company returned to North Carolina from Iraq in fall 2005, Leandra was there, watching families and spouses greet their Marines.

"I just kind of stood there and absorbed it all, knowing he wasn't coming off the bus," she said.

During the holidays last year, she went with Bryan's family to his grave, where they set candles and a small tree.

Leandra placed an ornament with the words, "To my soul mate, always and forever," and their wedding date.

Later, family members discovered they forgot to blow out the candles.

"We just laughed so hard," Leandra said. "Bryan was probably like, 'You dorks.' "

Betty Opskar didn't decorate her house the first Christmas without her son.

"He was killed in July and then December came, and it just wasn't something that I felt like I had the energy to do," she said.

During the first year after Bryan's death, Betty and Erling moved from their house in Princeton, Minn., where Bryan grew up, to their lake place near Pelican Rapids, Minn.

The Opskars established a scholarship in his name at Princeton High School. They also gave phone cards to graduates who were entering the military.

The couple, along with their younger son, Chris, his wife, Rebecca, and Leandra and her parents and brother, attended a memorial service in late October 2005 at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

They met Marines from Bryan's company, including those who were with him when he died.

"It was still very hard for them to talk about it," Erling Opskar said.

Leandra said she found healing from the service.

She said she tried to be the best daughter-in-law and the best family member she could be after Bryan died.

"I dealt with it by trying to fix it, and this is something that can't be fixed," she said. "I think when I realized that, that's when I sort of had my bout with depression or whatever. Really, I just took quiet moments and sat with it. I sat with the sorrow, I sat with the fear."

Now, she's in the angry stage of grief, but she's trying to move forward.

"I miss him with every breath, but it's not worth sitting in that sorrow for too long, and he wouldn't have wanted me to," she said. "I'm hoping that I'm honoring him by getting back to work and joining the living."

Betty Opskar decorated for Christmas this year.

"Time passes and things change, and you do move on," she said. "But there's still always that hole in your heart."

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Information from: The Forum, www.in-forum.com

Ellie