thedrifter
08-05-07, 08:18 AM
Article published Aug 5, 2007
Giving their all
For family of Merrimack Marine killed in Iraq, life moves forward with a huge piece missing
By Karen Lovett
Telegraph Staff
MERRIMACK – Sometimes, if she’s feeling up to it, she’ll go there.
To the wooden buffet in her dining room.
She will open its doors, maybe take out the flag. Unfold its stars and stripes. Brace herself for impact.
She will stretch the flag wide, see the messages scrawled in black marker. Messages straight from the hands and beating hearts of his fellow Marines.
Some time ago, though, she noticed that the ink had started to smudge, from all the furling and unfurling.
Alarmed that the words would smear into nothingness, she began to copy them down. Pages of white paper in neat, blue pen.
“Dear Gip, you were the greatest friend . . .”
“Dear Gip, how can I say how much I’ll miss you?”
“Dear Gip . . .”
As she wrote, recording these bereaved, unvarnished notes to her son, she wilted.
Elaine Gibson had to stop.For Gibson and her husband, Tom, that’s the way some days are.
Time freezes. The earth jerks out of orbit.
In a haze of pain, it becomes questionable whether the last 2½ years have been real. Whether their son, Timothy Mark Gibson – “Gip” – is really gone.
But the things in the wooden buffet confirm what is true.
There is a report, thick as a phone book, describing how the helicopter 23-year-old Cpl. Gibson was riding in crashed in a sandstorm, killing all aboard.
There is his notebook, which he carried as an infantryman in Iraq, jotted with mission notes, random phone numbers, reminders to meet friends.
There are more flags – one that was flown over Camp Fallujah, one given to the Gibsons at a Memorial Day service this year.
And there are pictures, including one of the Merrimack High School football team, long after Gibson’s quarterbacking days were over, their hands clasped in victory, Gibson’s green combat helmet thrust above them all.
These are pieces of the past, and yet, they are just material.
For the Gibsons, the real reminder is in their hearts. In confronting a hole that will never be filled.‘Wild and free’
Tim Gibson was 2 years old when he climbed over the fence at the family’s home and sprinted down the street.
Pregnant with her third son, Patrick, Elaine Gibson couldn’t chase after him. Instead, she sent her oldest, Tommy, after her mischievous, bleach-blonde middle child.
Tommy sat on his little brother until their mother arrived.
From the start, his father said, Tim “was wild and free.”
The kind of kid who loved a laugh, Gibson rigged the kitchen sink nozzle one April Fools’ Day so his mother was unexpectedly showered.
Gibson also cared about everyone. He stuck up for the underdog, being a bit of one himself. As Merrimack High School’s quarterback in the fall of 1999, his senior year, Gibson was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds – a scrambler.
“He was always fast,” Tom Gibson said. “No one could catch him.”
In the spring of 2001, Tim Gibson told his parents he was joining the Marines. They were tense about the choice but had been through it before; their youngest son, Patrick, was also a Marine.
When the Gibsons realized Tim was also serious about the military, they supported him.
Three years later, word spread that Tim Gibson’s unit might be going to Iraq.
He came home to Merrimack on leave.
His mother knew something was up.
Her son lingered around the house with family. Made a point to see old friends. Dropped in at the pizza joint where he worked in high school.
“At the time,” Elaine Gibson said, “I thought, ‘He’s saying goodbye.’ ”Eyes on Iraq
By fall 2004, the Gibsons had settled into a restless routine.
They watched the news with rapt attention.
Any troublesome word from Fallujah, Iraq, where their son was stationed, ignited fear.
“If it was yours, you’d know in 24 hours,” Elaine Gibson said of the time it takes the military to report casualties. “If not, you got a breath of relief. But then you’d wait for the next 24 hours.”
One day, at her office, a co-worker announced to Elaine that a gentleman was waiting for her.
She jerked to attention.
“Is he wearing a uniform?”
No.
No, it was just her father, coming to pick her up.
The Gibsons heard from their son through letters and in middle-of-the-night phone calls.
On Jan. 23, 2005, he rang.
While speaking to his father, the two got disconnected.
But Tim called back, left a message.
The Gibsons still have it recorded, their son’s last words to them.
He apologizes for the break-up. Tells him he’ll talk to them later.
Says he loves them.Trading farewells
Gibson and Jake Ziliani became fast friends in the Marines. They both tried college. Liked sports. Wanted, eventually, to be police officers.
And they both wanted to serve their country.
In Fallujah, their company went house to house, taking out insurgents.
Gibson, Ziliani said, always volunteered for the dangerous “point man” position, or, the first guy in the door.
“He never wanted anyone else to suffer,” Ziliani said.
At the time, Fallujah was an embattled city. Charlie Company alone suffered 13 wounded and nine losses.
Whenever groups left on missions, they said their goodbyes, just in case.
On Jan. 26, 2005, with just over a week left in their tour, the company prepared to provide security for Iraq’s first free elections.
As always, Gibson and Ziliani traded farewells.
From Al Taqaddum airbase, they boarded separate choppers at 12:16 a.m.
An hour later, the one carrying Gibson and 30 others got trapped in a sandstorm.
The emergency sirens blared.
Three seconds later, they were down.Hearing the news
Some 5,700 miles to the east, Elaine Gibson pulled home from work.
Her brother was shoveling snow. She decided to help.
Soon, headlights cut through the shadowy evening.
She marveled at how the snow must have held up the mailman.
Then she saw a flash of white. A shiny black shoe emerged, plunking itself right into the slush.
Her eyes scanned the shoe, traveled up a long leg to a set of broad, uniformed shoulders. The whole picture became suddenly clear.
This was a Marine.
She knew then that Tim was not coming home.
A second Marine emerged from the car.
She led them to her front door.
Inside, they tried to get her to sit down. She did not want to.
“Ma’am . . .” one began.
And that’s where the details end.
They told her about Tim. The helicopter. The sandstorm.
She called her husband, Tom, who was at a dinner meeting down the street.
“I need you to come home,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I need you to come home,” she said. “The Marines are here.”
He paused.
“Is Timmy dead?”
She confirmed.
Tom Gibson vaguely remembers screaming, then running. He met two friends in the parking lot. They helped him home.
The Gibsons called their son Tom. His instructions were simple: Get an airline ticket. Bring a suit.
Then they called Patrick.
Elaine Gibson recalls how all three men reacted the same way: like someone punched them in the stomach. Like they had no air left to breathe.Show of sympathy
Family and friends poured into their home. Dozens of strangers sent sympathy cards. People overflowed the funeral home and the church. Other soldiers’ families reached out. The press called for interviews. Dignitaries called to offer condolences.
The Gibsons opened their home to it all, in part, Elaine said, because she didn’t want her son to be forgotten.
On the other hand, every event, every card, every call was a reminder that Tim was gone.
Tom Gibson could not talk about the tolls he paid immediately after losing a son. Too hard.
For the days and weeks after her son died, Elaine Gibson’s energy was sapped. She adjusted her working hours, let slide the cooking and cleaning, lost her desire to read and to sing.
On sleepless nights, she would wander the house. Look at photos. Stand on the porch and stare at the stars.
She compares it to a country song. It goes, “grief is like a heavy coat, and sometimes sunny days are the worst.”
She’d talk to her husband about her emptiness; he’d be helped in hearing it aloud.
Reluctantly, they stumbled into a new identity: “Parents of the soldier who died.”
In a quiet moment, Elaine tells Tom that early on, people ducked out of her sight in the grocery store, not knowing what to say to the fallen soldier’s mother.A light in the darkness
In the back corner of Last Rest Cemetery in Merrimack, Timothy Gibson’s grave is decorated in trinkets left by family, friends, strangers.
There is a baseball. A coach’s whistle. A laminated letter. A patriotic pinwheel. A weather-worn, military cap.
On July 24, more presents appeared for what would have been Gibson’s 26th birthday.
Someone has left a trio of cactus plants, others bundles of flowers and tiny metallic balloons.
The Gibsons, too, have come bearing gifts for a bittersweet day.
His mother brings a card.
It shows a boy, thrust into a macho pose, wearing sunglasses, galoshes and a towel for a cape. Inside, it says, “Have you been fun to love, or what?”
She has wrapped it in a plastic baggie, for protection.
His father brings a candle. Simple, slender and white.
He slides it into an enclosed fixture.
It will burn for hours and hours, so when the Gibsons pass at dusk, they can see: that there in the dark, there is light.
Ellie
Giving their all
For family of Merrimack Marine killed in Iraq, life moves forward with a huge piece missing
By Karen Lovett
Telegraph Staff
MERRIMACK – Sometimes, if she’s feeling up to it, she’ll go there.
To the wooden buffet in her dining room.
She will open its doors, maybe take out the flag. Unfold its stars and stripes. Brace herself for impact.
She will stretch the flag wide, see the messages scrawled in black marker. Messages straight from the hands and beating hearts of his fellow Marines.
Some time ago, though, she noticed that the ink had started to smudge, from all the furling and unfurling.
Alarmed that the words would smear into nothingness, she began to copy them down. Pages of white paper in neat, blue pen.
“Dear Gip, you were the greatest friend . . .”
“Dear Gip, how can I say how much I’ll miss you?”
“Dear Gip . . .”
As she wrote, recording these bereaved, unvarnished notes to her son, she wilted.
Elaine Gibson had to stop.For Gibson and her husband, Tom, that’s the way some days are.
Time freezes. The earth jerks out of orbit.
In a haze of pain, it becomes questionable whether the last 2½ years have been real. Whether their son, Timothy Mark Gibson – “Gip” – is really gone.
But the things in the wooden buffet confirm what is true.
There is a report, thick as a phone book, describing how the helicopter 23-year-old Cpl. Gibson was riding in crashed in a sandstorm, killing all aboard.
There is his notebook, which he carried as an infantryman in Iraq, jotted with mission notes, random phone numbers, reminders to meet friends.
There are more flags – one that was flown over Camp Fallujah, one given to the Gibsons at a Memorial Day service this year.
And there are pictures, including one of the Merrimack High School football team, long after Gibson’s quarterbacking days were over, their hands clasped in victory, Gibson’s green combat helmet thrust above them all.
These are pieces of the past, and yet, they are just material.
For the Gibsons, the real reminder is in their hearts. In confronting a hole that will never be filled.‘Wild and free’
Tim Gibson was 2 years old when he climbed over the fence at the family’s home and sprinted down the street.
Pregnant with her third son, Patrick, Elaine Gibson couldn’t chase after him. Instead, she sent her oldest, Tommy, after her mischievous, bleach-blonde middle child.
Tommy sat on his little brother until their mother arrived.
From the start, his father said, Tim “was wild and free.”
The kind of kid who loved a laugh, Gibson rigged the kitchen sink nozzle one April Fools’ Day so his mother was unexpectedly showered.
Gibson also cared about everyone. He stuck up for the underdog, being a bit of one himself. As Merrimack High School’s quarterback in the fall of 1999, his senior year, Gibson was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds – a scrambler.
“He was always fast,” Tom Gibson said. “No one could catch him.”
In the spring of 2001, Tim Gibson told his parents he was joining the Marines. They were tense about the choice but had been through it before; their youngest son, Patrick, was also a Marine.
When the Gibsons realized Tim was also serious about the military, they supported him.
Three years later, word spread that Tim Gibson’s unit might be going to Iraq.
He came home to Merrimack on leave.
His mother knew something was up.
Her son lingered around the house with family. Made a point to see old friends. Dropped in at the pizza joint where he worked in high school.
“At the time,” Elaine Gibson said, “I thought, ‘He’s saying goodbye.’ ”Eyes on Iraq
By fall 2004, the Gibsons had settled into a restless routine.
They watched the news with rapt attention.
Any troublesome word from Fallujah, Iraq, where their son was stationed, ignited fear.
“If it was yours, you’d know in 24 hours,” Elaine Gibson said of the time it takes the military to report casualties. “If not, you got a breath of relief. But then you’d wait for the next 24 hours.”
One day, at her office, a co-worker announced to Elaine that a gentleman was waiting for her.
She jerked to attention.
“Is he wearing a uniform?”
No.
No, it was just her father, coming to pick her up.
The Gibsons heard from their son through letters and in middle-of-the-night phone calls.
On Jan. 23, 2005, he rang.
While speaking to his father, the two got disconnected.
But Tim called back, left a message.
The Gibsons still have it recorded, their son’s last words to them.
He apologizes for the break-up. Tells him he’ll talk to them later.
Says he loves them.Trading farewells
Gibson and Jake Ziliani became fast friends in the Marines. They both tried college. Liked sports. Wanted, eventually, to be police officers.
And they both wanted to serve their country.
In Fallujah, their company went house to house, taking out insurgents.
Gibson, Ziliani said, always volunteered for the dangerous “point man” position, or, the first guy in the door.
“He never wanted anyone else to suffer,” Ziliani said.
At the time, Fallujah was an embattled city. Charlie Company alone suffered 13 wounded and nine losses.
Whenever groups left on missions, they said their goodbyes, just in case.
On Jan. 26, 2005, with just over a week left in their tour, the company prepared to provide security for Iraq’s first free elections.
As always, Gibson and Ziliani traded farewells.
From Al Taqaddum airbase, they boarded separate choppers at 12:16 a.m.
An hour later, the one carrying Gibson and 30 others got trapped in a sandstorm.
The emergency sirens blared.
Three seconds later, they were down.Hearing the news
Some 5,700 miles to the east, Elaine Gibson pulled home from work.
Her brother was shoveling snow. She decided to help.
Soon, headlights cut through the shadowy evening.
She marveled at how the snow must have held up the mailman.
Then she saw a flash of white. A shiny black shoe emerged, plunking itself right into the slush.
Her eyes scanned the shoe, traveled up a long leg to a set of broad, uniformed shoulders. The whole picture became suddenly clear.
This was a Marine.
She knew then that Tim was not coming home.
A second Marine emerged from the car.
She led them to her front door.
Inside, they tried to get her to sit down. She did not want to.
“Ma’am . . .” one began.
And that’s where the details end.
They told her about Tim. The helicopter. The sandstorm.
She called her husband, Tom, who was at a dinner meeting down the street.
“I need you to come home,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I need you to come home,” she said. “The Marines are here.”
He paused.
“Is Timmy dead?”
She confirmed.
Tom Gibson vaguely remembers screaming, then running. He met two friends in the parking lot. They helped him home.
The Gibsons called their son Tom. His instructions were simple: Get an airline ticket. Bring a suit.
Then they called Patrick.
Elaine Gibson recalls how all three men reacted the same way: like someone punched them in the stomach. Like they had no air left to breathe.Show of sympathy
Family and friends poured into their home. Dozens of strangers sent sympathy cards. People overflowed the funeral home and the church. Other soldiers’ families reached out. The press called for interviews. Dignitaries called to offer condolences.
The Gibsons opened their home to it all, in part, Elaine said, because she didn’t want her son to be forgotten.
On the other hand, every event, every card, every call was a reminder that Tim was gone.
Tom Gibson could not talk about the tolls he paid immediately after losing a son. Too hard.
For the days and weeks after her son died, Elaine Gibson’s energy was sapped. She adjusted her working hours, let slide the cooking and cleaning, lost her desire to read and to sing.
On sleepless nights, she would wander the house. Look at photos. Stand on the porch and stare at the stars.
She compares it to a country song. It goes, “grief is like a heavy coat, and sometimes sunny days are the worst.”
She’d talk to her husband about her emptiness; he’d be helped in hearing it aloud.
Reluctantly, they stumbled into a new identity: “Parents of the soldier who died.”
In a quiet moment, Elaine tells Tom that early on, people ducked out of her sight in the grocery store, not knowing what to say to the fallen soldier’s mother.A light in the darkness
In the back corner of Last Rest Cemetery in Merrimack, Timothy Gibson’s grave is decorated in trinkets left by family, friends, strangers.
There is a baseball. A coach’s whistle. A laminated letter. A patriotic pinwheel. A weather-worn, military cap.
On July 24, more presents appeared for what would have been Gibson’s 26th birthday.
Someone has left a trio of cactus plants, others bundles of flowers and tiny metallic balloons.
The Gibsons, too, have come bearing gifts for a bittersweet day.
His mother brings a card.
It shows a boy, thrust into a macho pose, wearing sunglasses, galoshes and a towel for a cape. Inside, it says, “Have you been fun to love, or what?”
She has wrapped it in a plastic baggie, for protection.
His father brings a candle. Simple, slender and white.
He slides it into an enclosed fixture.
It will burn for hours and hours, so when the Gibsons pass at dusk, they can see: that there in the dark, there is light.
Ellie