The Submarine Man

My dearest Rae,

I’m walking three feet above the deck since I got the news. A son! A little man to carry on the Jensen name! I read the dispatch four times — once out loud to the captain, who clapped me on the back and said, “Well, Hal, you’ve done your part for the war effort.” The crew has been giving me hell all day. “Hey, Pop!” they yell as I pass. “How’s the old man feeling?” I’m twenty-eight years old and I feel like I’ve just been given the whole world.

I keep trying to picture him. You said he has my hair? Poor kid. I hope he got your eyes. I hope he got your patience, your kindness, your way of looking at the world like it’s full of wonderful things. I was always too quick to see the dark side. You taught me how to look for light.

I’ve been sitting in the radio room staring at his name on the dispatch paper. Michael Hal Jensen. Mike. I keep saying it out loud. “Mike Jensen.” It sounds like a boy who will play catch in the yard. A boy who will scrape his knees and come running to his mother. A boy who will grow up and — what? What will he do with his life? What will this world look like when he’s my age? I hope it’s better than this one. I hope he never has to sit in the dark at the bottom of the ocean, wondering if tomorrow will come.

That dull ache of longing for you is so strong I can hardly stand it. It’s a physical thing — a weight in my chest, a tightness in my throat. I want to hold you. I want to smell your hair. I want to lie beside you and feel the warmth of your body and know that everything is all right. I have not felt that since I left San Diego. I do not know if I will feel it again until I am home.

But here is the funny thing: I am the happiest guy who ever lived. How can that be? I am thousands of miles from my wife, sitting in a metal tube in enemy waters, and I have never been happier. Because somewhere out there, in San Diego, a little boy with my name is breathing. He is eating and sleeping and crying and — I hope — being held by the most wonderful woman in the world. That boy is mine. That woman is mine. And nothing the Japanese can do will take that away from me.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Take care of my boy. Tell him about me. Tell him I loved him before I ever heard his cry. Tell him I sang to him on a submarine in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tell him I looked at the stars one night — the same stars he will look at when he is old enough — and I wished for him.

I’m coming home to meet you, Mike. Wait for me.

All my love, forever, Hal

P.S. — I’ve enclosed a silver dollar. Have it engraved with his name and the date. Tell him his father carried it through the war. Tell him to carry it through his life.