American Wife (26 page)

I feel compelled to tell you that I am not a fan of people romanticizing their loved ones in death. I don't need to romanticize Chris, because our reality is messy, passionate, full of every extreme emotion known to man, including fear, compassion, anger, pain, laughing so hard we doubled over and hugged it out, laughing when we were irritated with each other and laughing when we were so in love it felt like someone hung the moon for only us . . .

I looked at the kids as I neared the end, talking to them and only them.

Tears ran from their faces. Bubba's head hung down. It broke my heart.

I kept reading.

Then I was done.

AT THE CEMETERY

The burial was scheduled for the next day in Austin. Dallas to Austin is close to two hundred miles, a several-hour trip even when there's no traffic and the weather is good.

We had a police escort, so traffic wasn't a problem. The weather, on the other hand, didn't want to cooperate—I woke to a light but persistent rain.

Appropriate for a burial, maybe.

I got the kids dressed, got ready myself, and went over to the school where everyone was to meet the hearse for the trip south.

The Patriot Guard Riders—a volunteer organization of motorcycle enthusiasts formed to “ensure dignity and respect” at memorial services—were there, along with a massive bus for friends and family. There were also dozens of private cars, friends waiting to drive in the long, improvised parade to the cemetery.

There was only room for one person to ride in the hearse, so I went alone with Chris. Road trips were kind of our thing. We did a lot of them. Here was one more, our last.

A helicopter passed overhead. I noticed one of the men sitting at the side in overwatch position, his own silent tribute.

I reached my hand up in thanks. I knew they wouldn't see me, but somehow I felt my gratitude would be communicated.

The crowds were tremendous despite the drizzle. They lined the highway in clumps of hundreds, holding signs, waving flags.

“Chris,” I said. “Look at what they're doing for you. Look.”

I don't think it was all just for Chris, not that I don't think he deserved it. The gratitude people expressed as they shook his hand during book tours and at appearances hadn't been solely for him either. Then they were thanking all servicemen and -women through him. They were doing the same this morning. Their patriotism was a message to all who served:

Thank you for your service. We truly appreciate it.

We got to the cemetery around noon. Over two hundred Patriot Guard Riders were lined up at the entrance, waiting with their flags.

All through the memorial and the burial ceremonies, I kept trying to focus on what was going on around me. I wanted to make my eyes into a camera, recording, remembering. I didn't want my emotions to interfere with my appreciation of the honor that was being done for my husband.

That was the one thing I allowed myself to feel—admiration for the honors being bestowed on him. Other, darker emotions tried to elbow in. I fought against them.

One by one, Chris's fellow SEALs walked to the casket and pounded their Tridents into the cover, a tribute to their brother. Before they were done, the casket glittered in the sun, which had just peeked through the clouds.

When the last man had put his badge in, the SEALs gathered in a circle on one knee. With heads bowed, they called his name, one last time. Twenty-one guns fired, their echo sad in the stillness. A flight of F-16s crossed overhead.

Gone.

I was handed the folded flag. Twenty-one bullet casings were included in the folds, commemorating the twenty-one-gun salute that had seen him off.

I gave it to Angel.

“Momma, what does the Trident mean?” she asked.

I turned to Walt, one of the SEALs who had been close to Chris and had been a comfort to us since his death. “I think Walt would be the best person to explain that.”

He got down on his knees and pointed out the different elements of the SEAL symbol. When he was done, Angel reached into the flag and pulled out a bullet casing.

“Is this the bullet that killed my daddy?” she asked.

Walt winced. “No, honey. That bullet's in heaven.”

With the ceremony over, people began drifting away. I went to the casket with the kids. I had them touch the wood to say good-bye.

Standing didn't seem right. I knelt.

Good-bye.

Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.

F
uneral over, Chris buried, friends gone back to their own lives . . . the kids and I struggled to find our way. The world around us was familiar, yet completely foreign. Their dad's laugh was gone; my bed was cold.

The old rituals—prayers at night, dinner together, cuddling on the couch—were still there, but they were all different. We felt Chris's presence every day, but we felt his absence more acutely.

SHOWER ONCE A WEEK

Personal hygiene takes a hit when you're struggling to get through the week. My goal after Chris died was to take a shower every five days. No makeup, my hair in a bun—I was a mess, and knew it.

It used to be that before I would walk out of the house, I'd at least dab on a bit of lipstick and fix my hair—or hide it under a baseball cap. Now I gave that up. And no one cared. Or at least they didn't say it.

There's a lesson in that, though I didn't realize it at the time. I have come to realize friends don't judge you based on your lipstick or makeup—or if they do, they're not really your friends. It's a simplistic thing to say, yet for many women I'm sure it's a profound revelation. We're raised so much to care for our “looks” that we have a hard time believing the exterior is really secondary to the interior.

I kept my tears in check as much as possible. I didn't let myself cry, for fear that I wouldn't be able to stop.

Jeff and his wife had had a baby just before Chris died. Shortly after the funeral, it was time for her baptism.

As Christians, we believe in baptizing children into our faith. It's a joyous occasion, a time of celebration—but I didn't feel much like celebrating. Standing in the pew, I felt the tears starting to come. A flood had built up behind the lids of my eyes; there were enough tears to keep Texas green for a full year.

I felt them starting to trickle out. My face began to twitch, the rest of me tremble. I fought to keep control—if I let go, if I let myself go, I would lose everything.

My throat choked closed. I could feel the dry heaves starting deep in the pit of my stomach.

Chris! Chris!

If only he'd been here. If only he were alive.

How can I go on without you?

I clenched my fist.

No. I am not going to lose it.

I closed my eyes, held my tears back, and somehow made it through the ceremony.

There was work to be done. A lot of it.

Chris had been in the middle of several important projects when he died. One was the movie based on his life, and another the new book. Had he lived, Chris would have acted as a consultant, filling in the screenwriter and others on specific details to make the movie more realistic. At the same time, his death changed the direction of the movie—it seemed obvious that they had to deal with it in some way.

Would there be a movie at all? Hollywood being Hollywood, movies were shelved for far less important reasons than the death of their subject. But Bradley Cooper quickly made it clear that he wanted to proceed, sending a personal message through the screenwriter, Jason Hall.

Coincidentally, Jason had finished the first draft of the script the day before Chris died. Shaken by Chris's murder, he flew out from Los Angeles to attend the memorial. We formed a bond almost immediately. We started talking regularly by phone as he reimagined the ending of the film and restructured the rest as well. The calls soon became a lifeline for me, a way to talk about Chris and what I was going through; I'm sure Jason helped me far more than I helped him.

An even more immediate problem was
American Gun,
which was already behind schedule when Chris died. The manuscript was far from finished and needed considerable work. I felt a real duty to him to get it right, even though there was next to no time to do that.

Fortunately, Jim DeFelice, who hadn't been involved in the project, agreed to help revise and pull it together. We were able to do a job I'm sure Chris would have been very proud of. Jim leaned on a lot of friends, both his and Chris's, for anecdotes and stories to round out the tales, and I'm extremely grateful for all their help.

Plans to create a memorial edition of
American Sniper
—a project of love for all concerned, myself included—took additional time and attention. There was also the question of Chris's charitable efforts, which I didn't want to stop just because he had passed away.

Then there were the “normal” widow or widower duties: sorting out the estate, getting finances in order, untangling the bureaucratic knots a sudden death can cause. And of course I had to do my real job as well: taking care of the kids.

I threw myself into everything, often going until three in the morning. Then I'd get up at five to be with the kids.

The kids missed a lot of school at first; there was just no way that they could slide back into the routine of classes, especially given the (indirect) connection between the school and what had happened to their dad. Accused killer Eddie Routh's mother, who'd asked Chris to get involved, still worked there.

We tried home schooling at first. I thought having them home would mean less pressure for them. I didn't have the time myself, but my mother was with us and she volunteered to try.

Mom was a good teacher, but we soon realized there was a problem. Bubba verbalized it best: there was a conflict between the roles of grandmother and teacher. Teachers have to stay focused and lower the boom when necessary. Grandmothers, on the other hand—well, that's not their job.

“I want to have fun with my grandmother,” he said. “It's just confusing.”

Uneasy about sending them back to the school where Routh's mother had worked, I spoke to a good friend who was a principal at a different school in our district about the possibility of having them transfer there. With her blessing, I went to the superintendent and talked to him about the transfer. He made it very easy for us.

Angel spent another week taking lessons at home before starting at the school. I drove her in on her first day.

“Mamma, I feel like Daddy's with us in the car,” she told me. “He never missed my first day.”

“You're right,” I told her. “I'm sure he is.”

Jesse Ventura announced that he was going to pursue his lawsuit, even though Chris was dead. So in effect I “inherited” a lawsuit.

Many witnesses supported Chris's account, and I was confident in the case. Still, it wasn't easy. And what was really galling were the slanderous attacks on Chris. (Since the law says you can't slander a dead man, it wasn't technically slander. People could say whatever hateful thing they wanted.)

Among the many things that baffled me was the claim that Chris had accused Jesse of “treason.” That was absolutely not true. Chris accused Jesse of expressing his opinion—an opinion that Chris didn't agree with, but one that was hardly treasonous.

It was just one more bit of nonsense in an ocean of craziness.

Before Chris passed away, I'd volunteered to coach Angel's soccer team in our local recreational league. It was a commitment I vowed to keep. I was determined to show those little girls how to succeed on the soccer “pitch,” as the field is sometimes called.

I may have gone a little overboard. I mean, how many six-year-old girls have the misfortune of being coached by the wife of a SEAL?

Day One:

“We start by running!” I shouted enthusiastically. “Everyone run around the park. Let's go.”

“The soccer field, Mrs. Kyle?” asked a player.

“No! The
entire
complex. Come on!”

I'm guessing it was maybe five or six times as far as they'd ever run before—or maybe ten or twenty—and a good deal farther than many teams with considerably older players ran. But the girls were good sports about it. We built endurance and worked on drills, and we had fun—you never knew when the coach might grab one of the players and twirl her around enthusiastically for doing a good job.

“I'm taking goal,” I'd say when shooting practice wasn't going well. “Anyone who can hurt me gets an extra piece of candy!”

I gave out a lot of candy that afternoon.

We were a young team and a little rough at first, but we got better as we went. It was fun to watch the transition many of the girls made over the length of the season—they not only got in better shape and learned to play soccer better, but they seemed more confident as well.