Palo's Memorial

So yesterday was very hard but at the same time I am so glad that I went. The start of the Remembrance was pretty standard and expected. Playing Taps and Amazing Grace was very sad, but I knew it was coming. Then at the end of the ceremony each family went up to pay their respects to the fallen (pictures on painters rack). When Palo's parents and brothers went up their I just lost it. His mother was visibly shaken but so strong at the same time. Each family member touched his picture and you could see them whisper "I love you man!". Then each family of the 7 fallen soldiers honored that day had a turn. Perhaps the worst was seeing the young mother and two children go up to the picture of their husband/father and the mother almost passing out from devistastion. Then as they walked away the two year old reached back towards the picture and just cried..."papa, papa". I think pretty much everyone attending lost it at that point, including the soldier participating in the ceremony.
After the ceremony we went to Cole Park Commons for the reception to meet the family. I wasn't sure what to say, I wanted to be very careful and not make this about me, like I have a tendancy to do. I don't think I ever said, "I'm sorry for your loss", it just seemed so fake or something. His brother Candido embraced me at our introduction and then I proceeded to share some stories with him about Palo when he was at our house. I presented his parents with the Memory Book I made. They really enjoyed the pictures, and when they came upon a picture of Palo lifting Wuest's shirt from the 4th of July, 2007 his mother just laughed and asked what was happening in that picture...I couldn't really tell her. It made us all laugh though. After she finished looking at the book she just hugged me and we cried together. I told her that she raised a wonderful man and that he was a good friend, she in turn said that he was a great son.
I explained to her brothers about his Beer Tour Card and they said, "we've been known to have a couple of beers here and there."
They wanted to know what Palo ordered at OCP, and I couldn't remember..I have to find out for them and let them know ASAP. We talked about how Palo would eat his food and then proceed to eat any of the leftover food that was at the table...another laugh getter. I told them how the first time I met Palo he spent the evening in the kids room playing and I was a little freaked out until I really got to know him and realized that he just really loved kids. I told him of the game he would play with Lexus, what's 2+2? she would say 4 and he would say no it's 22...and so on. How on Halloween he pushed Cameron's stroller so that I wouldn't have to. How Cameron and Zoe used to play superhero's "palo and wooty". I didn't tell them that Palo was my backup in case something happened to my husband or how he loved my famous PALO WINGS...named because they shared the same skin color.
His mother told us how when Palo was younger his brothers used to take him everywhere with them, because he helped them pick up girls...this was mostly his brother Omar, who apparantly is the playboy of the family.
Palo’s mom told the story of how he refused to get his picture taken in his Class A’s for her every time he came home on leave. He wouldn’t even wear/bring his ACU’s home with him. The one time that he did wear his ACU’s home they were late to pick him up from the airport…”HE WAS PISSED” she said. There was nothing he hated more than being called a HERO…
Finally on his last visit home on leave he brought home his class A’s and the first thing he did was lay them out in front of his mom and say, “there ya go mom!” They finally went out and got his pictures taken and he did get to see them hanging on her wall before he deployed. She made reference to the fact that she has run out of wall space to put all the pictures she has now.
When it was time to leave we said how nice it was to meet eachother, I said, Unfortunately it had to be under these circumstances his mother proceeded to tell me that everything happens for a reason and had this not happened to Palo, she never would have met any of the wonderful friends that he had here at Campbell.
I hope to be as strong as her in any situation I may come across in my future.

Thank You Palomarez family for sharing your son with us and how lucky you were Isaac to have such a wonderful family.