A screen shot of the woman’s face would’ve done a movie director no good. To an outsider her face alone would tell a lie, itself a contradiction. Her eyes were wide and her mouth showed a smile-at first glance anyways.

She wore a black tea length dress and had two men on either side of her, one tall with his military best pressed and shined, the other a shorter man wearing a black suit. She painfully moved her legs as she made her way towards the luggage opening of the commercial Southwest flight but there was no weight in her feet. Instead, the men on either side of her carried her under her arms, an attempt to demonstrate the strength she didn’t have at this moment.

I’m sure if she had any desire to take in her surroundings she would’ve seen my oval face starring though the tiny oval window at her and her family, but at this moment nothing else mattered but what had just been flown home to her.

I didn’t notice the man in the first row of the plane dressed in his military best as I walked down the isle searching for a remaining window seat. Watching him gather his things and exit the plane I couldn’t help but wonder what his relationship was with the man below. He was so poised. He must have done this before.

I watched as the rest of the family, dressed in all black, awkwardly equipped with airport ear plugs, walked together towards the luggage belt that airport personnel had driven to the opened luggage door. Hands together, sunglasses on, handkerchiefs and airport provided tissue clutched tight. Seven other military men dropped their saluted hands and marched towards the plane, one to the side clutching a trumpet, the other six forming two lines of three on either side of the belt to meet their fellow fallen soldier.

I watched as another woman walked away from her family, grief and tears taking over, and crouched down, unable to hold herself up anymore. Two women in their airport uniforms rushed to either side of her, offered her tissues and helped her back to her family. I watched as the military men stayed stone faced. I watched their faces scrunch in sadness and their mouths open in cries as they first saw the flag wrapped coffin for the first time inside the pit of the plane. I watched as his mother dropped uncontrollably and his father and military officer try to pull her upright and carry her back to their dark green Dodge Caravan marked with the orange “FUNERAL” stickers on the front and side windows. I waited as I heard and felt metal and steel moving beneath me until at last U.S. flag wrapped coffin rode slowly down the black belt that so often carries bags carelessly.

The trumpet played its song, the family cried out in grief and said their goodbyes, and the military men said shouted out in respect and remembrance…but I didn’t hear anything. This scene I’ve seen so many times on television was kept un-narrated, save for the steady sniffles from the seat behind me, comforting me in the understood shared sadness of the situation we happened to have a front row seat to. There was no anchor person providing a back story and no string-filled music indicating a sad ending. Instead, there was an incredibly thick oval shaped window framing this scene with a plane of 150 silent people.