On what would have been my 56th wedding anniversary, a deliveryman brought me exactly 56 yellow roses.<\/p>\n
Hidden among them was one ugly, faded paper rose.<\/p>\n
Near the stem was a single letter:<\/p>\n
J.<\/strong><\/p>\n James.<\/p>\n My husband had disappeared during military service in 1970 and was eventually declared dead.<\/p>\n Then I found a card inside the bouquet.<\/p>\n \u201cAdrian lied to you. Bring the roses and your yellow dress to the old station at 11:00.\u201d<\/p>\n Adrian had been James\u2019s closest friend.<\/p>\n For one impossible moment, I thought James might still be alive.<\/p>\n At the station, Adrian was waiting with James\u2019s old military duffel.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is he?\u201d I demanded.<\/p>\n Adrian lowered his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n Then he confessed.<\/p>\n James hadn\u2019t died instantly in the attack as I\u2019d been told.<\/p>\n He and Adrian had been captured.<\/p>\n James survived for several weeks.<\/p>\n During that time, he folded the crooked paper rose for me.<\/p>\n Before dying, James first asked Adrian to spare me the painful details.<\/p>\n But near the end, he changed his mind.<\/p>\n \u201cTell her I was here,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n Then: \u201cTell her everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Adrian never did.<\/p>\n For 56 years, shame kept him silent.<\/p>\n Worse, he eventually discovered where James was buried and still said nothing.<\/p>\n That day, he finally took me there.<\/p>\n I left all 56 fresh roses on James\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n But I brought the crooked paper one home.<\/p>\n It was 56 years late.<\/p>\n But it had finally reached me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On what would have been my 56th wedding anniversary, a deliveryman brought me exactly 56 yellow roses. Hidden among them was one ugly, faded paper rose. Near the stem was a single letter: J. James. My husband had disappeared during military service in 1970 and was eventually declared dead. Then I found a card inside …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9642,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9640\/revisions\/9642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}