Duration: 16 hours
Population: 528,143
Nickname: Scenic City, Chattown, Nooga
Chattanooga was not on the list. I wish I didn't have to go. The word went out about a week before that the husband of a good friend passed away. I got a rental car and made the nine hour drive south from DC. I arrived at the seedy Econo Lodge around 10:00 pm. Familiar faces were there. We were used to seeing each other under better circumstances.
After the funeral, I winded out of a residential neighborhood up to an intersection. The traffic ahead of me was stopped. A fire truck blocked the intersection. Police cars and motorcycles slowly made their way through. It was the processional for another funeral, this one for David Wyatt, one of the Marines gunned down in the recent national tragedy.
I abandoned the car in a pharmacy parking lot and walked to the intersection. Marines, police, ambulances, bikers, friends and families all drove past. The road was lined with thousands sporting their American flags and handmade signs. No one really talking.
Whether it was for the Marine or the husband of my friend, it seemed the whole city was mourning. Every single one of them stopping to look back and remember, before painfully having to move on.
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