Frances Richey: More than a Woman
As soon as the event began, I knew Frances Richey wasn’t like any other poet in the world. From the moment I saw her, a smile covered her face from ear to ear. Richey began by introducing herself. Even though she is also a yoga teacher, her true passion and talent is writing poetry. For some reason, when she began to explain how her son, Ben, was involved with the military and the War in Iraq I felt a connection. I always had a great deal of admiration for those who fight for American freedom overseas. I also have respect for the parents of these young men and women fighting for us. Richey went on to tell us that Ben graduated from West Point and eventually became a Green Beret. Richey even compares her son to a warrior of the Aztec Empire. She was never entirely comfortable with Ben’s life choice, but supported him with all her heart, exactly the way a great mother should. I can especially relate to this because my mother is the same way. She loves me to death and will support me no matter what I decide to do. That kind of love is unconditional and will always be there. The love she showed for her son reminded me of my mother.
I found it especially interesting that Richey used her poems in her book “The Warrior” to talk to her son about his decision to go into the military. Even though she couldn’t talk to him in person she still found a way to convey a message to him. Personally, I don’t know how I would feel if my son or daughter joined the military. I wouldn’t want them to because of the obvious risk of harm or even death, but I would respect their decision. One thing that surprised me was that Frances Richey said that she was scared how her son would react to her poems. This just goes to show how delicate of a situation it must have been for them to overcome.
Richey went on to explain the day that her son moved into a new home. It should have been a joyous occasion, but he was to be deployed for Iraq in a couple of weeks. She told my fellow classmates and I that she had never seen her son’s military equipment before. One of Ben’s goals was to never let his mother see his military equipment. He didn’t want to show her what the military turned him into. That side of him was to remain a secret forever.
Richey explained that Ben did tell her one military story. It was titled “Kill School” in Richey’s poetry collaboration. This graphic and detailed story dealt with the training Ben went through in the beginning of his career in the military. The story explains how Ben never hunted an animal before, but when training came he turned into the “warrior” Richey speaks of. The purpose and goal of the training was to catch a rabbit and kill it. Ben was the first one to “bash the head of the rabbit into a tree.” Stories like this depict the pain Richey must have gone through to watch her son go from a young boy into a trained killer.
This event was just another way of showing the detrimental effects of war on the human psyche. War changes people and make the lives of families just as difficult as the soldiers themselves. Frances Richey is just another loving mother who cares for her son, but didn’t exactly know how to express it. I believe she made an excellent choice by using poetry as this means to tell the world about her love for her son.
