Perspective: Another Memorial Day Marks Grief's Journey

Not a waking hour goes by when Judy Adamouski does not think of the son she lost at war. Some nights, she drifts from room to room in her Springfield home -- sleepless, taking in what is left of his life. A framed photograph of a soldier in uniform. A wedding portrait. A diploma from West Point.

"You miss the voice," she said. "You miss seeing him. It's just hard. All we have is our memories and our pictures."

Her son is not a recent casualty but one of the early deaths of the Iraq war: Army Capt. James F. Adamouski, killed April 2, 2003, in a Black Hawk helicopter crash as U.S. troops made their way toward Baghdad two weeks into combat operations.

This is her fifth Memorial Day since then -- a holiday that marks time's passing but still finds her living with a mother's grief. "Jimmy," as she called him, was her only son, 29 years old, newly married, bound for Harvard University for a master's degree.

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