When Thelma Eye Brooks lays a wreath at the Maine Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Augusta on Monday, as she has for many years on Memorial Day, she will be thinking of the son she lost in Vietnam in 1971.

But this time, Brooks will be able to take some comfort in a detail of his death that had eluded her for the last 32 years. All she ever knew before was that her 24-year-old son, Richard Goggin, had drowned in a river. Beyond that, nothing.

Not long ago, however, another of Brooks’ sons tracked down some members of Goggins’ Army unit to learn more of the circumstances of his death.

“While fighting was going on in Iraq, we found out from Ricky’s friends that he died when he jumped into the river to save another man who was drowning,” said Brooks, who lives in Waterville. “It was so heartwarming to hear that my son had done something like that. It pleases me to no end after all this time. It’s like a closure, almost.”

It also could be said that Brooks is facing another sort of gradual closure to the very organization – the Gold Star Mothers of Maine – that she will represent as president at Monday’s ceremonies. The group is part of a national women’s organization that no one has ever been eager to join, considering its single eligibility requirement. To be a member, a woman must have lost a military son or daughter in a war.

During World War I, families began hanging blue stars in their windows to represent a son or daughter who was serving in the U.S. military. When a child was killed, a gold star was then superimposed over the blue to symbolize the family’s ultimate sacrifice. By 1929, the practice had given birth to the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization that brought grieving mothers together for mutual consolation and to do volunteer work for veterans groups in their areas.

While the organization has remained open to women who have lost children in every war since, reaching its peak in World War II, its membership has been steadily declining for years. The World War II mothers have mostly died, as have the Korean war mothers, and advancing age is now reducing the membership of the Vietnam War mothers, too. Gold Star Mothers of America, which once counted many thousands of women throughout its state chapters, now has only about 1,200 members.

When Brooks joined the Maine chapter in the 1970s, she was one of about two hundred in the state. There are now only nine Gold Star Mothers left in Maine, she said. At 77 years, Brooks is the youngest member.

“I first heard about a group in Gardiner from a Sunday school teacher who was a member,” said Brooks. “I joined as a matter of pride, really. I wanted to be with other mothers who felt the same way about their children who had served. We’re a military family. I have a daughter who is retired from the Air Force, and another son who is retired from the Army.”

In the early 1970s, the Gold Star Mothers of Maine state conventions attracted at least 100 women. Most of them were World War I and II mothers, Brooks said.

“The Vietnam-era mothers really didn’t join in any substantial numbers,” she said. “We would try to contact them every once in a while, but they didn’t seem interested in joining. I guess people don’t want to be reminded of their loss by being in a group.”

With only nine Maine members left, the group hasn’t even held a meeting in the last three years. Age, the inability of some to travel, and the healing power of decades has had a lot to do with the group’s steady demise. Having lived through World War II and sacrificing a son to Vietnam, Brooks now figures she’s had enough personal connections to war for a lifetime. She has never been able to watch war movies because of the tragic sameness of their themes.

During the recent fighting in Iraq, she watched the TV every chance she got, sometimes waking up in the night to see how the war was unfolding. But once the fighting was over, and the greatest danger to the American troops had passed, she lost all interest in news from the Middle East.

Brooks said she thinks a lot these days about Nancy Chamberlain and Melissa Derbyshire, the two Maine mothers whose sons died in a helicopter crash near the Iraqi border. Brooks once met Chamberlain at a social gathering a few years ago, but has not yet been able to summon the courage to call with her condolences.

“I’ve wanted to call her many times,” she said, “but I keep wondering if maybe it’s too soon. I don’t quite know what I’d say to her right now.”

One day, she will.

But in the meantime, Brooks just plans to get through another Memorial Day observance, another laying of the wreath as the mournful sound of taps fills the air. For a Gold Star Mother, it’s always a difficult time of the year when the old sadness creeps back and lingers for a while.

“But I’ve been at nearly every service over the years,” she said, “so I guess I’ll just go on representing our little group until it finally folds.”