The Marine

Leaning back comfortably, Bill turned his head towards the open window. If his strength would have allowed it, he would have leaned forward to breath in the fresh air. He always hated the smell of hospitals and doctors’ offices, something he had been blessed to not have much experience with until his later years.

His family was blessed with good health, and so except for the death of his parents he had been able to live most of his life without having to worry about the repulsive stench and the tragedies it brought along with it.

Now reflecting on his past life, Bill felt it was an odd thing. For better or worse he never felt like he lost any of his critical thinking capacity, whether this was him simply being unable to know what he lost, or if he hadn't lost anything, he wasn’t sure.

Whichever the case, Bill could remember most of his life. Something many of his old friends seem to have forgotten, which never set well with him. He remembered his days as a child, the rules his mother had him follow, along with the fights he had with his siblings – breaking many those rules.

He remembered grade school and even most of his old teachers. He remembered the first day he met his wife, although at that time, they were simply coworkers. He remembered when they became more than that.

“Yeah” Bill thought aloud, he had a good run of it. If there was anything in his life he would change, it would be that he outlived her.

“Three years” he sighed, again in a voice only he could hear.

Despite the frequent visits from his children and grandchildren, and the outings he had with his old friends. Bill had felt an ever-present hole in his life.

He had felt it the day she died, and still felt it, now on the day he knew he was going to die.

He couldn’t put it in to words, and objectively, he knew he couldn’t know such information. Besides God, Bill figured, nobody could know when the father would call his children home.

Yet, he knew. He knew it as much as he knew the grass was green, or that he was forever unable to sit up from this bed to smell the fresh air.

Not afraid, or panicked, with his family having just left moments before, Bill only could lay and reflect on his time on this Earth.

Throughout his life, Bill knew his place in the scheme of things. He knew where he was supposed to be, and what he was supposed to do. He understood his own successes and failures. His own strengths and limitations.

Throughout his life there were few men, he figured, who were content as he was. That truth was as clear to him now as it had been decades ago.

Those people who would punish themselves for imagined failures, were as alien to him as he was to anything the death may have to throw at him. To him, failure was only lack of effort, even if a project didn’t succeed there was no failure if a person gave it their best. In Bills mind, he had never failed at anything, everything just was or wasn’t.

He felt pride in that.

Through the lens of history how many men could claim to have lived in the upright manner that he had? Surely, he had limitations, everyone does. Yet he knew what sacrifice was. He knew that man could only progress by setting a goal, and in choosing that goal, man set limitations by sacrificing potential. What made him proud was not sacrificing potential, it was, the courage he had to pursue the goal he set for himself.

As a parent, grandparent, he would tell the young people around him that while they had the potential to do anything that did not mean they were everything. He knew a person had to find a goal and set a routine. In that routine a person would lose a part of themselves initially, but, once he came out on the other side an entire new world of possibilities would be opened for them.

He had learned this lesson from his parents, and thankfully never forgot it. He knew that while setting a routine could be difficult or scary, he benefitted from living in the most free and open country the world.

His personal God was loving and all powerful, and although Bill did not regularly attend religious services, after his retirement he did do his part in helping the downtrodden, the poor, and the abandoned.

He stood for what he believed was right, not in a grand way as that wasn’t his role, but he would stand up when needed because as his father had taught him; “evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

Suddenly interrupting those thoughts, an abrupt smile forced its way on Bill's lips. Truthfully, he told himself, most of his life had been spent working. It wasn’t until retirement when he volunteered his time, in a way, perhaps he traded one job for another.

“Well, the truth may be somewhere in the middle” he said, with another silent laugh.

As his vision began to turn hazy, he couldn’t help but to wonder when exactly it was going to come, but he knew he hadn't much time left now.

His reflections continued; he remembered the struggles he had faced in his life. He had married up and settled down early, neither he nor his wife came from money. Those early years had been the hardest.

Unable to afford a home, but unwilling to pay rent, he had gotten help from his father's credit to get a small loan with which he bought a condemned house.

Severe neglect was compounded by the water damage the foundation had suffered, and for his first three years of being married he never took a full day off. He had been a plumber in those days. Working on the job between 7am-4pm, coming home, then typically working on and off until 8pm.

He still vividly remembered the feeling he had in his chest when his wife came home one day and with upturned eyes remarked how amazing yard looked after he spent the better part of a week clearing several waist-thick trees from the front of the house.

With a smile he remembered when he had gone to repair the roof the rain didn't stop for over a month. At least three times a week he had to crawl up on his knees to tac down new tarp when the old stuff had gotten blown off. The issue was that in several areas the plywood itself had gone rotten and could barely hold in any nails, to say nothing of the much smaller tacks.

Not too long after that he and wife were devastated to discover she was unable to have children. It was painful and looking back he found it shameful how hard he had taken the news. Not that it mattered now too much, Bill thought. After a while they had decided to adopt, eventually adopting two young siblings and later an older child. Initially it had been hard, mostly with the older one. However, he told his son what his father had told him time and time again. That was, simply, that he loved him, and he was proud whenever the boy did well.

Bill had grown up believing in the American Dream, a dream his father had paid for in blood, and figured if he just worked hard it would all turn out right. He instilled those same values into his new children. By doing so, they would come to not only accept him as a father, but they would also come to accept themselves.

"And they did" he quietly reaffirmed.

His life had been a peaceful one, living close to the center of a powerful and lawful country there was little in the way of fear for personal safety. A crazy drunk or a road raged driver was the extent of the concerns typical of a small town in America.

At least, he knew how fortunate he had been to live and raise a family in such a place, and he was thankful.

Then he came to a pause, because by now his vision had become purely twisted. He watched as objects squirmed left and right while moving to-and-fro. The oddity in seeing the world being twisted was startling. Despite this, he wasn’t afraid, didn’t attempt to call for help, nor did he have any feelings of grief.

As if on que, as he said his final words, the world burst into a symphony of colors and unrecognizable shapes.

“I’m coming darling.”