Final Sanctuary

Final Sanctuary

I began looking for something special, something that I didn’t even understand, when I was a small child. My parents were not happy together, my father drank, and my mother suffered, and I sought refuge from their misery. You could find me in the hall closet, burrowed in the nest of fallen coats, attempting to hide in the solitude of the dark, cramped space. Or in the cellar among the damp smells or one of the trees that lined our property. It remained the same until I left home, me seeking shelter from their misery and failed lives. I spent most of my life in the same pursuit, often afraid I would find it and not know it. I was wrong.

I thought I had found the best refuge from the angst I carried with me, when I met Annie. With her freckled nose that crinkled when she laughed, ringlets of gold resting on her shoulders. She was a walking attitude that sucked you in and made you believe, too, that everything in life was special. We married young. She died young, and I learned what she did not teach me. I learned what true grief was. After that there wasn’t any solace, no closets, or cellars for me to hide in while I suffered. So, I looked for somewhere to be.

Love went on the back burner for quite a while. So did my belief in God. He let me down, so I thought, and I had nothing to live for. Then, there was that day on Omaha Beach, and I was the only one to make it to shore from our landing craft. I was the only one out of twenty to made it up the cliff of Pointe du Hoc and help take out a German coastal artillery gun. The only one from my unit that was able to go home with both arms, both legs and both eyes. God had plans for me; I just didn’t know it until I got home.

I stayed in the Army, and they sent me to medical school. I wanted to do more than put bandages and tourniquets on men. I wanted to save them. I became a doctor and a surgeon and went where I was needed, in various surgical hospitals around Viet Nam. I did three tours and came home and stayed. Three tours in Nam was like a lifetime any other war.

When I got home, I read about a small town in the western Tennessee, that was building a hospital. It was desperately needed in the rural area. Answering an ad in the paper, I became the first surgeon they hired. Ended up meeting this beautiful blue-eyed nurse, Janine, who had been widowed three years and was the mother of two daughters. We fell in love, married, and had a son a year later. Together we built our little fortress and it served us well. Our family became our greatest source of comfort even in the hardest times. No need for closets; we wrapped ourselves in each other’s arms and the arms of our children. We lived in that same town until she passed two years ago. I still live here.

Janine and I traveled the country, saw cities we had heard of all our lives, monuments to great men, battlefields where greater men fell and received no monuments. The road took us to the majestic Rockies, the Bad Lands, and Marfa, Texas. We saw the barren deserts that our ancestors had crossed in their pursuit of their sanctuary. And were always anxious to get back home to ours.

Have seen lots of things I’m glad I saw, more than enough of those things I wish I hadn’t. I was always looking for something special and every time I thought I found it, the search started again. The Northern Lights over Alaska were like seeing a piece of Heaven. What showed in the light of flares over Omaha Beach was like seeing a corner of Hell. The sun coming up over the Grand Canyon was amazing; the same sun rising through the smoke and napalm bombed palm trees was something I could have lived without seeing. A lot of men died before my eyes regardless of how hard I tried to save them. Sometimes being an Army medic was not enough. But I also brought two lives into world and in those moments, I was more than enough.

I am an old man now. I spend a lot of time in my mind, remembering and sometimes trying to forget at the same time. War crawls into places in your mind and leaves marks like an indelible ink. It can cross out good and replace it with things there are not even words for. You do your best to hold your own but sometimes you lose your grip, and you end up in a place from 40 years ago. Since losing Janine, I find myself searching again for solace. The kids have families of their own and while we keep in touch with each via phone calls and video chats, each time a call ends I am reminded how desperately I miss my haven with Janine. Even at this advanced age I find myself drifting and looking for a safe harbor. A shelter to share with someone else but it is getting harder to row the boat while I seek cover.

Recently a routine doctor visit revealed that the fatigue and restless sleep was more that signs of my advanced presence here on Earth. My body is revolting against me, angry at my insistence on spending so much time here. Leukemia has invaded my life blood, sapping my energy and drive but not my will to live. I knew that would no doubt come later as the fatigue increased. The aches and pains I attributed to advancing age are proving to be more pronounced and one day I will finally say “enough.” But today is not that day. Tomorrow might be but not today. I still have wisdom to impart, stories to tell, secrets to share now that I have found my final sanctuary. Here in this sun filled room in the hospice wing, I am relieved from my search. These four walls housing my memories, tales of glory and heartbreak, have given me a true respite. Janine waits just beyond my reach, and she is patient. She knows that she is my final sanctuary.