The Last Green Valley

by Mark T. Sullivan

“First the Communists killed all the smart people who made things work in the cities. And now they want to make doing good at anything at all a punishable crime! What has happened to the world? How did we end up in an asylum?”

You grow too much and feed too many, and you become an enemy of the people. How is this right?”

Yes, this trek west under Nazi protection was a new beginning for Lydia and for all the other single women in the caravan. But it had to be the end of their hopes as well, an end to their dreams of ever seeing their husbands come home.

Her breath threw clouds.

Is that what it takes to feel like this? To come so close to death, you want to burst for joy because you feel so glad to be alive?

Why would a just, kind, and benevolent God let this happen?

Before he could sink into those dark feelings this time, he remembered his father telling him that God helps those who help themselves. But then a weaselly voice inside him said, Trust in no power but your own, Emil. If you want to be saved, save yourself.

It’s how a David can beat a Goliath.

Adeline broke into a smile. Malia, as far as she was concerned, was one of the best parts of her life. Red Army cannons may have been firing to the north, but she was getting such a warm, good feeling from watching her sister drive that she did not care. Can happiness be that easy? Finding little joys in the worst moments? Isn’t that what Mrs. Kantor used to say?

Laughter was like a hot shower for the soul after a long, cold day.

Maybe that’s all I really need in life, he thought. Adeline’s love. My boys’ love.

He’s a threat to me. I don’t know why yet, but he’s a threat. I can feel it in my bones.

our job in life is to endure, to be kind, and to constantly put the past behind us and not dwell too much on the future. If you must look back, try to find the beauty and the benefit in every cruelty done to you. If you must think about the future, try to have no expectations about it. Trust in God to guide you through. You understand?”

He said praying was where you talk to God. And meditation was where you listen.”

Spring had fought winter and won by the time they reached central Romania.

What possesses men to do such evil? Are they even human? Can’t they see that when you kill someone or destroy a holy place, the faith always goes on? Don’t they see that in broken hearts and ruins, something always glows?

When Emil stood to join several other civilian men there, the stuff of night terrors entered his life for the first time.

Please, God, don’t make me a part of this, he prayed. And please don’t make me kill anyone. I’m begging you. I am many things, but I am not a murderer.

The men smelled unnaturally foul to Emil, as if their hearts and souls had been so corrupted by mass murder that the invisible, evil pus of it was seeping out of their skin and pouring from their lungs.

“She told me once that she believed that life does not happen to you; it happens for you, and that your whole life is a blessed journey of discovery. But you can only see life clearly and relish it when the journey is almost at an end.”

In her mind, Emil’s last words—I promise I’ll find you—echoed against her father’s last words—I promise you all I will come back!

I can only rely on myself, he thought. But in a sense, my father has prepared me.

his assignment was the same in every town they entered: clear debris, stack bricks, stay alive.

Though he did not believe in God or heaven, his own eyes told him he was about to enter hell.

She would later think that the first step she took that day, away from her past and toward an uncertain future, was like a leap between cliffs and the second-most courageous act of her life.

Doomed the moment we took the gun and decided to pull the trigger . . . This is just one step down into the deep hell that awaits us . . .

I was heard. I was. Emil felt breathless as he looked over at Corporal Gheorghe, thinking of him no longer as some head-injured madman, but as a strange and divine messenger of salvation.

“What you seek is what you will find, but only if you hunt it with all your heart and mind.”

“Whatever emotions you carry in your heart, Martel, especially love. God listens loud and clear if you feel love. The Almighty also knows if you are feeling good. The Universal Intelligence responds when you are happy or courageous or even if you are just calm. It understands when you are grateful for the miracle of your existence and rushes to help you when you have a dream that helps other people. The Divine hears all the languages of the heart and beauty.”

“So live here, Martel. Love life like it is a miracle every day, every moment, and dream in a way that helps others, and the Divine will hear you and you will walk through battles untouched and have anything your heart desires.”

Yes, he’d taken a hit to the head. But the injury seemed to have awakened the Romanian to a way of thinking Emil had never been exposed to before, a way of seeing the world as more than it was, a place where everything was connected and where dreams did come true, a place where imagination, faith, and effort collided with the spark of God’s grace to become whole and real and good.

all it took to have a good life was a cheerful, grateful mood, a clearly envisioned, heartfelt dream, and the willingness to chase it with an unwavering belief in its eventual realization.

He noted often that everything difficult he’d had to do seemed to have prepared him for the next difficult thing. Being imprisoned now seemed to have been one of the best things that ever happened to him because, after his escape, he had never looked at life the same way again. Every moment, every opportunity he’d been given after Poltava was a gift—from God, the Almighty One, the Divine, the Universal Intelligence, or whatever Corporal Gheorghe wanted to call it—and he gave thanks for those gifts by being happy and cheerful about nearly everything.

“Don’t chew on the bad things that happen to you, dear. Try to see the beauty in every cruelty. It sets you free. Forgive hurt if you want to heal a broken heart. Try to be grateful for every setback or tragedy, because by living through them, you become stronger. I see the hand of God in that.