The Last Green Valley

by Mark T. Sullivan

“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.”

They’d been married for nearly forty years. They’d been through terrible tragedy, and yet their love hadn’t just survived; it had deepened and flourished. Isn’t that a cause for hope?

Everything he heard convinced him that the new life under Stalin and the Communists was the same as the old one: based on fear, tyranny, and the destruction of anyone who had an original thought or dream.

You decide; then you act. You choose faith; then you walk through the door.

At some point, you’ll have to decide where you want to spend your life—in slavery or in freedom—and if you choose freedom, you’ll have to run through a no-man’s-land with bullets zinging around your head to get there. I don’t think there’s any way around it. If

we want that life, we’ll have to risk death for it.

“I was thinking about grace, God’s love, and how truly blessed we are to have it.”

But since escaping to the West, Emil had never been calmer or more self-assured. He’d survived the worst that life could throw at him, and those trials and his time with Corporal Gheorghe had changed him, made him stronger and humbler and more aware of the power of dreams and the magic of life all around him.

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.

“We are never leaving here, Emil,” Adeline vowed, looking west again at the last green valley of their long and improbable journey. “Not until the day we die,” Emil said, and held her tight.

everything difficult he’d had to do seemed to have prepared him for the next difficult thing.

and he gave thanks for those gifts by being happy and cheerful about nearly everything.

I used to think life was something that happened to me,”

“But now, I know life happened for me.”

“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.

“This is an American story, an immigrant story, a spiritual and universal story. May we all dare to chase such dreams, experience such grace, and lead such miraculous lives.”