When We Had Wings

by Ariel Lawhon

For five months she’d worked in paradise, a place so pretty it might as well have been the shine on a soap bubble.

particularly those who used a gruff exterior to mask a molten-chocolate core.

And above that, a deep, inky blue—almost purple—and a smattering of stubborn stars not ready to give up their glory to their daytime counterpart.

General Jonathan M. Wainwright had—as Penny’s father would say—a “face for radio.”

Courage isn’t having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength. —Theodore Roosevelt

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all.

“I don’t think bravery is something you feel, Eleanor. I think it’s something you possess.

“Sometimes love can break your heart,”

Hope was what kept you putting one foot in front of the other. Hope was what kept you laying down your head at night and rising from your cot the next morning. Hope was what kept you mopping fevered brows and changing dressings and administering aspirin, when you could get it. Hope was what made you pick at husks of rice until your fingers bled. Hope