When We Had Wings

by Ariel Lawhon

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light. —Helen Keller

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it. —Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Poems and Plays

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

She’d seen in this war the very worst one human could do to another. But she’d also seen the very best. Perhaps only the people who see the very worst get to see the very best. Or maybe it was just that because she’d seen the worst, she’d been able to recognize the best.

Hope, she was discovering, could do that. It could let a person see the glorious light of the sun from even the darkest corner of a dungeon—even if within the dungeon there was no way out. Even if the dungeon was the last place you’d see this side of heaven.

It was remarkable, really, how easily things could be taken for granted, until they were gone.

This is the dance of life, isn’t it? she mused to herself. As the music changes, the steps change, and so then does the dancer. But the people we choose to dance with, well, they remain as close to our beating hearts as we will hold them, don’t they? Thank heaven they do . . .