When We Had Wings

by Ariel Lawhon

When you go home Tell them of us, and say For your tomorrow, We gave our today. —Patrick K. O’Donnell, Into the Rising Sun

Being a fool and feeling like one were different matters entirely.

Those moments had been real, but they were not reality, and that was different.

“I don’t think bravery is something you feel, Eleanor. I think it’s something you possess. I see courage in you all the time.

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. That was its own kind of wonderful.

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 . . .