When We Had Wings

by Ariel Lawhon

“Is there anything you’ve loved about it?” The question wheeled Lita around. The reference to nursing sank in as Reyna’s eyes pushed once more for the God’s honest truth. So Lita contemplated. Her first thoughts leaped to the horrors she’d endured, the surgical assembly lines and screaming, the direct hits and deaths. But then came lighter memories stowed in the corners of her mind. She remembered the smiles of patients she’d saved, the bouts of laughter they shared. The satisfaction of removing bandages to find wounds healing and infections clearing. The simple gift of providing a comforting voice. She recalled the joy of waking to discover a soldier recovering who hadn’t been expected to last the night, and of listening to touching stories of fellows’ hometowns and sweethearts and families. And, of course, she thought of the soldiers whose hands she’d held when needed, at times through their final breaths. “Yes,” she answered at last. “I’ve loved quite a lot.”

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

Penny refused to hate herself for the great privilege of growing old. The passing years and accumulating signs of age meant that she was surviving this place, and even though she didn’t have to celebrate the physical manifestations of that victory, she wouldn’t punish herself either.

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

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. Everyone at the camp does. You nurses are like angels from heaven to all of us.” She chuckled at this. “Angels? Us? With wings and everything?” “I’m serious. Everywhere we go in this camp, we are made to feel like we are worthless—except at the hospital. That’s the only place where we feel like we matter. You make us feel like we are worth saving. You make us feel human again.”

Hope hadn’t killed David; evil men had. Hope had been his companion until the very end. And even then, hope had escorted him from this life to the next. Hope had done that. Not fear. Not defeat. Not gunshot wounds.

It had also been a wonderful life. Not a life entirely full of wonderful events. No, not by a long shot. But a wonderful life in its own way. 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.

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?

Here is the truth: General Douglas MacArthur allowed these women to be taken captive. He had an opportunity in April 1942 to evacuate all Army and Filipina nurses from Corregidor and out of the Philippines, but he chose to take other military personnel instead. As a result, the nurses were imprisoned by the Japanese and spent more than four harrowing years in various camps. The U.S. government could not explain the general’s choice, so they hid it instead. The fact that every one of those nurses survived the war and came home is nothing short of a miracle.