Chapter 26

That afternoon when Christopher picks Sarah up at school she notices he is quiet, but doesn't think anything of it. Later as Sarah is coming over to do homework she finds Christopher sipping his whiskey from his glass, sitting on the couch.

As soon as she walks in the door she says, "Guess what?"

"What, baby."

"I thought of an ending for our novel."

"Wonderful! What is it?"

"And they lived happily ever after." Christopher smiles and laughs sadly and Sarah notices it. "What's wrong?"

Christopher smiles and grabs her around her petite waist and pulls her onto his lap. After he brushes her hair aside he says, "My mom died last night."

Sarah's beautiful blue eyes flood with tears as she is feeling more than Christopher's pain. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, it's okay. I will miss her from time to time, especially now that I would have been more willing to visit with her and to get to know each other again. I'm afraid after the war I became a little distant. But death comes to us all, babygirl, and all we can hope for is that we meet it with courage, for in the end we see ourselves for who we truly are."

"Christopher?"

"Hmm." he says, taking another sip. She gets a whiff of it and wrinkles her pretty little nose. He sees her reaction and sets it down on the end table.

"Why did the war make you distant?"

"Well, if you are going to join the military I guess you have the right to know. You risk so much in war. You give so much of yourself that sometimes you feel you just don't have any more to give, so you don't try. In war you don't just risk yourself, you also risk your brothers and sisters at your side. When battle ignites, king and country no longer matters, it is your people at your side that you are fighting for."

"What do you mean, for king and country?"

"People join for different reasons, but often it is patriotism. You know what patriotism is?" She nods her head yes. "Well, all that goes out the window when people are trying to kill you, and at that point all that matters is that you and the person next to you survives the next five minutes. It's one of the odd things about it. It has skewed time for me. Once battle ignites, time does a weird thing and flows slower but goes by faster. Boredom was one of the worse things I had to deal with when I returned. Luckily my writing helped me with that.

"One reason I became distant was that I was always so hyper vigilant in country and surrounded with such violence, that when I came back I was jumpy to sights, sounds and smells. I was concerned that if something played out just right I might respond with violence. So I kind of thought I was doing everybody a favor by becoming distant and a recluse.

"The funny thing is, since I have met you and have had so much life and love injected into my life I see things more clearly. Now I understand it is those very things that will save me or pull me out of my funk, however you want to put it, not set me off. I avoided those things because I didn't want to hurt anybody, but it turns out those are what have saved me from myself. In battle, life is intense, so in civilian life I had to find something equally intense and it turns out it was your love. Cool, huh!"

"Yeah," Sarah says, resting her head on his chest as she curls up in his lap. A minute later she asks a question to where Christopher knows she is no longer just talking about his situation. "Do you believe in God? I used to until my mom and dad died, and now I'm mad at Him."

"No, I don't believe in the concept of gods. I believe the universe is so amazing as it really is, gods only diminish that wonder. But even if there are gods, you shouldn't be mad at him, her or them for your parents' death. Unfortunately, bad things happen to good people all the time. It's not that life is cold and cruel, it just is."

"So you don't believe in life after death?"

"Actually, I kind of do."

She sits up and looks at him with eyes of suffering, but with a glimmer of rising hope. "You do?" she says hopefully.

"Sure. From within the universe itself energy is never gained or lost, it is only transformed. I believe when you are born, the second you come into being all the energy within reach is pulled into you, and that amount of energy will dictate who you are going to be forever.

"I would like to believe that if you have a correct understanding of how the universe and its creation, life, works, you can remain cognizant after your physical body dies. For me, when I start to die I'm going to focus my mind and pull in all the energy nearby from people, the planet and the galaxy, and hopefully I will remain as a cohesive thought, for lack of a better way of putting it. I will fight to remain cognizant, but even if I don't and I dissipate out, that is still a great honor to replenish the energy field that so unselfishly gave life to me.

"Look, baby, death is a strange and wondrous thing. In battle, when I watched someone die, those that understood how the universe worked and the need for all things including people to be in balance with nature went much more peacefully, whether they believed in a god or not. They died being who they were, so they died with a contentment that helped them focus at the time of their death, so I believe the essence of who they were is still congealed in this dimension or maybe another.

"By no sense of the word do I have it figured out. Since you know me better than most, you know that lots of people annoy me." Sarah nods her head emphatically. "One group of people that annoy me are religious people who are just so damn sure they have it figured out, when in truth they haven't figured anything out for themselves, and to top it off, those people often speak out against other groups they don't agree with.

"They believe the US Constitution grants them freedoms but nobody they don't agree with, and I guess that is truly what annoys me. Most religious folk are decent people and just want to live their lives, but I guess as it is in all things, it is the extremes of all the ends that create the disharmony of human life."

"Wow!"

"Right."

"I'll be right back." Sarah gets up and leaves. Five minutes later she comes back over carrying her pink pajamas. "I told Nan what has happened, and I asked her if I could sleep over here tonight to be with you."

The smile that comes to Christopher's face is one of divine wonder. "My hero."

Sarah smiles, crawls in his lap, and says, "So, what's for dinner?"

Christopher shakes his head and laughs. "How about pizza, but we'll have to exercise twice as hard tomorrow."

"Sounds good. I say I take my bath early, do my homework and you brush my hair, and then we watch a movie."

"Okay," says Christopher, looking at Sarah with admiration as she takes charge.

Then he flashes back to his time here and with her, and another smile swims across his face. He had to fight many inner battles on whether it was proper or not for her to express herself the way she has around him.

In a way of rationalizing her nudity and outfits, he starts to talk to himself. "This little girl went from being shy and introverted, hiding safely in her shell so she couldn't be hurt anymore, but within my sphere of protection and non-judgment she has opened up and shared of herself more than anyone could ever hope for or deserve. She has exploded into freedom, and because of her specific situation I let her explore the boundaries of that freedom or even sensuality. I think I deserve a medal not derision. What a wondrous journey this has turned out to be."

By the time Sarah comes out of the bath he still has the smile plastered on his face. She comes over and hands him the towel so he can dry her. After that she sits down and starts wiggling her legs for him to pull on her pajamas. After she is dressed she gets her schoolwork in place on the living room table, sits between his legs again, and hands him the hairbrush.