Free From – Chapter 4 – July 4th

I hope you will join me this month as we JOURNEY each day through our short story. It is about finding FREEDOM in the midst of all the captivating pieces in life that steal our peace which we need FREE FROM!

FREE FROM
July 4, 2021

Colossians 1:11-14, ‘We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory strength God gives. It is strength that endures and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that He has for us. God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son He loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.’ MSG

Chapter 4

Legend had earned his name. True, he had been a legend in his own mind, but never in anyone else’s, surely not his parents. They’d named him ‘Brick’, but rarely had called him anything at all unless it was an expletive. You know, sh**head or bas***d or mother-******. When he began school, his classmates were constantly laughing at him, his teachers annoyed, because a teacher would holler, ‘Brick,’ repeatedly and he’d fail to answer every time; he was so unaccustomed to it. He was relieved when he graduated a year early and didn’t have to attend a ceremony because he had long before convinced himself he’d never make it across the stage when his name was called to accept his diploma. He envisioned it all; the tap on the shoulder, followed by, ‘Hey, sh**head, duh, your name was just called.’
He was sixteen when he enlisted. He still remembered that little boy who had tiptoed into the classroom when he was barely five years old. He’d been left outside again since the night before, and when the crowd of kids moved in one direction, he jumped in and followed along; no idea where they all were heading. He figured if they all were going, he should go too so as not to be left out. He had hidden himself in the coatroom and later snuck into a desk. He was so small, he couldn’t see over the teacher’s desktop. Mrs. Winters, her name was. She was still his favorite ever; she’d taught him more about life and learning than any other person he had known. He cried when he’d read her name in the Obituaries of the local newspaper years later. She had treated him like a human being, like every other kid, and then some special stirred in. Somehow, she’d been able to get him registered and she’d allowed him to stay in her classroom. When he discovered school, an escape from his home life, he had founded an entire new world. Like Christopher Columbus, he discovered something he hadn’t known existed til he arrived there.
‘What have we here?’ she’d asked in her crinkly voice. She had bent down so he could whisper in her ear. Come to think of it, even then he hadn’t known what to tell her his name was. She’d drawn it out of him, like catching a big feisty fish clear out in the middle of a river; one that had to be reeled in real slow; you know, coax a bit at a time.
All the way through school, he’d stop in and see her weekly, accepting her help when needed. Like, tutoring or aid filling out applications, an adult’s signature or grandmotherly advice; how to ask a girl out on a date or how not to turn out like his father. He shoveled her snow and mowed her lawn; he visited her when she broke her hip later in life, and then in the nursing home she had been moved to after he returned, a hero, a legend.
He remembered now. She’d scratched the pen across the enlistment document like she had every other piece of paper he’d ever brought her. Always illegible. She would get in trouble today. In fact, it wouldn’t have even been possible today. He owed her everything. He couldn’t wait to leave it all behind and had planned on never looking back. She’d never asked a question that day he had handed her the enlistment papers. In fact, she’d driven him to the bus which took him to where he’d be stationed.
He hadn’t counted on his platoon being blown to smithereens. He’d never figured it out; how he survived when he was right in the middle of the blast. He felt like he had busted apart in flying body chunks, and then he realized they were that of his buddies, his team. He had picked one up like a baby and carried him to safety, rushing back in and throwing another over his shoulder, and another, then another; returning once more, but the last time, only to find pieces of the men he had known as brothers. He had scars so deep and jagged that others would never see. They kept him awake for nights on end, until he couldn’t function one moment more, falling fitfully into a sleep owned by demons.
To everyone, he was courageous and noble, a champion; and they dubbed him ‘Legend’ as he returned a hero to his hometown, but to himself, he was a loser, a dud. Why hadn’t he gone up in bits and pieces? He never amounted to anything before. Why him? He enlisted because it was the right thing to do, and if he died for his country, then sobeit; he had nothing to live for anyway. No one waiting back home for him to return. Now here he was. Left behind with all the night terrors and tragic images he could never block out for long; the loss of battle brothers stronger than any pain he’d ever suffered at the hands of his father. All the Fourth of July celebrations he hunkered down underneath his bed with a sock in his mouth and earplugs shoved deep in his eardrums. Why him?
Then he met Annie…
And he learned what freedom was all about.

To Be Continued…