DEATH IS PEACEFUL.
I used to think this was a lie people told in order to ease their own suffering. It’s far easier to think someone you love is no longer in pain, floating somewhere above the clouds rather than suffering here on earth. So we lie. We say they’re in a better place. They’re no longer hurting. They’re reunited with so-and-so who died however many years ago. But deep down, we don’t actually believe those things. We know death is horribly final and those words we utter in our most painful hours are simply a weak Band-Aid clinging to wet skin.
What they don’t know is that there’s far more truth to the lie than anyone wants to recognize. I’ve seen it firsthand, witnessed it on the battlefield more times than I’d care to recount. Under heavy fire, there is no cover. You’re left exposed, hoping it’s not yet your time. And then the soldier next to you is hit, the pain so severe he lacks the ability to give it a voice. Pent-up in his chest, the pain works its way up toward his face, twisting it in agony like you’ve never seen. Before he can even get a word out, his hand goes to his chest. Pulling a letter from inside his gear, his hand trembles. Covered in blood, the letter makes its way to your hand. The words are left unspoken, not that they’re necessary. Every soldier carries “the letter” on him when they enter into battle, if they haven’t already made plans for such a detail beforehand.
And even though he can’t voice it, you hear it. The bone-chilling agony. The excruciating pain. His eyes turn black, deep pools of nothingness as the life fades away. In an instant, his face relaxes, his chest no longer heaving to bring in the oxygen that would never fill his lungs again. That’s the moment you realize the truth of the lie you’ve heard so many times.
There actually is peace in death. It’s not some made up euphemism to ease the suffering of the survivors. It’s real, and it’s happening right before your eyes.
Those are the moments haunting my dreams. Sure, the day I lost my arm makes a frequent visit at night, the searing pain actually setting fire to the nerve endings above where my elbow used to be. But the visions violently waking me from sleep are the ones when I witnessed a comrade dying in my arms. It happened four times. And though each time was under very different circumstances, the same serenity accompanied that fateful moment.
There was no more pain. There was no more agony.
There was no more life.
And that’s what’s so haunting. Those nightmares aren’t nightmares at all. Rather, they’re a hope.
There’s a light at the end of my tunnel.
There will be peace . . . eventually.
My time will come, and I won’t be in pain anymore. But life is much more difficult to extinguish on your own than one would think. Waking up in the morning isn’t much of a choice. It just happens.
Air fills your lungs and your feet move, even if you don’t really want them to.
And with each day, it’s more and more difficult to capture those fleeting seconds of peace. They only come at night when I relive the soldiers dying in my arms. Envious of their peace, eventually the dreams became increasingly morbid. It was no longer a comrade taking his last breath, but me.
When you see yourself dying and it’s not laced with paralytic fear, that’s when you know you’re fucked. When I crawled back into bed, wishing for the calm that only came when the dreams took over my mind, that’s when I knew I’d hit rock bottom.
Dreaming about death was more desirable than living my life. Unable to commit myself to the fate of my dreams, I started to think about what I could do to make my life more tolerable—a sure sign I wasn’t ready to go just yet.
That’s when I saw it—the war in my head. The battle between where I am and where I want to be is a fierce one. My heart longs for the latter, but my sense of duty keeps me in the former. It’s something you hear over and over again growing up. From teachers. From your parents. From your friends.You can do anything you want with your life. It’s yours to do with as you please.Despite the intention to be encouraging, all I feel is paralysis. And while I’m anything but a teenager navigating his way through the beginning stages of his “real life,” I still hear the echo of their voices in my head. It competes with the waves crashing on the shore, the sound barely loud enough to drown out the blood rushing in my ears.
Thankfully, the fireworks—their volcanic-like explosions illuminating the night sky and my own weakness—have stopped, allowing the voices in my head to take over. With one voice urging me home, I weigh the option. Fully aware of what that fate holds for me, my gut churns a vortex of anxiety and depression. Those emotions fade only slightly when I think about my son sleeping peacefully in his bed. The fact that my mind is not instantly made up when I think of him only makes me more anxious.
More depressed.
This should be easy. A father’s sense of duty should negate every other emotion out there. And while I wish I could say that was the case for me, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think he’d be better off without me. It’s not about my love for him. I’d lay my life down for him in an instant. But my self-doubt, the ugly voices in my head telling me that I’m no role model for him, that I’m the weakest of the weak, the images of death lulling me into a peaceful sleep—those are the forces pulling me away from my current life and toward the great unknown.
Then there’s the pull I wish I could feel thinking about her. My wife. The greatest lie of my life. But then again, that had more to do with a sense of duty than anything, too. Being with Delilah was never more than a drowning man gasping for air. If I could make myself love her, then I wouldn’t be the person I had spent my entire life hiding from everyone—especially my family. Then she told me she was pregnant. Enlisting was my only option. Frozen and unsure what to do, I did what I knew was expected of me. I married her. She had Simon while I was in battle.
It’s a different kind of anxiety swirling in my gut thinking about what my lifecouldbe, if it wasn’t what it is right now. In fact, sometimes the person I see in my visions is whole and complete, happy and smiling. Anger and frustration no longer hover over me, thick like the blackest of clouds on a stormy day.
I wish I had half the confidence I did just moments ago. Kissing him was the boldest thing I’ve done in years. My heart thudded in my chest and my stomach twisted in nervous energy, but for those few seconds, everything was right in my life. Until he pushed me away. But really, I shouldn’t have expected anything else.
Dax is married, after all. And he has a kid. I was out of my mind to even want him, but then, to actually make a move on him . . . it’s the most fucked up thing I’ve done in a long fucking time.
But, in the same breath, it was the most honest thing I’d done in years.
Pushing me to a breaking point, kissing Dax left me terrified, forced me to make a decision about my life.
I could stay here and die. It was the inevitable truth. If I stayed with Delilah and kept living in this lie I’d created for myself, it would all end.
Or, I could leave. Take the coward’s way out and give myself the escape I so desperately needed.
Walking toward the water, I thought long and hard about just diving in, swimming as far as I could and letting the sea claim my life. It would ensure that peace I’d been longing for, but it would leave the greatest question of my life unanswered.
Did he ever want me back?Did he still love me like I loved him?
