InsaneJournal

Reverend Mother Michael Therese, Diary.
Diary Entry, Spring of 1915, Red Cross Hospital, Switzerland.



Several days ago, I sat beside the bed of a young man who was to wake and learn that he had lost both of his legs. I was to call for his doctor and the head nurse as soon as he woke. While I waited, I read to the younger man beside him, blinded by mustard gas. I do not think that he was any older than I am.

He wheezed though like a very old man from the damage to his lungs. He told me that he was sure I had to be beautiful like an angel. I told him that we are all beautiful in the eyes of God, and he laughed with a bitterness that should not come from someone so young. "How can God love beauty when he'd take it from his children? I do not think there is a God.

I told him that there was. I do not know that he believed me. He said that he had hoped to be an artist, like his father. I was not sure what to say for quite some time. Finally, I asked him if the beauty of what he had envisioned were still somewhere in his heart. He said he wasn't sure.

It is at times like these that I do not know how my own faith remains so strong. I took his hand, though, and held it for what must have been hours. He said that his name was Michael. He asked me to tell him about my home, and I did.

I told him of the big house where I live with my family, when there is no war, about the rolling fields, and patches of woods where I played with my siblings as a child. I told him of the garden, and of the way that the light comes down from between the leaves of the ancient oaks in springtime. I described every bit of it, in as much detail as I could, and for a time, he said, it was almost like he could see it, almost like he could see all the colors, all the beauty himself again. He told me that he was terrified of the day that he would not be able to recall what the colors looked like.

The other man woke then, and I summoned the aid as required. Ultimately, we had to bring the chaplain, and restrain him, because it seemed he might harm himself. They gave him laudenum, and finally, he slept again.

I came to see the blind boy the next day, and the next. Each time, he had me tell him of the leaves and the light, of the rolling fields, and gardens. I would sit with him, and keeping an eye on the other, until I had to go, or until he would finally fall asleep, at least looking more peaceful.

They moved the young man with no legs to another ward. He would recover, they said. He was otherwise still strong and healthy, and might live a long life.

The boy, though, they did not move. And every day, I would tell him of home, then of other places I had been. Of the trips to the Mediterranean, where the sea is so blue as to rival the finest sapphires, and the sky so blue as to nearly be as blue as the sea. I told him of the white dots of the sails of fishing boats, and of the great ball of golden sun setting orange, and red, and pink, streaking the clouds over the water. He said that he had never been there, but that my words almost made him feel as if he were, as if he could see it.

I told him of the grays and greens of the British isles, and I told him of the mountains I'd seen, dotted with thick, deep green forests, and above, white and lavender, against a crystal cold sky that went on so far that it was like glimpsing eternity. That was when I understood how my faith could be so strong. God made that. God made us. We are the ones who have the freedom to choose what we will do, whether it is to create, to preserve, or to destroy.

Then yesterday, he said to me, just before he fell asleep, in his raspy, gasping voice, that he thought that I was right after all. There is a God. In his heart, he could see what I had told him about so clearly now. All the beautiful places, and how God had made them.

He said that he could see all that, and more, now, and that he was sorry he could not share it with more than words, but that it was still inside of him. He told me that he could see my mountains, and my clouds, the sea, and the oceans beyond. He said he could envision it almost as if he were flying high above. He sounded as if he were so happy. He said that he no longer feared that he would ever forget the colors. He finally said that he felt tired, and fell asleep, and I sat for a bit, to watch him.

Today, I came back to see him again. There was another boy in his bed, this one unconscious, with a bandage over his entire face. Michael had died in the night, the nurse who came in to watch the ward said he'd never awakened.