Will

Will

by Don Macavoy

I was biting the inside of my cheek as I walked quickly down the street. I stared at every crack I passed, making sure I never stepped on one. It’s a habit I started when I was a kid and never seemed to grow out of. I passed a few people but the January cold evening kept most people inside.
I bit harder on my cheek until it hurt, pursing my lips together hard. I was holding back a rage that I didn’t want to let out on the street. I clenched the Discman in my pocket, tugging on the headphones around my ears. The music wasn’t even on. I can’t imagine how I looked to anyone that saw me pass by with the scowl on my face and making erratic movements.
Once I finally arrived at my house, I opened the gate slowly and calmly closed it, fixing the latch closed with care. It was the calm-before-the-storm kind of calm. The kind you recognize in your parents when you know that once they finish quietly folding the laundry they’re going to come right at you with a raised hand. I walked up to the big blue door and slid inside. No one else was home.
I stood for a few minutes just inside the door, staring into the dark. I squeezed the Discman in my pocket, feeling the rage starting to come back. I pulled it out and raised it over my head then threw with enough force to hurt my arm as it whiplashed back. I heard it as it smashed against something across the room, followed by a loud thud and a crash of random objects falling.
As quickly as the sound had come, the silence returned. I stood for another moment before reaching over to switch on the lights. When I did, I saw the pile of papers spilling out of the box I had knocked over. The Discman was in two pieces, poking out from under the mess. The Foo Fighters CD that was inside sat just a few feet from where I was standing. It must have rolled out.
I walked over to the mess and started picking things up. As I moved some of the papers, I uncovered a medal. It was bronze and engraved with a soldier’s image hanging from a blue and yellow ribbon. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. It was heavier than it looked. As I stared at it, the familiarity finally hit me and I realized: this was my grandfather’s medal.
I hadn’t seen it for years, since he showed it to me. He was telling me a story about the year he spent overseas in the war. He was a munitions guard stationed in England. His bunker was ambushed one night while he was out on patrol. He returned to find two of his fellow soldiers shot. He called for a medic and dressed their wounds until help arrived.
He took the job after he was drafted because he figured it would be a safe position. He had a wife and two children at home to worry about and didn’t want to be in the middle of any action. He explained to me how scared he was but how he did what he knew how to do to save the soldiers’ lives. Both soldiers survived and my grandfather was sent home shortly after and presented with the medal for honor and service.
I smiled at the memory and put the medal back into the box. I picked up a few other things and noticed that all the papers that had spilled out were letters. I opened one. It was a letter from my grandfather to my grandmother while he was away in England. There must have been over a hundred letters-- correspondence back and forth almost daily while he was away.
Every letter was amazingly intimate. They talked about the times they had before he went away and things they planned to do when he got back. It was like they were sitting and having a conversation. There was almost an entire paragraph in each letter detailing how much they missed and loved each other. It would have been cheesy if it weren’t so amazingly romantic.
I sat on the floor for hours under the lamp reading each and every letter. I was jealous of their love. I hadn’t been having very good luck with relationships and I talked to my grandfather about that just the week before. I asked him to tell me what it was like to love someone completely and be able to devote your life to them. How fitting that I had found these letters so soon after I was looking for answers.
I piled all the letters back into the box and found the lid. I slid it on top and, as I did, saw the envelope taped to the top with my name on it. I opened it up and slid out a paper with a short message on it. It said “I hope you can find love the way I did and can find the honor that I know is inside you.” At the bottom I recognized my grandfather’s signature. Tears started rolling down my face.
I cried while I was smiling. It wasn’t sobbing, just tears streaming from my eyes. Like rain while the sun is still out. The letter was dated three days previous. The day before, my sister had come to the door crying just before she uttered the words “Pop died.” She walked away after that, I’m pretty sure.
I can’t remember much of what happened between that moment and when I read the letter. I went out and walked for a long time. I sat in the park until the sun came up and then walked some more. I hadn’t slept for two days when I came home from the funeral and smashed my Discman. I was filled up with anger, mostly at myself and the world and God, if there was one. It all went away after I read that letter.
That was what my grandfather left to me. Everyday I wish he were still around to talk to. He had the answers to anything I ever wanted to know and I think that’s why he left me his letters. So even if I can’t talk to him, he can still talk to me. Now all I need to do is make myself be the person he would want me to be. On his honor, I will do everything I can to do that.