Marshall Ramsey

Normandy, France. American Cemetery.

Jim Randolph’s great granddaughter Jennifer pushed his wheel chair through the garden of stones. The beach below was a dance through Hell. This was the final resting places of heroes — and the unlucky. Medals on his chest clinked like wind chimes as he rolled across the manicured lawn. His eyes burned with the salty pain of his memories.

“I’ve got to see my friend one last time,” he repeated.

Each stone had a name. Each stone had a story. Each person beneath those stones had sacrificed their life for the very freedom he had enjoyed for over 80 years.

Yet he had sacrificed, too. While not the ultimate sacrifice, he still suffered from the pain due to shrapnel buried deep in his body. It wasn’t just physical pain, though. The PSTD had been buried deeper. It came out, though, with a vengeance, at night. His wife feared waking him from his nightmares. Once, in 1954, he had nearly choked her to death after she startled him awake. She told the kids, “Don’t wake up daddy.”

Some nightmares, though, were impossible to wake up from.

Jim could still smell the blood and the cordite. The beach that day was littered with pieces of humanity. He thought of the men who had to clean that carnage up. They had their own set of nightmares, he thought. Jim didn’t have time to process that day. His unit pressed forward from the beach into the hedgerows to Paris to the Battle of the Bulge and finally toward the Rhine River.

Like then, Jim and Jennifer were on a mission. They continued to press forward.

Each grave’s name had a golden hue. The French, who had deeded the land for this cemetery over to the Americans, would rub soil from the beach onto the name. A cold mist rose up from the beach as they rolled further toward his objective.

The wheelchair slowed as they reached their destination.

He and his best friend Hadley Bryant joined the Army in 1943 when they turned 18. They trained together, drank together, went on leave together, chased English women together, and then went to war together. Hadley made it halfway up the beach before the German shell took his head off. Jim had watched his friend’s body drop like a rag doll.

That’s when the nightmares began.

Hadley’s headless ghost had haunted him for years. It was the same nightmare over and over. Hadley would reach out his hand and then try to embrace him. Jim would awaken and ask,”Why did I live and he died?” It was a question that haunted veterans since the Romans, he was sure.

Jim knew, though, why they had fought. He had smelled burnt flesh in the liberated concentration camps. He had seen first hand the hellish train tracks fascism would take you down. Evil had to be answered head on. Hadley had answered it head off.

The mist thicken around them. Fog from the sea swarmed the beach and the cliffs like the Americans. British, and Canadians had so many years ago. He felt the cold, wetness wrap around him like a blanket.

As Jim looked out at the crosses and Stars of David, he noticed bodies walking toward them. They were soldiers, all in full uniform. They looked young, just as they had looked during the War. Birds stopped singing and the cemetery got ghostly quiet.

Then he saw him.

Hadley emerged from the fog and held out his hand. Jim slowly stood and embraced his old friend. Hadley hugged his friend and began to lead Jim into the mist.

Jennifer, panicking, grabbed her phone. “Hello? I need an ambulance. It’s an emergency! My great grandfather has collapsed,” as she desperately checked her great grandfather’s non-existent pulse.

Jim’s nightmares ended once and for all.

The birds started singing again. A lone sunbeam broke through the fog and illuminated the body of the warrior in the wheelchair. The nightmares had ended and Jim Randolph was finally at peace.

On Memorial Day 2025, an old veteran’s war was finally over.

The bird started singing again. A lone sunbeam broke through the fog and illuminated the body of the warrior in the wheelchair. The nightmares were over and Jim Randolph was finally at peace.

On Memorial Day 2025, an old veteran’s war was finally over.

I woke up this morning and said a prayer.

Oh, it was disjointed and like one I would have spit out when I was five. You know, like you’re asking a genie for a something after rubbing a lamp.

“Give me a million dollars and a pony.” Or something like that.

I listened for an answer and only heard the clock ticking in the bathroom.

I’ve always envied Moses. Not about the wandering around in the desert part, no, I envy he had a direct line to God via a burning bush. I’ve never had a flaming gardenia that sounds like Morgan Freeman talking to me. (Wait, isn’t envy a sin? Durn.) But I do firmly believe that God answers prayers. Just not how I want them answered. I’m usually forced to do the work.

TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK

The Good Lord usually (and yes, I do subscribe to the theology of Garth Brooks and unanswered prayers, too) gives me opportunities to work towards what I’m asking for. And the even Greater Lord sends people into my life to help me find a path forward.

Angels come dressed in funny clothes sometimes.

I won’t lie to you. The last year has kind of kicked my butt. But I think that butt kicking has helped me realize I need to make some changes. It’s time to see the world differently. It’s time to pull my head out of my navel (or other hole) and look outward.

TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK

I once again heard the clock ticking.

Time is slipping through my fingers; It’s time for urgency. It’s time to live and love to the fullest. The time is now.

And that’s when I figured it out:

The clock was my burning bush.

The old pilot had logged several losses into his life’s log book. He lost his best friend and wingman in Vietnam. He lost his temper when he came back home and was spit on by protestors in the San Francisco airport. He lost his wife Angie due to his neglect and then her cancer. He lost his son because of pride. 

With every loss, he gained a demon. 

He chased those demons around the sky and tempted death for years in his yellow crop duster. His trusty Air Tractor, named Angie, allowed him to flirt with suicide for three decades. That had changed when he found his lost granddaughter, who had wandered off into the brush of Mississippi Delta. His ability to fly low and slow permitted him to spot the girl. That one moment healed the gaping wound between him and his son. The little girl, also named Angie, gave the old pilot a reason to live. That reason was tested when he crashed his plane and died. His wife Angie’s spirit came to him in the crumpled cockpit and convinced him to go back. When rescuers cut him out of the plane and restarted his heart, tears flowed down his cheeks as he muttered, “Angie.” While he had lost Angie once again, he realized something profound: 

She was right there with him all along. 

Frost painted the plowed fields of the Mississippi Delta a silvery white. Ice crystals sparkled in the early morning sunrise, looking like diamonds on the deep, rich soil. He looked east towards the bluff and watched as the sun rose slowly in the sky. Holding his cane (he has lost part of his right leg in the crash and was still getting used to his prosthesis), he limped to the mailbox to check to mail a couple of bills. Nearly 80, he still wrote checks, a habit that annoyed most of the people in the grocery line. They could wait, though. Life had gotten too fast already. He had nowhere to go now but into the ground. 

It had been 16 years since the crash. Getting back up in the air this time was harder. In Vietnam, when his A-1 Skyraider had taken enemy fire and crashed, he had had to shoot two men before he was finally rescued. He knew he had killed before but this time, it was up close and personal. The old pilot had also caused others to lose, too. Thoughts of that day in 1969 still rattled in his head. But he immediately got back into the cockpit. This time, it took courage to get him in the air again. While he wasn’t necessarily religious, the old pilot definitely was a man of faith. Angie had converted him that day in his crumpled Air Tractor. She had shown him the power of love and forgiveness. 

A car drove down the dirt road, kicking up a hurricane of dust behind it. The old pilot recognized the car and wished he could dive into a ditch. It was Mrs. Kylie, his neighbor. “What does she want?” He thought. 

The white Buick stopped in front of the mailbox and Mrs. Kylie rolled down her window. “I heard your bad news.” One thing about the Delta, there wasn’t six degrees of separation, there were two. That meant people knew your business before you did. 

The old pilot grunted. 

“I am sure the doctors will be able to cure it.” 

The old pilot grunted again. 

“I’ll be praying for you.” 

The old pilot yet grunted again and said, “Thank you,” as Mrs. Kylie drove away in another cloud of dust. 

The old pilot looked to his right and said to an empty space, “Do you think I handled that OK? Really? Thanks. Yeah, I guess I am starting to grow up after eight decades.” Then he laughed. While he was grateful for the prayers, Angie taught him this: Instead of just praying, be the answer to other people’s prayers. So that’s what he did. And that’s when he started to truly live. 

He pulled a letter out of his mailbox. It was from his granddaughter. She wrote him every week. As he peered down over his glasses, he read about her adventures in college and in the air. He had saved her when she was a toddler. He had taught her to read. He had taught her to fly. After years of chasing death around the sky, she had taught him to chase life. 

He looked over by the giant oak trees and saw his wife’s spirit blowing him a kiss. She then faded away, like the melting frost in the warm morning sun.