by Donald Hancock
"Maw, He's making me mad, Maw. I don't care if he is my cousin, I am absolutely gonna clobber him good if he don't quit right now!"Sis was always that way with Caleb. He pestered her and she always yelled at him a lot and then tattled to our mother. But down deep I believe she sometimes loved Caleb more than her own brothers.
And when he went to fight the Yankees when he was sixteen, I thought Sis would die a thousand deaths. He
only lived a year into the war and he died an awful death they say - hit by a cannon shot that tore through his arm and shoulder. He bled to death in awful pain.
But during the last month before he was shot, he wrote a letter to my sister that showed how very much he had matured during that year of seeing men on both sides face their Maker. I would like to share that letter with you now. May it bless you as it blessed her.
"My Dear Martha, I sit here tonight and write what my heart is saying as l wait to go on patrol. I find myself amazed at the love I feel for you, my Dear Cousin. You are somehow more than even a sister could be. How we pestered each other as we grew up together.
But it was probably just our way of keeping a little distance lest we be too close for our own welfare. I
could always talk to you when I could not talk to any other. And it is in that vein that I would speak tonight. I feel a deep ache in my heart as though I will shortly be a source of sadness for my dear mother and the others and l know, for you. I do not honestly think that l will live to plant corn and marry and raise kids. It is in my bones that l will die in this agony called war.
But it is not about dying that I would share my deepest thoughts with you, but about living. It is with the utmost gratitude that I thank our God tonight for letting me walk this trail in the last months. For the things I have seen and heard and touched and even smelled have made me love life so very much more.
Seeing the agony of pain has given me such appreciation just for breath and for being able to walk and
talk and even put this pen to paper - such things as I have always taken so much for granted before.
Oh, Dear Martha, just holding a picture before a dying son so that he could say just one last word of love to his mother has made me love you all so much more dearly than I ever thought possible when l was there with you in my care-free days.
In short My Dear Cousin, I would say to all of you and to any one whose eyes might see these lines on some future day: 'Love life with passion. Love your family as a precious gift from Heaven.
See every day as a sparkling jewel and count every man, woman, and child that you are privileged to
know, even for a moment, as a dear and priceless brother and sister and mother and father and wife and child. For, I believe more and more, that somewhere down deep we are really such to each other.
And with that said, My very Dear Martha, I would not have you think for one moment that I fear the end or even that l feel cheated for not being allowed to return to you all - if that, indeed, be the case. Instead, I feel of all men very exceptionally blessed.
For I feel that somehow God has let me see more clearly than I ever thought possible just how wonderful the gift of life truly is, even if it does not see seventeen years. I am as prepared for the life that I will walk beyond the hour of my death as l would have been if l had lived to be seventy.
I thank God. I thank my dear parents. And I thank you. All of you lovingly brought me through my years of becoming. And lastly, I thank the men who have marched with me and have lived and died before me for bringing me to my maturity.
With All My Love I will always be your devoted cousin,
Caleb Prosper III.
And, Dear reader, you are one of those to whom Caleb spoke. You are one "whose eyes might see these lines on some future day." And his word to you, as to Martha, is "Love life with passion and count every man, woman, and child. .as a dear and priceless brother and sister and mother and father and wife and child. .for somewhere down deep we are really such to each other.
These are lovely, keep going :-)
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