We All Walk Towards The Sunset

Jay Kent lay there dying. He knew it. He could feel the warm blood slowing making its way down his body from his chest. Or, was it moving quickly? He couldn't tell. His mind was in that strange twilight period between reality and the ''other world''. He knew that he was going to that world quickly. There were gonna be no last minute, heroic, life-saving techniques applied to him. In fact, no one knew he was still alive. There was still the battle raging around him, men going forward in the haze of smoke and carnage. One by one, it seemed, they were getting plowed down. Even in the mist of his dying eyes and ears, he heard the screams from his fellow soldiers. It was the scream of ultimate pain, of a human body meeting such an unnatural intrusion that the cries came from the bottom of the soul. Or, was it the center? Again, his mind was playing tricks on him as his thoughts came fast and furious at him. And, Jay kept coming back to the central issue: he was dying in his own blood on this beautiful beach in France....... He had a whole different destiny planned for himself, he reflected. It wasn't supposed to end this way, leaving this life at the age of twenty one. He had not lived at all. His big plans in life: a good career, the love of a good woman, and his kids. And, someday, long into the future, he would bounce his grandson on his knee and talk about his great adventures in World War Two. Those anecdotes would be embellished, he grinned to himself in better times, because a good story in a war must be exciting for a small boy. No kid wanted to hear about the drudgery of basic training or the endless boring hours of no action on the battlefield. He couldn't even tell his grandson that there wasn't really a thing called a battlefield. It wasn't like a sports game with an actual boundary and you showed up to fight. No, a war was a constant shifting of ground, no set place. Jay would not tell that to his grandson, mind you. Just the hero worship parts that the kid would always remember........ But, now, there would be no grandchild and the stories of the glorious battles of war. There would be no kids of his own or a wife. Jay Kent would miss out on all of this. He silently asked for forgiveness to them. The kids would never be born. They would forever be in that parallel world of the unborn, never to be alive. And, Jay also said a quiet prayer to his never-to-be wife......... Jay always wanted to be a family man. He grew up around a big family filled with love. His most cherished childhood memory involved dolphins. Jay loved dolphins and always yearned to see them in person and swim with them. One day, the family scrapped up enough money to go to Florida and fulfill Jay's fantasy of swimming with them. And, he did, long and hard, the sweet feeling of them by his side forever seared into his memory. But, the trip home was horrible, for the family car broke down and the family was robbed by some ''do-gooder'' who stopped to ''help'' them. When the family got back to Iowa, everyone but Jay was in a foul mood. Despite the bad luck coming home, Jay felt fine. As he told the fellow residents of Davenport, ''I swam with the dolphins!''...... Jay was that stereotypical boy who fell in love with his high school sweetheart. She even had an All-American name to go along with the All-American girl that she was: Betsy. Betsy was a fine young lass, as the saying goes. All bright eyed and summer dresses. Jay and Betsy first met in the second grade. Well, they met head-on. Neither was looking where the other was going and, SLAM!, right into each other they went. Picking up her books, Jay first noticed the girl that would capture his fancy. You know, they were kids and kids don't understand the complex nature of love [the truth must be said, neither do adults]. But, Jay, in his mind, knew that he liked this girl Betsy. He went out of his way to see and talk to her. It was a small school in Davenport, Iowa, so it wasn't hard to grab a glimpse of her and to converse. Soon, they were pals. The whole school teased them good-naturally that they would grow up and get married. Ole Jay would get red-faced when hearing this, and, Becky would giggle behind her books that she was always carrying. Still, even at this young age, there was an innocent spark between them, one that they did not know would grow into a teenage romance. And, they did all of the things that teenagers did in the Depression years. They went for bike rides, spun each other on the swings attached to the Big Tree in town, went out with their mutual friends, and went for walks holding hands towards the sunset. They loved sunsets together. The warmth of the sun seemed to bathe all over them, enhancing their promise of a good life with each other. Walking towards the sun became their shared image of love........ When Jay Kent was 20 years old, in 1943, he got his marching papers from Uncle Sam. The war was raging on now for two years, and, while some progress was being made against our enemies, the road to the end of was still long and bloody. Jay really didn't want to go. It wasn't that he didn't want to go fight for his country, he did. But, he had that destiny already started. He wanted to be a lawyer. Not just a country lawyer but a big city one. And, he didn't want to just make some money.He genuinely wanted to help people in need. He would help the poor and the forgotten. Even at his tender age, he was somewhat worldly. He read a lot and knew more about the world than anyone else in town, it seemed. Also, Jay wanted to give Betsy a good life. They had already decided that they would be man and wife. Betsy, the same age as him, would work in the big city until Jay would get his foot in the door of a real law firm. Afterwords, after he was established, would come the kids that they both wanted so fiercely. Because both came from big families, they felt comfortable with the idea of a big brood of their own. A house filled with kids to greet him every night filled him with happiness. Life held out great promises for Jay. But, his country was calling him to go fight Hitler. He went. Before he went, Jay and Betsy walked towards the sun one more time. He kissed her like never before, as the sun watched. Whatever the nature of the kiss, it proved to be their best kiss. All of the years they had known each other, all of the fun times and the laughing and joking and sweet moments seemed to meld into that kiss. It was a kiss for their past. And, also, a kiss for the promise of their future....... Lying there on the beach, Jay Kent thought the thoughts of a short lifetime. The pain inside of him was increasing, melding with a coldness. Jay once read that a cold internal feeling when mortally wounded was the final sign that the end was near. His body was shutting down, like the slow dowsing of the lights at the school dances. He was on his Last Dance, never to return. Jay looked around this beach, the vast beach that he had never heard of called Omaha Beach. Other men were dying like he was, a slow march towards the dark. He thought that they, too, must be making some kind of life accounting in their minds. Jay knew that his own life saga was nothing special. He was one of millions who were victims. Everyone had a tale to tell, there would be no special stories to report on him on the movie theater newsreels. Jay would be forgotten, the average soldier dying the average death. But, he still looked at his fellow victims and wondered. What were their lost dreams? Who were they leaving behind? What great futures were being wiped out? And, what generations would be forever unlived? A part of him still heard the screams. The screams for help that would never come. The screams of calling out for a mother. More than any other call, Jay heard the cries of the soldiers for their mothers. He had seen other men die---- one in his arms--- and witnessed the retreat of the dying soldier into instant infancy. Perhaps, Jay had called out for his Mom. He didn't know but he hoped he had. He loved his parents deeply, always, and cried a separate cry from his pain realizing that soon they would receive word that he was gone. He imagined the horror of discovery on their faces, of the permanent wave of sadness that would descend on them with the news. The non-battlefield wounded of a war. Every war had them. Jay realized that his parents would never be the same, that nightmares and depression were to be their lots in life until they passed. Parents burying their children. In Jay's dwindling mind, he recalled a verse in the Bible about how when children died before the parents even God cries. Lying here, Jay Kent knew he was leaving many tears....... Jay suddenly felt light-headed, as if a fog was closely in on him quickly. This is it, The End. Jay shivered suddenly, wishing he wasn't all alone, that someone was holding him. He had the sudden urge to be rocked slowly, like a baby safe in his mother's arms. But, there was no arms to hold him. Just his mortal thoughts. He prayed for a good life for his sisters and brothers. He wanted them to fulfill the dreams of his interrupted life. Please make the world better, he prayed. Let this thing called war, that old men send the young to fight, somehow, cease to ever exist again. Jay was no fool, war was as natural to mankind as breathing and eating. Maybe, one of his family could change that somewhat. To make the world a little less mean. It was a tall order, Jay knew. Jay also said a silent love prayer to Betsy. He wished her a good life, with a good man who would take care of her. He wished that her grief, when she finally did hear about his death, would be manageable. She was a strong girl. Hopefully, she would not be shattered. In time, she would find love again. But, whomever that fella was going to be, his love for her would not be the same. No one would ever love her like he loved her....... Jay Kent felt his body lose its feeling. His eyes felt heavy. He knew when he closed them it would be over. Death was taking him. Before he closed his eyes that final time, Jay looked up towards the Heavens. And, he saw the sun. In his mind's eye----the most potent idea machine for a human being, for all is good in the mind's eye--- he saw a sunset to end all sunsets. It was calling him home to the ultimate warmth........ And, the dolphins........