Robert grew up in small town Canada and led what most people would consider a normal life. He had a wife and two children; he was a real estate broker and a man about town who everyone knew by his first name. Robert could have been mayor if he had any interest in politics. Yes, from all appearances Robert was a well rounded guy.
Everyone has secrets and Robert was no different and his would haunt him every night in a way that few people could identify with because his secrets didn’t even belong to him but to his father.
Every night before Robert closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep he would pray to God that he would not dream that night. If he were to dream it was inevitable that his dream would be a horrific nightmare that would wake him in fits of panic, covered in sweat several times a night.
He tried everything he could to stop this nightly terror from medication to sleep clinics, therapy all of it and nothing worked. His current therapist had clearly identified why he was having these night terrors that affected him so deeply he was left weeping like a child in bed.
As far back as Robert could remember his father, a veteran of most major military campaigns of world war ll, would explain to an inquisitive Robert that what he saw and experienced was so far beyond hell on earth that the boy didn’t want to know and should not ask. Robert was persistent and repeatedly badgered his father for stories and over time his father began telling him small things, trying not to be too graphic.
Eventually his father started to feel his own demons leaving him simply because he finally had an outlet for his own memories. These stories held Roberts interest as if he were there himself. He was amazed by his father and his heroic exploits. For an adolescent who admired his dad these stories filled him with pride. They also ignited a fear in the back of a young mans mind that these were horrors he would never want to face himself.
As Robert grew older, he heard many more stories from his father and each one was more incredible than the next. Storming beaches with enemy fire buzzing past him, bullets passing through baggy fatigues and canvass rucksacks. There was a constant din of noise that was unimaginable and shook him to his very soul. Stories of young men not much older than Robert himself deprived of their lives by enemy mortar fire. His father sweating and gasping for breath under cover of a stonewall scraping blood and bits of flesh off his sleeves with his bayonet. Not knowing until a break in the action that it was his platoon leader who bought it when an enemy 88 round impacted several feet away from where his dad had just been standing yet he was spared from the invisible blizzard of shrapnel.
For years Robert was gripped by his father’s stories and he could see how his father had learned to open up about his time overseas. It had been good for his dad to openly speak about his missions and heartache over lost friends, the victories were sweet and the cause was worthy but oh how these brave men paid in the years that followed. Robert was pleased that his father trusted him enough to tell him his inner most thoughts and give him a glimpse of his tortured past.
Robert carried on with his normal life and his father was grateful his son never had to endure the horror he and his comrades had lived, he was extremely grateful for that. Robert was also and out of respect tried to remember every November 11th along with many others the sacrifices made by brave faceless men in far away conflicts.
The nightmares started when one day Robert was having a busy day driving his kids from school to doctor’s appointments across town rushed as he was with business and family matters. He drove by the old cenotaph downtown and noticed the small crowd and military band, wreaths, veterans in blue blazers campaign medals polished and blazing from their chests.
Tears welled up in Roberts’s eyes as he drove past the ceremony and realized that his father was no longer standing with his mates in formation on this cold, wet and blustery morning. All Robert had left were his fathers war stories and memories that had haunted his father for so many years and most certainly haunted the men he now saw in a staggered, arthritic line; still standing proud with their own tears and memories filling their hearts and rheumy eyes.
When Robert was in bed that night and drifting off to sleep, his mind was active with thoughts of his father’s actions during the war and those haunted men at the memorial. It wasn’t long before he woke up with a jolt, his heart racing and sweating profusely fearing that his leg was useless and shattered, no longer attached because of the machine gun fire he had just endured!
This was the beginning of his nightly terrors. Fear gripping him every time he closed his eyes for the sleep that would forever be interrupted by his father’s war. A war that lasted five years for his dad and Robert was only in his 3rd year of these dreadful nightmares.
Now that his father had passed he remembers praying that his father would now be at peace with his past. He remembers praying for his dad’s eternal rest and the hope he would be accepted into Gods eternity regardless of the blood he shed man against man in a time of war that even the most devout pacifist agreed needed to be fought.
Robert now knew that in order to have his father rest in peace, the responsibility of his father’s actions would need to be shouldered by someone in this reality. Penance would need to be paid on earth so humans would never forget the horror of their collective actions no matter how worthy the cause. It is Gods way of preserving his Kingdom on earth through the power of shared memory, regardless of ally or axis and making all of us worthy to make the dramatic next step into his eternal everlasting world with enough humility to make war impossible in his promised land. Someone must remember, someone must pay the penance and that responsibility was now Roberts.
