The garden was tranquil, but she realized harmony was a momentary matter. Within a few minutes, the reality would return. The sounds of planes and gunfire were deafening, but it was the sounds of drying soldiers that cut to the bone.
She’d volunteered to be a nurse early in the war. Within a month of beginning to serve, she had held severed hands and looked deep into a young boy’s guts and not blinked. How much blood had she washed from her hair? Far too much, but nothing ripped her heard up as sounds of the dying soldiers. The garden became her sanctuary where she came after another one died. The sounds of the pond and the smell of fresh flowers, and even the buzz of flies, were peaceful. She could compose herself and remembered there was life beyond the blood, guts, and dying.
Today had been horrible.
Three young men and a female driver of an ambulance were involved in a rollover accident. They managed to save one young boy but lost the others. She cried, the drone of a bee nearby and the plop of a frog in the pond her only companions.
She sensed someone in the garden and whipped her head around.
“You okay?” Her commanding officer stood before her.
She stood and faced her CO. “No… yes, I’m fine.”
“Linda, I know. You did the best you could.”
Linda straightened her apron and pulled herself together.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get back to work now.” She saluted as she walked past him.
The war in the east against the Japanese had been fierce and devastating. It seemed the only space that either side avoided was the small gardens and resting places dotted through the country. A fire could destroy the land and buildings surrounding the gardens, but the gardens were sacred. It was in these small patches of nature that she kept her soul together.
She retired from the Army Nursing Corps, a colonel, and taught nursing for the army and other medical schools. Now, fifty years later, each night, she came to sit in her small Japanese garden at her home in California.
Through the large glass door behind her, her service medals and awards in the war hung on the wall. But she took little comfort from the medals, as she tried to forget all the men she couldn’t save.
She’d volunteered to be a nurse early in the war. Within a month of beginning to serve, she had held severed hands and looked deep into a young boy’s guts and not blinked. How much blood had she washed from her hair? Far too much, but nothing ripped her heard up as sounds of the dying soldiers. The garden became her sanctuary where she came after another one died. The sounds of the pond and the smell of fresh flowers, and even the buzz of flies, were peaceful. She could compose herself and remembered there was life beyond the blood, guts, and dying.
Today had been horrible.
Three young men and a female driver of an ambulance were involved in a rollover accident. They managed to save one young boy but lost the others. She cried, the drone of a bee nearby and the plop of a frog in the pond her only companions.
She sensed someone in the garden and whipped her head around.
“You okay?” Her commanding officer stood before her.
She stood and faced her CO. “No… yes, I’m fine.”
“Linda, I know. You did the best you could.”
Linda straightened her apron and pulled herself together.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get back to work now.” She saluted as she walked past him.
The war in the east against the Japanese had been fierce and devastating. It seemed the only space that either side avoided was the small gardens and resting places dotted through the country. A fire could destroy the land and buildings surrounding the gardens, but the gardens were sacred. It was in these small patches of nature that she kept her soul together.
She retired from the Army Nursing Corps, a colonel, and taught nursing for the army and other medical schools. Now, fifty years later, each night, she came to sit in her small Japanese garden at her home in California.
Through the large glass door behind her, her service medals and awards in the war hung on the wall. But she took little comfort from the medals, as she tried to forget all the men she couldn’t save.
