LJ Idol 05: Words in the Winds of Time

Have you ever heard of a man named Sullivan Ballou?

I hadn’t until this week, when through a series of random occurrences, I went looking for a song by Audra Mae called Sullivan’s Letter. I found first the text of his letter to his wife Sally. Sullivan was a major in the United States Army, who spent the night before his unit marched to the first Battle of Bull Run, where he and 93 of his men perished, writing a letter to his wife Sally and saying goodbye.

Now, 150 years later, the man named Sullivan Ballou has entered popular culture, not through the fact that he was an orphan who put himself through several prestigious schools, nor for the fact that he was a politician, nor even for the fact that he was a respected attorney and military judge. His two children have faded into the mists of time and most people probably do not know or care about him at all. But his words, oh, his words. They seized me by the heart and shook me to my unromantic core.

Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

When was the last time I wrote to the people I loved and really spilled my heart on the page like that?

The answer is simple – I never have.

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

Life is short, shorter than we even can imagine. I would not guess that many of us reach the end of our journey with gratitude, and for too many of us, we reach the end with a sense of surprise.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break.

How many of us wish that we had such words to cradle us in our grief? Yet, how many of us make ourselves vulnerable enough to speak them?

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours - always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

I do not know is Sarah ever felt Sullivan’s breath on her cheek, or if she could feel his presence watching over her and their two sons, but I can imagine the strength she took from his words. I can imagine the crinkled paper of the letter after she had unfolded it from its hidden place in her home and read the words for the thousandth time.

It makes the casual and indifferent farewells of daily life pale in comparison. I try and make sure that the people I love know that I love them, but I rarely let them know what they mean to me.

When I left home this morning, my roommate interrupted my stressful thoughts about the thousand and one things that I had to do today to say, “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

It may not be a letter that will memorialize her though time, but it made my day a great deal better. So, I will make myself a promise, a vow of sorts, to be better about telling people that they are not an afterthought. I will tell them that I love them. I will tell them that I care.

And if tomorrow proves to be the day that I depart for the Great Unknown, I will try the ones that I love with the certainty that somewhere, if possible, I am still loving them.


This entry was written for Topic 5: Afterthought at therealljidol. I assume voting will take place later this week. Everyone should check out all the good entries!