Bury the Dead

Bury the Dead

Bury the dead and get on with the living.

The boy heard the phrase throughout his life and repeated it often.

Was he first told this when he was a toddler being lifted into the casket to kiss his mother goodbye?

Were these the words that echoed in his mind when he pulled up this, his only memory of her?

Bury the dead and get on with the living.

Did the teenager bolster himself with this refrain when his house and everything inside it – including the only existing pictures of that long-gone mother – were engulfed in flames?

When did he begin to voice the phrase aloud?

Bury the dead and get on with the living.

He taught himself and the young soldiers under his command this way to survive the devastation of losing comrades.

Maybe it helped.

And perhaps it was useful as he watched his daughter, herself with a toddler boy, lie dying in a hospital bed.

Bury the dead and get on with the living.

What do those words mean to him now – now that almost everyone he has ever known is gone and his own embrace of life is releasing?