#kaysonova

We were borne into this life together, in the same hellish corpse blighted landscapes you wander alone in now and that you should have to bear the sights of such a wasteland alone or with only the foulest sort for company, causes me pain that if have only before known from the cruelest of deaths.

We know more than most of the devils that ride with war and such deeper devils were sailed into this part of the world through the wretched ports and on ships built with greed. We have seen the worst of the hate and cruelty that this “trade” has brought and are seeing it still. I have seen pain and suffering reflected on your face too often in these last decades, caused as much by the suffering we could not vanquish, as the assumption that you would be one of the perpetrators of that same suffering. 

Being such as we must do things differently, our skills are not always best suited to heroism but for this cause, in this era, as grim and ghastly as it has become, heroes cannot remain unbloodied and unsullied in their efforts to undo what dirty work has been done. It is the tragedy of the lives we’ve been given that our hands are the best to take these ugly tasks and It is a cruel irony that  the rampant prejudice of this place and time require would so harsh a sacrifice from those of us who have been most suited to care in peacetime, while restless peace is thrust upon those who are inclined to defend. 

I read your words and see you as clearly as ever, feeling tormented by faults long forgiven while you look upon scores of faces that are as you once were and know that they will not be given the opportunity to make the changes that you have, to learn from their mistakes. But this is no hypocrisy or blasphemy my love. You know as well as I that these louts and leeches have rejected such chances, becoming even more inhumane in response. If your heart feels no remorse, then it only acknowledges the depth of their depravity and the blasphemy that they have called it justified. 

Let your heart not be lonely, because though you may feel as though you are losing you capacity for compassion, I can tell you of the fortune that your work spreads among those who need it most. If it will bring warmth to your cold musings then think of the mother and children reunited in Mr. Goodridge’s cellar bedroom and the ailing elders, both those who have been healed here at the Willis House and those who have been able to die and be buried free and with dignity. Think of the man, Jonas, who you incidentally gave your letter to, reaching us in York with less than a week to spare before his wife Belah went into labor. This man was able to witness the birth of their first child, when at the last they saw each other they thought he would be condemned to death on the front of a confederate line to assuage the ego of a man who would spitefully sell a budding family apart. They have named the child Nicola, after asking me for your name. Jonas says that all he would wish in this life for his girl to be as brave and bold as the stranger who made it possible for him to reach his wife and meet her. 

If you are a storm then you must be a hurricane for “as the whirlwind passes suddenly, so wicked men shall perish and be no more. But the righteous, on an everlasting foundation, turn aside and escape forever.”

I am sure that you will benefit from a mission that will feel clean, work that lets you heal and rest in using the knowledge and skill that have been granted by our gift without the accompanying curse of death and I promise that you will have it, but you are healing the wounds of people now, as surely as you would be in an operating theater or pharmacy. 

I know that you have thought of our works as responsibility in the past, a necessary way to pass the torment of ages and I have always said that you don’t give yourself enough credit, my love for your heart or your insight. I will say it again to you now because if you have seen the sun rise from the west, I can only assume that perhaps your thoughts on destiny have finally borne fruit; and the portents of our shared faith with remove this weight from you and deliver you back to me

I cannot be your sun or your compass, so let me be the stars that surround the moon at night instead, steady and ever constant company that your weary soul can trust as a guide to a safe resting place.

And please my life and soul, remember that you are not alone in this, not even among our number. Sébastien has recently returned to us from the Louisiana territory and I can see the toll that this has taken on his young heart. I know that you must be feeling much the same, but while we may be alone in our condition and ability to sacrifice ourselves to this cause, we are not at all alone in the desire to do so. You know that our network of Friends will not fight for any cause but there are many passengers who have come through our station that do not feel the same way and are eager to do what they can Mr. Willis has been able to secure uniforms and provisions, to outfit them and Mr.Goodridge has arranged to send a passenger car of more delicate cargo to Friends further north, for safe keeping through the trials to come. The freedmen are forming a battalion and when they march to hold the border beyond Gettysburg we will be joining. By providence when you read this, I will be with you again to ease whatever nightmares are before your eyes, day or night and the thunder of our hearts together will be the knell that drives this darkness from your mind.

Eternally Yours,