Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Mrs. Maggie Lee was an early riser like her husband, and generally when reveille sounded deep in her husband's mind, she was generally also about ready to wake up … but this was a different experience in their lives, because he had gone to sleep very relaxed, and was actually a little behind her in waking.
“I don't think I have slept quite that well since childhood,” he said. “I had that kind of rest that has a man having an out-of-body experience, looking at himself resting and saying, 'Is this for real?'”
Mrs. Lee laughed.
“Ah yes, that deep rest,” she said. “Very few of us in adulthood get enough of that – but running around after seven little cousins can help!”
“Actually, you're right,” the colonel said. “It is not as hard as Special Forces, but it is satisfying in a different way, something very deep.”
He sighed, and then continued.
“Lees generally are not loners,” he said. “My family is immense, and even just the mountain set is huge, so it takes some doing for any Lee-of-the-mountain to literally do life for 27 years pretty much alone. I just didn't have a way to even describe what had happened to me before age 19 – undiagnosed bipolar, widower with lost child also, seer of a vision of Heaven in which I saw my wife and what our son would look in maturity every night for weeks, flipped-out-woulda-been mass murderer but for my grandfather's haymaker – and then all of that hushed up by the Army so I could go back and become an elite killer – just how do you explain all that to anyone?”
“That sounds exhausting, and enough to put anyone into despair,” Mrs. Lee said.
“I am here by the grace of God,” Col. Lee said. “I look back and there is no other reason – how I saw 20 years old boggles my mind. But now … I wish we could get a bit more time alone with these little ones everywhere, but this is like growing up on the mountain: multi-generational life and love. I have been surprised at being at home again!”
“And I know so many people never make it,” Mrs. Lee said.
“God is good,” he said, “and even brought me a wife with a big family who grew up the same way and whose grandfather knows my grandfather!”
“Papa Nabucco was so tickled when he realized,” she said. “He still says that you are a pre-vetted Anglo, and your Italian is good too, so it is all right!”
Col. Lee laughed.
“Coming from Nabucco Milano, that is high praise!” he said.
“He also said he knew you were a family man at heart,” she said, “and he was right!”
“I am,” he said, “and at last, at home, with you, and the mission we are now on.”