His rehabilitation therapy at the hospital was the easy part. Figuring out how to make do with part of his body missing was the hard part.
Adapting to life as a damaged soul would be this soldier’s next battle. Still, he felt strong and up to the task, except, that is, for the fuzzy, lightheaded glow he felt whenever his nurse made her rounds.
The infirmary held his wounds together, and soon, as he healed, she held his heart together with her hand on his. He had lost his leg to the war; he lost his heart to this woman, now so long ago.
Then, with her own unforeseen illness, the hospital held them both, long florescent corridors distancing them from one another, her leg also lost now so long ago.
After their release from the corridors, the doctors were unsure how much more time they would have left to share together.
So they moved their fast-track courtship from the hospital floor to the dance floor, balancing the uneven steps of their imitation legs with a slow-motion waltz, their limbs lost long ago.
The winds that finally blew out the flames of the exhausted war served to fan their love. Gradually, unexpectedly, their years together gathered and grew; they savored each one as a welcome, precious gift.
And on each side of their bed every night, their wooden legs rested like attendants ready to serve, faithful companions to replace their limbs lost long ago.
When at last his life had run its course and later, when her life had done the same, they carried her carefully from their bed.
Then, gently, they brought out their wooden limbs, where every night of their lives together they had been carefully laid by the bed, patiently awaiting the next day’s dawning.
Now they, too, like the soldier and the nurse, would remain together, limbs lost long ago.