69. MY CALLING, Part Five

“You know those days you sometimes have? The days that seem totally ordinary when you wake up, but by the time you go to sleep that night, your whole life is divided into before that day and after that day? This is one of those days.”

 - Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel

Now comes the hard part; putting this into action. Talk is cheap, as the cliché goes.

It’s possible, maybe even likely, that I’ll lose my way. It’s happened before, like when I gave up on being an Ironman triathlete. Maybe I’ll have a change of heart and decide that what the world really needs is me as a general. Or, maybe I’ll become famous and forget all this stuff about serving others so I can focus on my next book. Or, maybe my actions will be to no avail and, after everything, I’ll die a no-name hack.

Maybe, although I don’t think any of that is likely.

One last story.

I once met an American soldier in Afghanistan who was on his sixth deployment to that combat zone. We got to talking, and I asked him how much longer he’d be willing to do it. I mean, at some point we’ve all got to hang up our guns, right? What he told me, though, was that he’d deploy another twenty times if it meant his children wouldn’t have to see war.

I think about that these days, when I go upstairs of an evening and tuck in my seven-year-old daughter and make sure she has her stuffed giraffe. And I think about it when I whisper good-night to my ten-year-old daughter as she sleeps. I think about how my calling is no longer to fight against some enemy I’ve been ordered to kill on behalf of a government who probably hasn’t thought through all the costs. No, these days, my calling is to stand up for a better tomorrow. No more, no less. And I’m doing it for the only thing that really matters, my children. That’s something I can do all day, every day. And, when I do die, all I hope the historians will write about me is that what killed me, made others stronger.

I’m ready.

Are you?