PART 4 — WHEN THE WAR FINALLY ENDED

Years passed.

More battles came.

More marches.

More nights when I wondered whether I’d ever see home again.

By then, I wasn’t the frightened young boy who had first left his mother’s house.

I had grown older.

The war had changed me.

It had changed all of us.

Then came the news of Yorktown in 1781.

The British army had suffered a major defeat.

People began saying the war was finally coming to an end.

I remember the reaction.

Some men shouted.

Some laughed.

Some cried.

And some just sat there silently.

I was one of those men.

I should have been celebrating.

And part of me was.

We had fought for years.

We had survived cold winters.

Hunger.

Fear.

And loss.

But when I looked around at the men beside me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the ones who weren’t there anymore.

Samuel wasn’t there.

The other young soldier who used to pray beside me wasn’t there.

So many faces were missing.

Victory could bring us independence.

But it couldn’t bring our friends back.

That was something I learned very young.

Freedom can be beautiful.

But the road toward it can be painful.

Eventually, I went home.

I walked toward the house where I had grown up.

My mother was older.

I was older.

Neither of us looked the way we remembered.

But when she saw me…

she knew me.

She didn’t say anything.

She simply ran toward me.

And held me.

I remembered the last thing she had said before I left.

“Come home.”

And I had.

I didn’t come home as the same young man who had left.

But I came home.

That was enough.