Laws of Life

 My cousin Nicholas was always such a character. He was charming, funny, and always lit up the room. I’ve heard story after story of the trouble he would get into, and how he could charm his way out of any situation. Everyone liked Nicholas; it was impossible not to.

 Unfortunately, these funny memories are not my own. Since he was so much older than me, I remember a completely different side of Nicholas. He was only nineteen when he was sent to Afghanistan with the Marines. I was nine or ten when I heard, so I didn’t know much about the war going on there, but I knew it was not good news. My family would send care package after care package, stuffed to the brim with everything we could possibly think to send him- socks, sleeping bags, pop-tarts, flashlights, shampoo, and everything in between. He would e-mail us every chance he got, sending breathtaking photos of the scenery, the people, and, of course, him and his Marine buddies.

It seemed every day on the news we would hear the war’s death toll climbing higher and higher. I know my family must have been worried sick, but I was naïve and couldn’t really put the pieces together. I knew he was in Afghanistan, and I knew people were dying there, but it never occurred to me just why that was so close to home. The thought of something happening to my cousin never crossed my mind.

One day my parents called my sister and me downstairs for a “family meeting”. I remember sitting on the couch with them, and being terrified I was in trouble for something. I had an enormous pit in my stomach. My dad had printed out an article from the internet, and began reading slowly. Tears welled up in my mom’s eyes. “Something terrible has happened. There was an ambush attack on Nicholas’s platoon while they were looking for Bin Laden.” He didn’t have to say any more. We all knew what he was trying to tell us. Nicholas had been killed.

We cried in the living room for hours. Since I am the youngest in my family, everyone tried to comfort me the most, even though we were all bawling uncontrollably. The next few days went by in a blur. Then we went to Arlington National cemetery for his funeral. The service was beautiful, the most solemn feeling I could possibly imagine. Pictures of Nicholas were everywhere, hundreds of them. Everyone walked through looking at them, both smiling and crying at the same time. It’s impossible not to smile thinking about Nicholas. I remember one picture in particular stood out the most to me. It was Nicholas standing in front of a wall at a WWII monument. On the wall was written, “Freedom Isn’t Free.”

The irony and significance of the photograph are almost overwhelming. Freedom is not free. And if anyone is an example of that, it’s Nicholas. He fought for the freedom of the country that he loved, and paid the ultimate price.

Caitlin Connolly