“Yes,” I said.
“REMEMBER ALL OUR PRACTICING?” he asked me.
“I remember,” I said.
Owen tried to raise his hands; he tried to reach out to me with his arms—I think he wanted to touch me. That was when he realized that his arms were gone. He didn’t seem surprised by the discovery.
“REMEMBER WATAHANTOWET?” he asked me.
“I remember,” I said.
Then he smiled at the “penguin” who was trying to make him comfortable in her lap; her wimple was covered with his blood, and she had wrapped as much of her habit around him as she could manage—because he was shivering.
“‘… WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE,’” Owen said to her. The nun nodded in agreement; she made the sign of the cross over him.
Then Owen smiled at Major Rawls. “PLEASE SEE TO IT THAT I GET SOME KIND OF MEDAL FOR THIS,” he asked the major, who bowed his head—and cranked his tourniquet tighter.
There was only the briefest moment, when Owen looked stricken—something deeper and darker than pain crossed over his face, and he said to the nun who held him: “I’M AWFULLY COLD, SISTER—CAN’T YOU DO SOMETHING?” Then whatever had troubled him passed over him completely, and he smiled again—he looked at us all with his old, infuriating smile.
Then he looked only at me. “YOU’RE GETTING SMALLER, BUT I CAN STILL SEE YOU!” said Owen Meany.
Then he left us; he was gone. I could tell by his almost cheerful expression that he was at least as high as the palm trees.
Major Rawls saw to it that Owen Meany got a medal. I was asked to make an eyewitness report, but Major Rawls was instrumental in pushing the proper paperwork through the military chain of command. Owen Meany was awarded the so-called Soldier’s Medal: “For heroism that involves the voluntary risk of life under conditions other than those of conflict with an opposing armed force.” According to Major Rawls, the Soldier’s Medal rates above the Bronze Star but below the Legion of Merit. Naturally, it didn’t matter very much to me—exactly where the medal was rated—but I think Rawls was right in assuming that the medal mattered to Owen Meany.
Major Rawls did not attend Owen’s funeral. When I spoke on the telephone with him, Rawls was apologetic about not making the trip to New Hampshire; but I assured him that I completely understood his feelings. Major Rawls had seen his share of flag-draped caskets; he had seen his share of heroes, too. Major Rawls never knew everything that Owen had known; the major knew only that Owen had been a hero—he didn’t know that Owen Meany had been a miracle, too.
There’s a prayer I say most often for Owen. It’s one of the little prayers he said for my mother, the night Hester and I found him in the cemetery—where he’d brought the flashlight, because he knew how my mother had hated the darkness.
“‘INTO PARADISE MAY THE ANGELS LEAD YOU,’” he’d said over my mother’s grave; and so I say that one for him—I know it was one of his favorites.
I am always saying prayers for Owen Meany.
And I often try to imagine how I might have answered Mary Beth Baird, when she spoke to me—at Owen’s burial. If I could have spoken, if I hadn’t lost my voice—what would I have said to her, how could I have answered her? Poor Mary Beth Baird! I left her standing in the cemetery without an answer.
“Do you remember how we used to lift him up?” she’d asked me. “He was so easy to lift up!” Mary Beth Baird had said to me. “He was so light—he weighed nothing at all! How could he have been so light?” the former Virgin Mother had asked me.
I could have told her that it was only our illusion that Owen Meany weighed “nothing at all.” We were only children—we are only children—I could have told her. What did we ever know about Owen? What did we truly know? We had the impression that everything was a game—we thought we made everything up as we went along. When we were children, we had the impression that almost everything was just for fun—no harm intended, no damage done.
When we held Owen Meany above our heads, when we passed him back and forth—so effortlessly—we believed that Owen weighed nothing at all. We did not realize that there were forces beyond our play. Now I know they were the forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen’s weightlessness; they were the forces we didn’t have the faith to feel, they were the forces we failed to believe in—and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands.
O God—please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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The author acknowledges his debt to Charles H. Bell’s History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire (Boston: J. E. Farwell & Co., 1888), and to Mr. Bell’s Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire: A Historical Sketch (Exeter, N.H.: William B. Morrill, News-Letter Press, 1883); all references in my novel to “Wall’s History of Gravesend, N.H.” are from these sources. Another valuable sourcebook for me was Vietnam War Almanac (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985) by Harry G. Summers, Jr.; I am grateful to Colonel Summers, too, for his helpful correspondence. The Rev. Ann E. Tottenham, headmistress of The Bishop Strachan School, was a special source of help to me; her careful reading of the manuscript is much appreciated. I am indebted, too, to the students and faculty of Bishop Strachan; on numerous occasions, they were patient with me and generous with their time. I am a grateful reader of Your Voice by Robert Lawrence Weer (New York: Keith Davis, 1977), revised and edited by Keith Davis; a justly respected voice and singing teacher, Mr. Davis suffered my amateur attempts at “breathing for singers” most graciously. The advice offered by the fictional character of “Graham McSwiney” is verbatim et literatim to the teaching of Mr. Weer; my thanks to Mr. Davis for introducing me to the subject. I acknowledge, most of all, how much I owe to the writing of my former teacher Frederick Buechner; especially The Magnificent Defeat (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), The Hungering Dark (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), and The Alphabet of Grace (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). The Rev. Mr. Buechner’s correspondence, his criticism of the manuscript, and the constancy of his encouragement have meant a great deal to me: thank you, Fred. And to three old friends—close readers with special knowledge—I am indebted: to Dr. Chas E. (“Skipper”) Bickel, the granite master; to Brig. Gen. Charles C. (“Brute”) Krulak, my hero; and to Ron Hansen, the body escort. To my first cousins in “the north country,” Bayard and Curt: thank you, too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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JOHN IRVING has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. In 1992, Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Irving’s most recent novel is In One Person (2012).
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