It has been a little more than three months since we lost Connor. The world has not yet learned of the death of their General, but they have begun to grow anxious. Afraid for the worst, afraid for his safety and more importantly afraid that this shining beacon of light has been extinguished.
Fear is nothing new, we live with it every day. We know it as intimately as we do anger, anxiety, or even love. We all harbor these fears inside of us, even Connor did. I think in the days before his death, his greatest fear was that he would fail, that nothing he could do would make enough of a difference in this war.
At the end of the day, our fears never simply fade away. They merely take on new forms, spawning a whole new set of doubts. You see, on the day Connor died, my greatest fear was realized. I watched in agony as the path faded behind us. My body was wracked with the pain of losing him. It is a pain I still experience, and probably always will, every time I see his face in my mind. Each time, I mistakenly think I hear his voice in this distance. Every time a door opens, hoping it would be him walking through.
If there is one thing I hope to accomplish by sharing my story, it is this; Connor was not Jesus or some kind of super hero, he was a man crippled by fear and insecurity just like all the rest of us. What set him apart was his incredible drive to persevere when the darkest moments were still before him. Connor was a man, wrought with doubt and trepidation. What made him the General, is that he owned his fear. He acknowledged it and used it to push himself past limits that most men could not.
Now we must all attempt to own our fear in order to move forward. In this darkest of hours, there is no General for us to turn to. We are truly alone. I am truly alone now.