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When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him . . . In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.
This quote highlights a pinnacle moment in Louie’s life and a key aspect of the power of spiritual love to yield transformation in one’s life. After he has returned from war and been deep in the throes of addiction and PTSD, Louie attends a Billy Graham revival with Cynthia. He experiences the “divine love” which he believes is extended from God into his heart, and it is this love that washes away all the darkness and despair from his wartime days.
On an October afternoon, Louie stepped out of an army car and stood on the lawn at 2028 Gramercy Avenue, looking at his parents’ house for the first time in more than three years. “This, this little home,” he said, “was worth all of it.”
This quote embodies the power of familial love in Louie’s story to provide motivation and inspiration to endure the harshest of conditions. Upon returning to the US after the war’s end and his rescue from Naoetesu, Louie visits his childhood home and is overwhelmed by the gravity of the moment. He looks back on the horrors he endured and finds that returning to the epicenter of his family’s love is a worthy reward. This realization suggests the depth of power that this little house and all it represents held in his memory during the worst moments of the war.
Louise cried and prayed. From the stress, open sores broke out all over her hands. Sylvia thought her hands looked like raw hamburger. Somewhere in those jagged days, a fierce conviction came over Louise. She was absolutely certain that her son was alive.
After the family receives a telegram declaring Louie’s disappearance, his mother Louise is devastated and develops a stress rash that does not dissipate until Louie returns home. Louise’s relentless maternal love seems to undergird her fears, and somehow she remains confident that Louie is alive, though the odds would say otherwise. This representation of love suggests the power of a mother’s devotion, and though she is thousands of miles from Louie, her spirit seems to guard and guide him through his battle to survive.
