On the last week of Nolen's college, he got a call from the hospital. The next thing he knew, everything rushed over him, time didn't stop for him to remorse. "The next few days I only lived because I was alive, there was no meaning in it. I couldn't effort to be a human being." As soon as the funeral ended Nolen's father fished for a small rectangular box from his pocket and gave it to him. This gesture reminded him of how his father used to do the same thing from time to time for his mother, bringing her small presents every now and then, even when things weren't going too well for them.
Nolen held onto that small rectangular box tightly and didn't let go. It was filled with the letters his mother had written for him. He knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked towards the final phase of her life, both of them couldn't help but wish for more of it, craving for so much more in those final moments. His eyes filled with tears rolling down his cheeks as he read the letter from his mother filled with her compassionate and comforting warmth, the words "they say that going through pain and struggle makes you grow up. Well, I don't want my little boy to ever become jaded. I want him to stay as my little boy as long as he can. I was scared...of how the world would treat you, yet I closed to my eyes with relief. It wasn't regret any longer but sensation of abundant peace that washed over me as a saw you filling the void within you. It doesn't matter that you fell down. Everybody falls down. What matters is what comes next. Do you make it right or do you make it just worse ?"
One last time Nolen remember how his mother stood at the doorway, all smiles and hearty waves before he filled in the application for the military after three years of his rehab. On leave days, Nolen would visit his father and tell him stories of his life in military, his father never wavered. He noded slowly and smiled with the look of gratitude, as if he had been granted a covered privilege. The other days Nolen would travel, marvelling at how every story is filled with unimaginable grief. And yet people find a way to survive and to go on with no destination but with a hope of a passionate journey.