Billy

He’d seen things

no soul should ever see,

heard things

that still rattle in his dreams—

not just bombs in Belfast,

but shrapnel lodged inside his heart,

twisted fragments of hurt

no surgeon could remove.

He took the Queen’s shilling,

donned military greens,

boots laced tight

on duty in the Troubles,

where history’s heavy shadows

pressed down on every step.

Young heart,

wounded,

hurting—

carrying silent wars

no medal could reach.

Billy,

small man now—

made smaller still

by hunger and hard times,

poverty chiselling away the edges,

but when he sparred—

you could tell—

he used to be a fighter,

a scrapper,

broad like a bear,

boxing gloves put down long ago,

tattoos fading like old scars.

He smoked roll-ups,

collected dimps off the streets,

liked chips with brown sauce,

tea sweet and strong—

little comforts in a fractured world.

Years peeled away

like bark on a tree.

From soldier to stranger

on cold streets.

Not broken,

just lost

to a world that doesn’t see

the men who carry silent wars

inside their souls.

The bottle became refuge,

not cause.

Addiction, a language of pain,

not the pain itself.

A system that calls him ‘not engaging,’

but never asks what broke him,

or how to heal a spirit crushed

by battles no one honours.

No one knows

how he ended up here—

in the place named after the dragon-slayer.

He stayed.

Found footing.

Brick by brick,

foundation by foundation,

he built again.

At Lighthouse,

he was baptised.

The old soldier,

immersed in grace,

mouth full of prayers and holy water.

He recited the Lord’s Prayer open-mouthed

as we pushed him under—

the lost sheep found,

the prodigal returning,

not erased,

but redeemed,

spluttering.

He came to everything.

Shared smokes with Army John,

fake boxed with Claire,

laughed, cried,

found peace in hymns old and new,

and in a song that promised,

“You’ve got a friend.”

Then—he vanished.

We knocked.

Posted cards.

Waited.

Then the call came.

Held hostage.

Cuckooed.

His home emptied,

his life stolen.

Every payday,

they marched him out,

a prisoner again—

this time without uniform.

We learned he heard us

when we knocked—

tried to shout—

but the walls held his voice

and we walked away.

Then he collapsed.

Outside the post office,

on payday.

End-stage cancer.

The couple fled.

The ambulance came—

flashing lights,

a siren cutting the air

like a scream of lament.

This is not the way it is meant to be.

In the bare hospice room,

non-clinical, not homely—just silence,

Leah tried to find the oil,

but brought perfume instead,

sharp and sweet,

an anointing for the one now about to die,

a thin space, a holy space,

a space where lament and hope are entwined.

Lighthouse sang him home,

old hymns weaving through hospice corridors

alongside his rattled breath.

An image-bearer

smelling good

sung into pearly gates,

for all tears to be wiped away.

No one could find

his biological family—

Lighthouse was his family now.

A prodigal’s homecoming

without fanfare or flourish.

He was buried,

a multiple grave,

a secular celebrant.

Despite our searching,

we found out—praise God—

only the day before,

when the crypt chaplain and I

stood beside his grave,

the earth heavy with grief,

still warm with loss.

One of our own,

a Lighthouse lad,

tossed an apple down—

“Here’s something for the journey.”

Life is holy,

but it hurts—

beautiful and broken,

the sinful being saved,

a brittle glass catching light

even as it cracks.

We are but dust,

and to dust we shall return;

blown like chaff upon the wind,

scattered beyond our knowing—

and yet,

the faithfulness of God

endures forever.

Maybe we’ll meet again,

Yeah I think we will.

Laugh, box,

smoke a roll-up, if the Lord permits.

And if I get the chance,

I’ll say,

“I’m sorry we didn’t hear you when we knocked on your door.”

And maybe he’ll grin,

that half-tooth smile,

and say,

“You’ve got a friend.”

- Rev'd Jon Swales, 2025