The Man That Never Was

The Lives of the Dead – Annie Kominek

When he was nine, Tim O’Brien fell in love with a little girl in his class. He fell deeply in love, not just puppy love that some children experience, but a true love that he still feels. A love that lives with you, making a home in your heart and never leaving; always paying rent, always dusting, always present. As a child, O’Brien probably never imagined marrying this young girl, making a family, a home or a life with her.

On his first date with Linda, he goes to see The Man That Never Was, a war story where the British dropped a dead body with fake papers into the sea, hoping the Nazi Germans would find it and believe the papers. Afterwards, Tim and Linda end up at the Dairy Queen, share some short yet profound words on Linda’s porch steps, then Tim knew he was in love.

It is interesting, the movie that he went to see. In a sense, I think O’Brien was foreshadowing that no, he would not end up with Linda, he would not marry her and the version of him that would have been with Linda died when she did. The man that never was: Tim O’Brien, husband of Linda, with a picket fence and a dog and three children. That man, the man Tim could have become, never came truly to life. Instead, he grew into a different Tim O’Brien, the man that is, father of Kathleen and a Vietnam War veteran.

Linda's death changed him. It would harden him; make him aware of the mortality of himself earlier than most children learn. Instead of living a blissful, happy life with Linda, he learns that people go away. People leave and never come back, and people are cruel and the world can be cruel. In the end, O'Brien becomes the man that is, and the man that never was lived and died with Linda.