Friday, August 22, 2008

64 years later

If my father saw me twice before he was killed at war ( WW2) I have no memory of this, as I was only 8 month old. On the wall there is his picture before he went to war, in a box I have his medals, the obituary from the local newspaper, his medals, just a few letters he had written to my mother from the front. But during my latest trip to France, as I visited my sister, she gave me a surprise hidden in an old tissue paper : A two inch tin soldier . On that paper my mother's handwriting which I recognized. She wrote " soldier that Alain put in daddy's pocket when he left for war." Alain was our brother barely 3 years old then.

I hold this tiny soldier in my hands almost everyday. My father carried it as he fought many battles only to come back home in a coffin. 64 years later I never felt so close to him. I wonder how many times he hold it, perhaps kissed it as I often do. 64 years later, I cry for the father I never met.
The Weight of War Falls on the Young


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