A mother’s grief
I never wanted you to go to war it was your father’s idea said it would make you a man to be away from me cut the apron strings he said. You were my baby boy wrapped in a grown man’s body mine after so much waiting and now I had to say good-bye with a smile on my face and tears filling my heart. I didn’t speak to your father for a week after you left but then I realized he missed his boy too, only he had to hide his sorrow wouldn’t do to let me think he was weak. We lived for your letters but after reading a few I said he could have them they felt as if a stranger were writing them. I wanted to believe it when you said you were safe that the fighting always took place far from where you were, but I read the newspapers, and they told a different story. At night when the house was too quiet, I could hear you crying, for me could feel the cold and the mud where you slept and your fear as if I were at your side. Then the boys from the village, those who went with you, started to die and I realized I shouldn’t wait for you anymore, you were not coming back to me. Instead, I turned to the past and the little boy who lived in my memories. The day they came to tell me you were dead was such a beautiful day I knew you were smiling at me from heaven. How could you be gone when I felt you near me wherever I went? We had a funeral for you a bugler played the last post, and I knew I should cry so people would know I mourned my boy but not a tear fell. I couldn’t let anyone see how much I missed you. There’s no reason for the days to come around anymore. I want to be with you, but it seems I must stay here a bit longer. The house is silent. Your father and I have nothing to say to each other. Whoever invented war did not have a son to be left behind while life for some reason kept on going with nothing left in it.