julesjones (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
julesjones) wrote2007-11-11 03:24 pm
julesjones) wrote2007-11-11 03:24 pm
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At the going down of the sun...
On the mantlepiece in my parents' house, there sits a brass box. Not so very big a box, just enough to hold a few things to bring some Christmas cheer. A ration of tobacco and cigarettes, perhaps some chocolate or sweets. A Christmas card from HRH Princess Mary.
It's a link with the past, with a man I never met. He survived the trenches, to bring his Christmas box home with him as a souvenir, but he died before I was born. As did another great-grandfather, who carried a souvenir of the war in his scarred lungs until his too-early dying day.
Both of my grandfathers survived the next war. Those men I did have in my life, though others of their generation in my extended family are among those who never came back.
I remember. Had any of those four men met the fate so many did, I would not be here to remember.
It's a link with the past, with a man I never met. He survived the trenches, to bring his Christmas box home with him as a souvenir, but he died before I was born. As did another great-grandfather, who carried a souvenir of the war in his scarred lungs until his too-early dying day.
Both of my grandfathers survived the next war. Those men I did have in my life, though others of their generation in my extended family are among those who never came back.
I remember. Had any of those four men met the fate so many did, I would not be here to remember.