My granddaughter paints a row of red flowers with crosses in between. “Flanders Field” she tells me. She’s six.
“Your great-great grandfather, my grandfather, was shot in Flanders Field.”
She raises her eyes to meet mine. “Did he die?”
“No, but he was injured.”
He was crawling across the field when the bullet entered and passed through his stomach exiting in an uncomfortable place, I’d been told.
“It’s why he drank so much,” one of my aunt’s told me. “To cope with the pain.”
Likely to cope with the PTSD too, I think. I know my father suffered from it, although no one called it that in those days.
I tell her that my Dad fought in a war too. His job was to sneak into enemy territory and eke out their ammunition stash and then report back to his unit.
“Who won?” she asks.
“The good guys,” I say.
She nods her head and listens intently and I think how far removed this sweet soul is from the horrors of wars, and I pray that she will never know it in her lifetime.
Peace. How long will the sacrifice of our ancestors last?
Are we forgetting?
(Image supplied by Willow Poetry for her challenge: What Do You See? Also submitted for my weekly challenge: sacrifice. Painting courtesy of Sloane.)
One Woman's Quest II 
A lovely story to be shared to our little ones…
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Thanks Mich
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How sweet she is, innocent and in the stage of learning life’s lessons. I do hope our children will have understood that what our ancestors experienced should never be repeated. Yet wars continue all over the world, battles that have no end, senseless killing of other human beings.
A wonderful painting she did and your story moved me deeply V.J.
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Thanks, Hélène. It breaks my heart that such innocence must be lost to life’s brutality. Senseless, at that.
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A lovely story to share with your grandchildren V.J. I love sharing stories with mine🙂
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They are the best, aren’t they? We are so lucky.
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Great story, VJ. We learn so much when we see through a child’s eyes. Mostly, how much innocence we’ve lost. A touching piece.
Jordan
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Thanks Jordan.
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I’m heartened that school children still take part in ceremonies every year. But, yes it is hard concept for young children to grasp, although, we have refugees coming into our schools, young children who know the horrors of war. I don’t think we will forget, but I wonder if we will ever learn.
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Oh! Good point. Seems we never learn.
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