Remembrance By M.M.Wake
Mary fastened up her coat carefully. Large buttons, ideal for her stiff fingers. It was a good coat, well made with lots of wool. It wasn’t new. In fact it was second hand. It had been her mother’s best when she was alive.
She had found it hanging in the wardrobe just after the funeral. It had seemed a shame to waste such a good, warm coat.
That seemed a long time ago now, it must have been fifteen years at least. Funny how you can remember things that happened years ago yet can’t even remember what you just had for your breakfast.
Mary had started to remember the good old days, not just fifteen years ago but back some 60 odd years. Her childhood during the war...
Ted buttoned up his RAF uniform, the grey blue of the material matching his eyes. Another day of the war, another flight, at least he would be home in a few more weeks. Jeanie was about to give birth. It was their first, he had only been married a year. Bloody war. Hopefully it would be over soon and then he could get on with the rest of his life.
He pulled the flight jacket around him. The air was cold. Feeling in his pocket he pulled out the tatty photograph and kissed it for luck before setting out into the frosty night.
.....Yes, it was funny remembering all those years ago, crystal clear memories they were. Running over the fields to the pictures on a Saturday morning, saving the penny bus fare to buy an apple, fishing for tiddlers in the local canal. Happy days, or so they seemed.
Now, where was her bag? Mary looked around, where had she put it? She was always losing things these days, putting things down, putting things away then forgetting where she had put them.
Of course her mother had started that way. She had hardly been able to speak in the finish. Dementia they had said. It all seemed a long time ago now. In the end she hadn't even recognised Mary.
Jeanie had been in the kitchen when it happened, she could remember that moment even when she had forgotten everything else. A telegram ‘We regret to inform you..........., missing in action, presumed dead’, just a few bleak words to take away her future, to break her heart, to leave her child fatherless.
Even when she had forgotten the names and the dates, the faces and the familiar, she had remembered the sadness and the loss.
Ted knew the end had come, shot down mid flight he had fought at the controls, burning and raging he had wept in those few brief moments before the darkness came. Weeping for his short life, the lost future, Jeanie and the child he would never see.
.....Mary studied her face in the mirror, the blue grey eyes, the powdered cheeks and a hint of lipstick. She was getting more like her mother every day. Except the eyes that is, she had her father’s eyes or so they said. He had been killed in the war before she was born.
Now, where was she going? She had put her coat on so she must be going somewhere. Looking down Mary smiled. Now she remembered. Picking up the pin, she fixed the red and black poppy into the lapel of her coat.
Lest we Forget...
Copyright M.M.Wake 2012
http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/23811/remembrance to download free to Kindle / iPhone etc
She had found it hanging in the wardrobe just after the funeral. It had seemed a shame to waste such a good, warm coat.
That seemed a long time ago now, it must have been fifteen years at least. Funny how you can remember things that happened years ago yet can’t even remember what you just had for your breakfast.
Mary had started to remember the good old days, not just fifteen years ago but back some 60 odd years. Her childhood during the war...
Ted buttoned up his RAF uniform, the grey blue of the material matching his eyes. Another day of the war, another flight, at least he would be home in a few more weeks. Jeanie was about to give birth. It was their first, he had only been married a year. Bloody war. Hopefully it would be over soon and then he could get on with the rest of his life.
He pulled the flight jacket around him. The air was cold. Feeling in his pocket he pulled out the tatty photograph and kissed it for luck before setting out into the frosty night.
.....Yes, it was funny remembering all those years ago, crystal clear memories they were. Running over the fields to the pictures on a Saturday morning, saving the penny bus fare to buy an apple, fishing for tiddlers in the local canal. Happy days, or so they seemed.
Now, where was her bag? Mary looked around, where had she put it? She was always losing things these days, putting things down, putting things away then forgetting where she had put them.
Of course her mother had started that way. She had hardly been able to speak in the finish. Dementia they had said. It all seemed a long time ago now. In the end she hadn't even recognised Mary.
Jeanie had been in the kitchen when it happened, she could remember that moment even when she had forgotten everything else. A telegram ‘We regret to inform you..........., missing in action, presumed dead’, just a few bleak words to take away her future, to break her heart, to leave her child fatherless.
Even when she had forgotten the names and the dates, the faces and the familiar, she had remembered the sadness and the loss.
Ted knew the end had come, shot down mid flight he had fought at the controls, burning and raging he had wept in those few brief moments before the darkness came. Weeping for his short life, the lost future, Jeanie and the child he would never see.
.....Mary studied her face in the mirror, the blue grey eyes, the powdered cheeks and a hint of lipstick. She was getting more like her mother every day. Except the eyes that is, she had her father’s eyes or so they said. He had been killed in the war before she was born.
Now, where was she going? She had put her coat on so she must be going somewhere. Looking down Mary smiled. Now she remembered. Picking up the pin, she fixed the red and black poppy into the lapel of her coat.
Lest we Forget...
Copyright M.M.Wake 2012
http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/23811/remembrance to download free to Kindle / iPhone etc