My research for Book Three in the Windy Rafters Roughnecks series includes time travel to WW2. I've been thinking a lot the last week or so about the impact of war on those who stayed home. Just as we are all impacted by the pandemic, everyone at the time was impacted by the war. This poem reflects some of my thoughts:
When You
Pause to Remember
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Who said
their goodbye, then, letting tears dry
Counted days
until he came home.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Who
stretched out the sugar and butter and meat
Who grew
Victory Gardens and vowed no defeat
And believed
that it could be done.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Who raised
the kids and cared for the folks
Who kept the
fires burning and kept alive hope
Then prayed
for the strength to go on.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Who rolled
all the bandages, knit scarves and gloves
Sewed vests
and pajamas infused with their love
While
thinking of days that were gone.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Running
factories and farms, tired backs, weary arms
Carrying
burdens, so often alone.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
Who tried to
stand tall when death came to call
And they
heard that knock at the door.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
And when he
came back, injured or maimed
Haunted by
demons that couldn’t be tamed
And they
knew it had only begun.
When you
pause to remember
Remember the
ones who stayed home
When they
said we had won and the fighting was done
But their
sorrow and pain lingered on.
I'm so glad you decided to share his lovely poem. Recently I re-read 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society' which so aptly describes the lives of those who survived the German Occupation in the Channel Islands during WW II. I have family on Jersey Island who shared the experience of having their house requisitioned for wartime purposes, and being forced to move to a much smaller cottage, endure the isolation and shortages of food and other goods, and that novel really brought the stories my aunt told me years ago alive. War truly was everyone's sacrifice - yet the mother of one of my friends once commented that those unpredictable years of desperation also contained some of the best and most satisfying memories of her life. A manifestation of 'opposition in all things', perhaps.
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