The streets I once walked with my friends and family, had been reduced to nothing but stones and dust, while shattered lives were there for everyone to take or have a look at.
The worst thing was, after another bombing, another night in our shelter, another day of fear, I forgot to care. I forgot to care about those who lost their lives, those who lost everything keeping them together, or those who lost their future, because of the Germans.
The Germans, a nation that was destroying another. A part of me thought, how could they? How could they throw those bombs on our cities knowing what would happen? Who in their right minds would make the choice to destroy the home front, instead of the front lines?
But then it dawned on me, after a too long while. We were back-up, we were the very roots of our boys out there, we were the hope they sometimes didn’t have. And if the enemy found a way to destroy us too, peace and faith would crumble to pieces.
I looked across the rubble, old shops I used to visit, houses that once belonged to my friends, even an old piano I used to play, had been scattered over the ones so beautiful street, and humanity’s sense with it.
We would take revenge, I knew we would. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. The only way we could show we weren’t soft, was give the same blow back, only harder. And I didn’t want hundreds of lives on my conscience just for my pride.
This was war, everyone knew it. So instead of crying, for there were no more tears to cry, or hide, for there was nowhere left to hide, I tugged down my dress, opened the dying door, and walked outside, straight into the arms of chaos. Because I’d never show I had broken.
If I did, I fear there’d be no one who would be able to help me, and I’d lay there, wracked in between my shattered past, feeling sorry for myself. No, I couldn’t. I had to be strong, for anyone I had left.
Or at this point, anythingI had left.
The photograph shows London in the Blitz, 1940, with her ruined streets.
