Dad.s Words

The voice from the desert said, 'Mam, can you send me a blank CD'.
His words tumbled down the line; we talked for ten minuets or so about
general things. How his sister and his niece are, what his brother was
up to, what I was up to, it was wonderful just to hear his voice.

He never tells you where he is or what he is doing just that he is ok
and keeping out of the trouble spots. Does that make me feel happy, I
am not sure? How can you feel anything but apprehension, the knowledge
that one more British soldier's family are grieving the loss of a love
one whilst I have just spoken to me son, one of many still out there in
the harsh reality?

This weekend it will be exactly twelve months since my father died, I
miss him but he is still with me. I heard his voice through my son on
that distance crackling line. Not long ago we spoke of Remembrance
Sunday and my buying a ring of Poppies. Last November I laid it for my
Father in his memory I was on my own. My lost so great I found it hard
to stand there during the service so I stood at a distance, waiting for
the moment when I could step forward to place dad's ring of poppies in
the name of the fallen, turned, and ran.

A woman, a neighbour came after me, she rocked me in her arms as I
cried tears that I had hidden so well from my family, always having to
be strong one. I do not feel strong. I know that this coming November I
will walk next to my son and together we will lay a ring of poppies for
the fallen, those my son knew and that of my fathers generation. How
can we forget those of my generation who also fell in another battle in
another part of the world, the Falklands?

I feel like a small pin holding the red poppy in place on a soldier's
lapel, a small thing, no bigger than that but no least the holder of
memories. The carrier of a child who became a man who went to war and
the daughter of man, who was a hero of another war, the eyes that
watched the battle scenes on a TV screen, the witness of another war,
like you I see the rights and the wrongs.

My father left me a file, a complete book, his second book. He wanted
me to work on it but I am not sure what to do, it tells so much about a
past conflict about imprisonment, I do not know if I will have the
strength to read his words and work my way through the documentation,
not whilst my sons still wears the clothes of battle.