Armistice.
Jan. 8th, 2010 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rossiLast year, I wrote a story for my dad. This one's for my grandfather.
For a while, every time I'd visit, he'd pull out his scrapbook of his time in the Army. Second World War, basic in Townsville, then stationed in Papua New Guinea. Pictures in shades of grey and black and white, smiling faces of young men, fragile pieces of newspaper, ration cards, postcards. His hands would tremble, passing over the pages, and he'd repeat the same stories he'd told me a week ago.
I thought it telling, that of all the points of his life for his mind to get snagged on, it was that time. A time of blood and violence, of mateship and scarifice.
"Put it away, Dave," my grandmother would usually say after a while. "Jo's not interested in that."
But we'd exchange a look and I'd smile, and ask him about another picture.
I talked to my Dad a couple of days ago. My grandfather, always quiet, rarely talks now. He doesn't know where he is, who his family is. Walking is becoming difficult. When I visit next, he won't know me. He won't tell his stories, or bring out his scrapbook or threaten to make soup out of my pig tails, even though I haven't worn my hair like that since I was small.
The guns are silenced, for one more man.
For a while, every time I'd visit, he'd pull out his scrapbook of his time in the Army. Second World War, basic in Townsville, then stationed in Papua New Guinea. Pictures in shades of grey and black and white, smiling faces of young men, fragile pieces of newspaper, ration cards, postcards. His hands would tremble, passing over the pages, and he'd repeat the same stories he'd told me a week ago.
I thought it telling, that of all the points of his life for his mind to get snagged on, it was that time. A time of blood and violence, of mateship and scarifice.
"Put it away, Dave," my grandmother would usually say after a while. "Jo's not interested in that."
But we'd exchange a look and I'd smile, and ask him about another picture.
I talked to my Dad a couple of days ago. My grandfather, always quiet, rarely talks now. He doesn't know where he is, who his family is. Walking is becoming difficult. When I visit next, he won't know me. He won't tell his stories, or bring out his scrapbook or threaten to make soup out of my pig tails, even though I haven't worn my hair like that since I was small.
The guns are silenced, for one more man.
