I MET YOU ONCE

“People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

Stuart, His buddy

I met you once.

Wind, sleet, hail, rain, snow.  November  you came. With your back pack and grey suit with the short tie.  

The days were dark. Like your eyes. You slept for days, in the downstairs room next to the Franklin stove ,which kept the place warm. My mother kept it stoked with wood the entire time. 

 You were  on your way back north.

To the place you called home, after the war. 

To the place where you had work. Good work.  

I met you once on that  stormy day, when the leaves were torn from the trees. You gathered maple leaves and put them in a glass for the table.

I didn’t know then how brave you were.

It was years later  I learned you were a wounded war hero.

So many years before on D day. How you lost most of your chums that day, but you carried on.

Life went on, but you were forlorn some days. Hungry. For more than just food.

My mother fed you. She comforted you

So damaged you had been. You couldn’t speak of the war, that time when I met you once. 

You were not young anymore.

You read to me. You told me fun stories  about princesses in castles and told me all  was right with the world. 

You told me to believe, that time  I met you once.

You gave me a watch.  I kept it for a very long time, till one day it broke. I kept the pieces in a box for many years.

You healed in time.

You wanted to go back to the farm. Back to home. Back to your roots.

But you had a job to go to. A place to be. So you left.

On another blustery day  spitting with snow.

I remember waving to you, as you left that  day, with your back pack and your grey suit.

You turned and waved. Like you had so many years ago on the farm. As you left for war.

We never saw you again. But I am so glad that I met you once……

 

Photographs 2022

                                                        Stuart, (Bill, Stuart's buddy, Jessie the dog) 1940