We held the meeting of the Carlisle Christian Fellowship on Saturday 12th November 2011. Our homework had been ‘Blue’.
I’m posting my contribution, but would remind you that I actually wrote it on 11.11.11., hence it’s sombre mood.
They met in the spring. War was looming. He bought her a blue scarf for their first wedding anniversary. He said it was blue to match the colour of her eyes, blue for the open sky and blue to represent the happiness which was before them. But their happiness was short-lived as he was sent to war very soon after.
Within weeks he was captured, listed as missing, and then reported to be a prisoner-of-war. It was six long years before he returned back to this country and his bride.
Time hadn’t dealt kindly with her. All her relatives had been killed in a severe bombing raid. Her own house had been reduced to rubble. The baby she’d been expecting was born dead. These disasters had affected her mental state. Although only in her early thirties she had been diagnosed with an early dementia. She no longer recognised her friends.
He knew he was returning home from the war to an uncertain future. At the nursing home he’d been warned she wouldn’t know him; he wondered if he would know her. The small figure he was directed to in a large arm chair seemed completely unknown to him. Had they made a mistake? Was this really his wife?
Then he saw it. Over her head and tied firmly under her chin was a blue scarf; blue to march the colour of her eyes, blue to represent the open sky; and blue to portray the happiness which had been before them.
Now her eyes were clouded; the sky was overcast and their promised happiness had evaporated.
Carol, the thoughtful.