literature

Dear Wartime Widow

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Daily Deviation

November 11, 2013
A true story for Armistice Day: Dear Wartime Widow is by ^pullingcandy.
Suggested by doughboycafe
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Literature Text

Dear Wartime Widow;

You don't know me. Well, you do; I was your neighbour, we lived beside each other for two years and I watched your huskies while you were on duty in Afghanistan. I spoke with your husband daily and gave treats through the fence and cried a little when I woke up one morning and saw your eldest dog had passed away, the others huddled close to it as if to keep him warm. Your husband, he had the same name as my daughter and we chuckled whenever this not-so-strange occurrence came up in conversation and his hair was red like fire.

I used to watch him, a Goliath of a man, digging the garden in your backyard, rebuilding the fence line, laying down boards just underneath the surface of the earth to keep the dogs from digging in to our yard. I helped at midnight when somebody thought it was funny to launch fireworks in to your backyard at the dogs, I'd give you clippings of my climbing vines so you could plant them on your side of the fence and we could have a matching screen of leaves. Through eight seasons and one pregnancy for me, we lived side by side and rarely spoke; your husband was much more outgoing than you; kinder. That's not to say you weren't, but you must have seen things in your service that you can not un-see, it hardened you, made you silent.

The day we received the news was a hard day, a long day. Your dog had died yet nobody was there to deal with the corpse. The stench, the other dogs, the winter and the cold. Once you returned home and realized your pet was gone to another world, dimension, you probably felt as if it was the end of your world to lose a loved one. Thirty minutes later your phone rang and you were likely relaxing with tea or coffee, a good book or the television. Your husband, your lifeline, your eternity was shattered in an instant with that one ring, pickup, and hello. A landmine or a suicide bombing or a car bomb had taken his life and now you were left down two things you loved, and you hold your daughter close as you hang up slowly and try to figure out how to explain to her that her father is never coming home again.

You tried to sell your house, I tried to bake you cookies. I tried to be a good neighbour and talk to you,  comfort you…but I couldn't do it. So two years later, I will write this letter to you. I will tell you everything I wanted to say that day, everything I wanted to be able to convey; I will tell you I am sorry. The cookies that I intended to bake for you (or was it a cake, and does it matter now?) mean absolutely nothing in the broad scheme of things, I know, and my words mean next to nothing as well, but here they are. I watched the funeral procession, the whole town showed up to honour your husband, I continued to feed treats to your remaining dogs, and I watched you through your window from my backyard as you went through the process of mourning. I want to tell you that your loss effected me, outside your home, outside of your life, and that I will always remember your husband just as you will, only in a different way.

On this day, at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh month I will write to you to tell you that I remember. I remember every day I ever saw him, I remember when you asked for a discharge from service yourself, I remember your dogs. I will always remember because my daughter has the same name as your gentle giant and every time I look at her, I will know that somewhere out there, a man was brave enough to fight for something he may not have understood but in doing so, and in dying for it, there is not a day that goes by that he won't be remembered for what he did.

Sincerely,
Your Neighbour.
My computer recovered the letter. This one is what I wanted to upload.

This is for %Letters-To-Myself's prompt: Letter to a Soldier.


War sucks.
11/11/2010.
:iconpoppyplz:

This is also for #Live-Love-Write's prompt "Remembrance Day".

Other words and letters: For your reading pleasure.
© 2010 - 2024 pullingcandy
Comments99
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WorldWar-Tori's avatar
:star::star::star::star: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star: Impact

First I don't know how I never read this before, but either way it's quite amazing. I definitely cried a bit. (by a little I may mean I left in the middle of a tissue).

I like the short simpleness of a lot of it but I do have a few questions;
1.) Assuming they were both in the military? Maybe I'm just being slow, but in the beginning it seemed like she was in the military then suddenly it was him?
2.) You mention the dogs a lot; were they a vital part of what you're conveying? I have nothing against dogs but I wonder if there's more.
Which leads to > you said in the first paragraph that the eldest dog died, is this the same dog in the third?
These are mostly just questions that I'm wondering as the reader.

Other than those few things I love the way you wrote this, it seems like in a "chaotic" state of mind, I don't mean that negatively, but like it started planned and then simply spilled after the first few words, which is actually great in letters I think.

That being said; again it is seriously amazing and I couldn't help but feel it too. Great work my dear

<img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/h/h…" width="15" height="13" alt=":heart:" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="357" title="Heart"/>
TORi

*** please do not pay attention to the stars, the critique is in what I wrote.***