As a teenager I had a friend, Carole. Our Fathers worked together and seemed to be transferred from East to West and back again at the same time. Their family was always sad, the home very quiet and other than me Carole and her younger sister were never allowed to be have friends in.
After a particularly strange visit I asked my parents what was wrong with that family. I was told that Rachel, Carole's Mother, had been in "the camps" and although she survived the rest of her family had not. Rachel was a tiny, soft spoken, beautiful lady who tried to make everything nice. Somehow she just couldn't function. The girls came home each day cleaned the house, made Rachel some tea, did their homework and waited for their Father to come home. He always brought home dinner, it was the only meal Rachel would eat. And then she would go to bed, without a word.
One afternoon Carole called me, screaming and sobbing. I asked that she get to take a breath so that I could understand her. She said that when she got home she found her mother with a plastic bag over her head, a noise around her neck hanging from the shower rod. The police were at the house but she couldn't get in touch with her Father and her sister wasn't going to be allowed in the house. I didn't know what to say. They lived two towns away and we were a year too young to drive so all I could do was sit and listen to my friend cry.
We sat shiva, with them, most nights that week and I was shocked at how cold and angry her Father was. All he did was complain about Rachel, how little she did and how she just refused to "leave all that stuff behind". I never felt comfortable in their home again.
I needed to hear (in this case read) an engaging, loving testament of survival. Because even after fifty one years I can still see sweet Rachel. I would have loved to have been able to offer her comfort but I was 16, my brother and my closest cousin were in Vietnam and they were the two people in my mind. Perhaps had O tried to talk to Rachel I would have been able to talk to my brother ( when he came home) or Billy. But I didn't and it caused a rift between my brother and I which has only grown wider through the decades. Billy is still in my life and has always been one of two people who have loved me without question.
This book is the true story of heroes. Not "everyday heroes" , although they were all heroes every day, as their lives were lived in hell on earth. With the innocence of childhood, Syvia faced the horrors brought on by adults. Horrors that no child should ensure but mankind always seems to forget about the children when ward erupt. Ah, but then there are the Isaccs or the Mr. Franks who try to protect their children from the world around them. They are the real heroes of that war. For they survived and gave us the ability to meet their children, through the written word.
This book should be required reading, for every adult about to go to war.
I shall not forget Rachel, Edward, Billy, Daddy, George, Grandpa, Uncle Eddy, friends and classmates lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Iran or where ever a battle over evil has been fought. I hope that I am able to pass it down.
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Reviews with images
Im a biginner reader
I loved this book. Written discriptions kept me very ingrossed in the events. Not a big reader I did look forward coming back just to finnish reading. As a beginner reader, i did not get board. Because of good books like this, im looking forrward reading more.
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