Rambles from World's End

In the October of 1943, in a sleepy South African capital a young newlywed woman anticipates the birth of her first child. Her husband was somewhere on the front fighting a war that perhaps he did not truly understand, but he obeyed the orders and perhaps killed someone who, in another time, he may have called friend. One hundred kilometres away in a bustling coastal South African city another young newlywed woman awaits the birth of her first child. Her husband, injured during the battle of El Alemein in 1942, made it home in the February of 1943 for their wedding, only to leave to fight again. But in the October of 1943 as these mothers awaited the birth of their first child, what was it that they were thinking? While German torpedo boats sink British destroyers off the North coast of Brittany, did they pray for those drowned sailors?   Were they aware that British Troops replaced striking London dockworkers, did it matter to them? Did they feel some emotion when they learn...

Last night as the final rays of daylight left World’s End and settled brightly over the heart of the world, you breathed your last and slipped into eternity. Four children felt a pillar of their lives crumple and a wife feels hollow. I wish I could wail and scream at the sky, purge these surging, consuming emotions that are beating against my heart with just one blood curdling soul wrenching scream and be done with it all. I want to be angry and sad and miserable, but I can’t be it doesn’t work like that, nothing is ever quite so simple. Through this haze of tears and with this heavy heart I feel only gratitude. I do not believe you deserved the suffering you endured, yet I am so grateful that to the end you were alert and dignified. I wish we all had more time, just one more phone call or SKYPE. But I am so grateful that the end came quickly.   I am grateful for the bond we share, one that neither distance nor death could sever. My children won’t get the chance to learn from...