Yet even though all was well on the farm. My daughter, Alice, the youngest of the three yelled, “come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete!” As I walked up, mixed emotions filled me as to how this letter would read. My wife was outside, and when she was told of the letters arrival, she ran.
My son was away at war, I respected him and I was proud of him. He had volunteered to go to war, twenty-one, and our only son. He enjoyed working with me on the farm and was a good farmer. We were very close and I thought about him every day he was away.
We were inside, my wife opened the letter quickly, the writing confused her, and how it was not our dear son’s writing but still his name was signed. It had struck her soul in panic .In such hurry only key words were picked up; she caught the main words only. Sentences were broken, “bullet from gunshot wound to breast, taken to hospital, soon to recover”.
The house was quiet, not a sound could be heard apart from the tears and weeping from my wife and daughters. Then my youngest, Alice, said through her weeping, “don’t cry mother, look, it says, he will soon recover”.
But a voice in my head said, “this letter is a lie, he will never recover”. While we stood at home on the doorstep, he was already dead.
Days later my wife, had totally changed. She got thinner as she wouldn’t touch her food, she started to dress in black, and during the night she tossed and turned, and waking up weeping. Soon after she died, and I had to be brave, for the girls especially, but still I know that they are looking after each other, and watching over us. She will always be my wife and with my son there are now our guardian angels.