Her Story of Life

So, a girl named Ida, she was born in Summer in 1913,
a free spirit without a chance to ever be tamed,
grew up in a small town in the north of Germany,
several siblings, she was always the one to be blamed.

When the first soldier knocked on her door,
she was but only a little girl,
singing nursery rhymes in the backyard strengthened her core,
hearing the sound of rifles while exploring the world.

The smell of demise lingered over her childhood,
her youth was a period of denial and regrets,
belonging to the generation of making good,
to herself she learned to keep secrets.

During the second season of bloodshed in her motherland
she protected her daughter by sewing flags banning a crooked cross.
1945, while she was waiting at the altar with child and a bouquet in her hands,
her fiance was hiding at his other wife’ s after the final battle was lost.

Now, over half a century later and still very much alive,
my great-grandmother, she is telling me her story of life.

– Maria

Maria was listening to the sound of the pouring rain outside her window while writing this sonnet.