No markers to bear testimony (inspired by Ruela's 'Family Portrait')

During the war, my grandmother’s hand found a piece of metal forged by a bomb to resemble a pistol. It may well have been the same bomb that assigned death to other family members: it was certainly the same bomb that assigned death to other families. This cold steel was used at night to ward off looters and rapists and ravagers of life.

Opportunistic is a way of life

yet

in Eastern Europe this slab of solid metal, long ago rusted away or entwined in tree roots, is as reminder that pacifists can be survivors.

Grandmother’s hand and my mother’s dependence on mother have long since been baked to ashes. Proof has gone. The memory of their mettle still glints in my mind on full moon nights.

This is not mythology. This is only life.