Grief and Acceptance

As the moon and stars swirled around me overhead, I was overcome by a sense of belonging. The skies had not blessed me with this type of silence for months. They had only given me the seemingly interminable suffering that was also given to so many others. There were restless nights where all I thought about was death, and there were days where I was ready to cave into the black hole that they had created for us.

The Germans were miles away from us. Sometimes the sounds of the soldiers' screams could be heard. We hid in the local bunker every day, waiting for a way out, but there was none. All we could do was run further away, and hide in the bunkers one by one. Sometimes, we realized just how close death was to us: news of other bunkers being stormed by enemy soldiers, news of people we knew dying, news of them inching their way into our old towns and our old homes. The people we met along the way were suffering too. What right do we have to stop suffering if there are millions of other people in the exact same position as us?

None of this could ever be spoken aloud. We could never vent. We could never do anything to stop the soldiers. The moment any of us attempted it, we would die. Why must the soldiers be so cruel to us? Why must they kill the ones that pose no threat to their dominance?

I found the answer when I realized there was no hope. We had to give up everything. Everything except the thing that is most important: our lives. Many others reached the truth before I did, and finally, the white flag was put up. Our forces had died down, and nothing was left of our hope. Everything was still gone. Everything was still back where we lived and flourished. So much of my life was wasted in this war, I couldn’t even remember what life was like before then.

However, I finally put everything down and accepted the truth that all that was left was our lives, and we must value every second we are given on this planet.