Memories

To drive down a road one used to take is an experience altogether singular. Whether in sunlight or darkness, the memories of the road and what it led to at times are fully lucid, or at least the picture they call to mind is.

Memories of children abandoned find me today, of their faces, defensive but hoping for love, like the children that most of us are. Actually I can barely remember their faces, or even their names. I can remember the name of a holocaust survivor, but not the names of six children surviving their own holocaust. All i remember is the dark road to the house that took them in, their fits of violence and  of violent love, the stories I told them and their refusal to go to sleep. I told them stories of soldiers to make them behave; of our nation's brave who obey and are strong.

I gave them love to make them strong, but in the end I don't know what happened to them. I pray that those short few months are still a distant memory to them, that people that loved them and prayed with them and gave them stories of soldiers will not fade too far from their hearts. But most of all for them I want hope and peace and love, like that I've found with Christ, and that which I tried to give them.