Story time with Mema

My grandmother was a young girl during World War II, and lived in Bremen, Germany, which was bombed constantly for a period of several years. She recently told me the following story.

“From about 10 at night, when the war got worse, it became customary to go to the air raid shelter and stay there all night, every night.
One time, while my mother was pregnant with my sister, the sirens began and my father jumped on his bicycle to go to the shelter to open it up for the rest of the town. My mother and I started walking by ourselves to the shelter, but we knew we weren’t going to make it in time. There was a building close to us and the people who lived there never went to the shelter, so we began banging on the door. “Let us in! Let us in!” we cried, with bombs falling all around us. They let us in and we stayed in their basement that night.
That moment I held against my father for years and years until just recently. I always wondered why he wasn’t there to protect us instead of chasing off to the air raid shelter. But, I finally forgave him.”
- My Mema

I love hearing stories from her. I think this particular one leaves me searching for a moral or a point behind it, but I really can't pinpoint what it is. Perhaps it shows that forgiveness is hard, or that sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize how we can deal with the hurt and pain we suffer. I don't know. I guess I'm just glad she could bring to life a time and a place that is so far removed from anything I have ever seen or done.