Halloween. So many years ago, and yet it feels like just yesterday. It was a peaceful day. The first for so long.
That should have been the first clue. But, as usual, we took it for granted.
All the people we had lost up to this point - friends, family. Was it too much to ask for a joyful holiday?
Children were called in as dusk fell. Candy was skillfully plied from sticky hands. Teeth scrubbed. Pajamas pulled on. Stories read. Lullabies sung. A new generation, barely so much as brushed by the war around them thanks to vigilant parents, was sent drifting to a land of dreams.
A peaceful day. For most...
As we look back now - now that yet another war is won and over - we give that day many titles.
End of an era.
Beginning of the end.
A new beginning.
The period we had between then and now seems to have been simply the calm before the storm. We tell our children that they couldn't possibly understand what was going on around them. They did not see what happened. Last time.
Lullabies quietly drifting through towns and villages. A solitary...being...walked calmly to the door. The family inside was unprepared. Unaware that their secret was broken.
We were with our own families, our own children, as the small family was destroyed. But the pain was felt in each of us.
And now, the pain of war is reflected back to us in our children's eyes. Now we have stories to trade, not just share. Now, even though they are still young to us, they are old enough to know what happened.
Last time.