The story
Memory – Word has reached our farm that the Americans are coming this way. I hide in a thicket a distance from the house in hopes that I am invisible to their keen, hungry eyes. It gives me time to gather my thoughts of times gone by.
Memories of leaving an old country for a new one, across a vast ocean. Memories of departing again, for a beginning in a newer, better country. Memories of working side by side with my husband to clear our very own land. Memories of my first garden with the fragrant scent of lily-of-the valley but also the cabbages, onions and squash that kept us over the long winter. Memories of evenings with the family, keeping warm by the blazing hearth. Memories of two tiny graves in a clearing in the woods. Memories of the first whispers of war which we were reluctant to believe. Now they are memories no more, but a cold, cruel reality.
I am disinclined to leave my home and especially, those tiny graves, but if I must, I will rely on my happy memories to sustain me.
Written by Anne Carruthers, February 2012
Painted by the Bothwell 2nd Scouts
Location
Memory
3721 Longwoods Rd, Thamesville, ON
Latitude : 42.558313 Longitude : -81.954230