August again...

I wish I could do something to prevent this from happening. I wish I could control it somehow. But it seems I just can’t. I didn’t start this month feeling too well, but it wasn’t too bad either. WWII was far from my mind. I should already know that you can’t forget your past lives. When everything seems peaceful and is going smoothly, they strike again.

It was quite unexpected. I was dozing off on the sofa, tired after a weekend with lack of sleep and loud music until 3 a.m., four nights in a row, due to local celebrations. Suddenly, I noticed the heavy weight on my heart again, the desire to cry, the feelings of loss and emptiness, the fear and the anxiety. Then I got some blurred flashes of what looked like a bombing in a building with high ceilings, maybe a church, though I am not sure. There was dust in the air, making me cough. I crouched, frightened, among the rubble, the stones. I tried to move them but my fingers ached. I only wanted to go out.

A bit later I saw myself lighting up some candles with a stick, in a church. No idea if it could have been the same church.

I felt it was 1942, before Johann’s death, but not too long before. I think I was still hoping to see him again, hoping he would have the comfort I needed so much, to cope with the sad events that had happened to me of late. I had tried to tell him in my letters, but I didn’t want him to be concerned about me. He was fighting in the front, he didn’t need distractions. I didn’t know I would never see him alive again.

Since then, I feel like there’s a stone slab on my shoulders. No images, no memories, come to me through meditation, but I only need to think a bit about it and my eyes fill with tears. It’s like I am still losing him, losing it all: my hopes, my strength, my sanity, my will to live... my life. Once more, I feel like I am paralyzed in that beach, with so much rage inside of me, so much pain, but unable to utter a word.

Katrina keeps crying silently, through me. She doesn’t understand the world she’s living in. She doesn’t know what to do to stop so much suffering. She still breathes, but she died the day Johann died.