It is ANZAC day here in NZ, a time when we remember those who have served in war. In line with my last post on love and relationships, I was reminded of an incident that happened a number of years ago. I was driving somewhere with a man who had served overseas. I was asking him about his war service, where he served and when. Out of the blue he came up with this story. I have to say that this guy was one I have admired as a devoted husband and family man, a man of integrity and genuine christian love. He was a church elder and had served both his church and community diligently for many years and when I was talking to him it was about 40 years after the war.
He had married just before going away to war, like many did. He was a devout evangelical christian. One of the countries he served in was Italy. He said wistfully, "I could have lived in Italy." Then, uncalled for and surprisingly, he told me his story. He was stationed in a village in Italy for sometime and had got to know an Italian family. They invited him there for meals regularly and he enjoyed their company. I do not know all the historical circumstances as to why he seemed to be in the one place for a while. It turned out that he and a daughter in the family "clicked" and after the family meals she would take him on bike rides around the countryside and tell him about her country and region and its history. He said, "I don't know why, we had a different language, I was only temporarily in her country and I had a wife at home, but we just seemed to 'click' and get on so well." He said that if he never had a wife at home he would have gladly stayed there with her. He emphasised that they never did anything untoward, they just had a friendship, they knew that was all they could have. ......but with glazed eyes and a choke in his voice forty years after, he said, "I often wondered what happened to her. It was so hard saying good bye." I found his wife to be judgemental and abrasive, and I wondered silently, if he would have been better off staying in Italy.
That is the mysterious power of this weird thing called love. Forty years after, and in spite of a successful marriage and family life, he was still aching over lost war time love.
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