Peace by Piece by Myriam C. Barthole

Author:Myriam C. Barthole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2020-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

For the rest of the week, Hannah and I met in the library – in the second half of our lunch period – to work on the social study assignment. At first, she did not know how to start and had many crying fits and panic attacks. In those instances, I would just stay calm and let her experience whatever she was going through. I was able to do that because dad was coaching me at home on how to handle these difficult situations when they occurred. For the most part it worked.

As the days went by, Hannah confined in me. She described how horrible her life in her country had been. “Not a day goes by without having to remember what happened, and what I lost. I’ll never live a normal life because I’ll never really forget. Sometimes, I feel ashamed of my tears because I know there are other people, especially children that are still living in more horrible ways. You know, we lost everything: our house, our car, and many members of our family and friends.”

I held her hand to encourage her to go on. It was good for her to get it out, she may never forget, but talking can help her learn to live with it. Dad had said.

“One day, my mother and I were in line for some food ration from one of the relief agencies, we heard an explosion a few yards ahead of where we were standing. A huge cloud of black smoke filled the air. We could hardly breath. A barrel bombs had fallen on the hospital. The force of the explosion projected us against a parked car which fortunately protected us from the flying debris. There were wounded and dead people everywhere.”

I admired her courage and her resilience. How can she have a normal life after that, I couldn’t even imagine?

“When things got really bad,” Hannah continued, “my mother, my brother and I took refuge in a shelter. But it was bad there too. We could hear the shelling and the bombing and we knew that somewhere, someone’s house was being destroyed and that there would be death and destructions everywhere.” She closed her eyes as if to obstruct the flashback.

“The nightmare lasted almost a year when one day finally we were rescued by the Red Cross. They took us out of the country to Germany. That is where I started seeing a therapist and started to make sense of things around me. I had become numb and rigid. It took me a long time to be able to express what I was feeling until I started drawing those pictures I showed you.”

I could not believe all the recollections she had drag out of her memory. We talked, and we cried together. The librarian was probably aware that there was something special going on because she never disturbed us or let other students near us. From time to time, she would look at us inquisitively, but left us alone.

We

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