Poisoned By Hitler by LightLizard Blog entry

Blog: LightLizard's Lair
by LightLizard

Poisoned By Hitler

echoes of war

Date: 1/19/2010 4:32:31 PM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 45389 times

My grandfather was a warrior. He fought in the First World War and served as well in the second. My father also fought in the Second World War. A lot of men and women of their generation did, as we all should know and remember. A lot of them did not return. Of those that did return, my father was one of them. My grandfather was also one of the fortunate ones, depending on your view, who survived those horrific days and nights to return to his family.

War changes a man, which is a well known fact. Sometimes, often, that change is not for the better.
After his return my father was one of those changed men. He and my mother did not ‘fit’ together the same as they did before the war. And so, after a few years of turmoil together and a third child (me) my father left and I never did get a chance to meet him. He died very young of a lung disease off in another country, far away.

Shortly after he left my mother folded under the burden of three growing children with no one to help her at all, except my grandmother. My mother left too, eventually, and my sister, older brother and I were raised by my grandmother and grandfather. In reality, my grandmother did the work of raising us and I will always remember her as one of the most loving women I had ever had the great honour of knowing. My grandfather was there with us, but his wounds from the war put him in great pain and discomfort for the remainder of his life and he rarely got out of his bed for his final years.

I grew up with a great deal of anger and resentment for my parents and their abandonment and it wasn’t until many years afterwards that I managed to come to terms with that resentment.
After I had married the first time and fathered a child, having vowed to never do what my father did, my marriage took the inevitable turn of those who marry too young and for the wrong reasons and I did the unthinkable; I left just like my father had.

It was then, after my painful and reluctant abandonment of my wife and child that I came to understand why my father had left. Even though I had not been in as terrible a conflict as my father and grandfather had been (their sacrifice prevented that from happening to me) I still managed to come to the realisation that in life things can happen that make you do what you never expected you would do, in spite of your best intentions and greatest aspirations.

I also realised that my failure as a father and husband was more than just my own doing. Of course I accept responsibility for those actions and all of my choices, but we can only choose our direction in life wisely when we have had the correct and proper instruction in life about life. That instruction comes from our parents, mostly, and for a young boy, the example the father sets is the instruction the boy receives. I did exactly what my father taught me to do, what he did, of course. I left.

Now I realise, so late in my life, that the root cause of my chaotic life was not my father’s fault.
He learned how to be what he became from the nightmare he lived through in the war.
It was Adolph Hitler who was the cause of that war. That war, as all wars do, created a wave of suffering and bitterness that spans the generations, that shaped and warped the lives of so many for so long and still does to this day.

Until those of us who have had a troubled childhood due to these ravages of the echoes of war stop and consider the root cause of our suffering and deal with it intelligently, compassionately, wisely and finally; we will be in danger of falling prey to our own unconsciousness and we will pass that burden on to our children. I was poisoned by Hitler.
Who poisoned you?

~LL~