Last Christmas in Paris

by Hazel Gaynor

I cannot go with you both to France, you will have to transport me there with your words.

Letters make one uncommonly honest, don’t you think? I’ve told you things in words that I would have been far too shy or distracted to tell you in person.

These were her favourite times: just after sunrise and just before sunset. The bookends of the day, she called them. She had so many elegant ways to look at things. She taught me to see the world so differently.

Only those of us who lived those days will ever truly know. It is a sorrow that has never left me, and I am glad of this place, this tomb, this eternal flame. A reminder of what was lost. A reminder, so we will never forget.

It is in the simplest things we find the greatest treasures sometimes, is it not.

War has turned my brave-hearted lion into a kitten.

One must always have adventure in life, or the promise of it, at least.

The arrogance of youth takes everything for granted. Everything, that is, until you find yourself at war, pushing your bayonet into the enemy’s chest before he pushes his into yours.