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A father of six he was in his early forties,
struck by cancer
toiling to provide for his children
with
no property
no land
no animals, but a loyal old donkey
that uncomplainingly was carrying from a distance
the heavy loads of wood and water
because there was no electricity or running water,
in this small Greek village in the early 1950s,
that was lost among the unforgiving mountains.
Life was unbearable then, after a four-year occupation by the Nazis and Fascists
and the ensuing five years of destructive civil war.

Forgotten he and his family seemed to be by God and men alike
to face the hardships of life.
There was no time for smiles, for joys, for dreams,
only the preoccupation with making ends meet for another day to survive.
         
Endless were the uphill battles of the sick father,
lonely the way he followed
painful his every step as cancer was advancing at a rapid pace, but
he didn't give up and kept going on forgetting his suffering.

Help was not coming from anywhere as people were preoccupied with their problems.
Those who could help had no intention to do so,
he couldn't rely on anyone but his old donkey, his pal, till the morning he found his 
loyal animal stabbed to death victim to inhuman malice.

How such an unimaginable cruelty could be committed against an innocent animal,
I have never understood.

I was a child of nine then, that is seventy years ago, and I am still thinking about it every 
day and still cannot figure out how is it possible for so much malice to be stored in one's heart so
as to take the life of a kind animal and at the same time condemn a family of eight to 
untold suffering.

Ten months after that incident, my father died. He was only forty-five.
He left behind six children, aged from three to fourteen years old and
the legacy of the human malice.

No wonder he was not afraid to die!

Four years later my mother died as well at the age of 47, leaving us completely alone.
However, I believe that when God takes the parents of children, He adopts the orphans Himself.

Rest in peace dearest parents for your children have all survived and have children and
grandchildren of their own, spread over the lands of four continents.

Alas, human malice survived as well and thrives over the entire world, subjugating not only 
families to suffering, but peoples and nations as well.

Why is that so?

I would never know!*


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© Demetrios Trifiatis 
     13 December 2019

* A true story from A to Z.
In the photo are my parents the year they got married back in 1939.
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