Memories (1)

     “Who is this?”  The raspy voice of my three-year old granddaughter Bea caught my attention. Smiling into her bright blue eyes, I turned my gaze to the photo that she was holding. The children had come over to my apartment for the day, as their mother was working overtime and couldn’t bear to leave them in daycare again.  We had spent a cozy evening going through boxes of mementos I had stored in my attic.  Photos of my wedding had come into light for the first time in years, and baby pictures of my sister and me had been unearthed. We’d shared many laughs over family pictures (Did you really wear your hair like that?), and the children had learned that nearly every dusty old picture had unearthed a story in my mind. But as I gazed at the faded, torn edges of the picture Bea held in her chubby hands, I was at a loss for words. Slowly silence settled over the room as Jonah and Oliver shuffled over to where I was sitting, anticipating a good, long story. I swallowed - my throat suddenly dry as I looked into the piercing eyes of my friend, now long gone.  The story was long, and hard to tell. Yet it needed to be told.  As long as there was a voice to faithfully narrate the story, I knew that Sophie would never truly be dead.  Looking into the eyes of my grandchildren, I took a long, deep breath. And so I began my narration of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Society.