No Life A WWI Story By Susie Hood

No Life A WWI Story By Susie Hood

Rachel was 28 in 1909 in great Brittan. She was sitting on her veranda waiting for her husband, John, to come home from his meeting with the owner of the new car company Ford who was visiting England to check up on sales here. He was due back any minute she wanted to tell him how their 12 year old son, James, had tried to teach their 6 year son, Joseph, old how to play catch in the backyard with help from their other son Thomas, 9. There John was coming down their long driveway in that new Model T that Henry Ford had just invented last year. She was so glad that John had gotten the job working as Ford’s right hand man in Great Brittan. Now they could get their sons everything they wanted and more. She had someone teaching Joseph how to play the piano and James and Thomas were learning more complicated songs. She even knew how to drive a Model T! Though her husband didn’t know. There was even a rumor going around saying that the British Parliament was going to give women the right to vote! Though not for a few years they said. The boys’ nanny came out to her then and told her that Joseph wanted to show her the new song he could play on the grand piano in the sitting room. Rachel said she’d be right in with John to listen. As John parked the Model T and made his way up the stairs onto the porch she ran to him and gave him a big hug. Yes, she thought life is good and nothing will ever change that.
How wrong she was that day in May of 1909. Two years later Joseph caught pneumonia and died. Three years after, in August of 1914, a war started. The War to End All Wars they called it. World War I. John was recruited and when James turned 18, he ran away to war. In a note he left her he said “I love you Mom and don’t worry, I’ll be home for Christmas.” So she was left to raise Thomas, now 14. They had to sell their beautiful Victorian house and their cars. They moved into a small cramped one bedroom house. Three years passed and she heard nothing of her men. April of 1917 Rachel heard that the USA joined the war. About a month later when Thomas turned 18 he too decided to fight for his country. Rachel begged him not to go but he said he had to get revenge on the dirtbags who killed his father and brother. After he left Rachel got a job in a factory making explosives and guns and plane parts and many other things to help fight and win the war. Rachel heard of so much fighting and death and war that she stopped listening. She stopped buying the newspaper and walked quickly passed the ladies gossiping about the war. On November 11, 1918, the war ended. Neighbors’ Husbands and sons came home. But none of her men knocked on the door. None of her men ran into her arms. None of her men knew the war had ended. They were all dead. They died fighting for a reason that would never affect them because they were dead. Dead along with the other 9 million who didn’t go home. She wondered how many other wives and mothers would go to bed tonight along with her knowing that their loved ones were dead. All hope was now gone. Before they could pretend that they just couldn’t write or maybe they were writing and the letters were getting lost. Maybe these women should’ve been writing back to the letters which did not come. Maybe their men gave up hope because their women were not writing. Maybe it was their fault that 9 million had died. But now none of that mattered. It was over.

Rachel sat alone in a coffee shop. It was about ten years after the War to End All Wars had ended, nine to be exact. She knew the world was changing around her. New things were being invented. People were happy the war had ended and a new generation was beginning. But she could not join into the happiness. She still was living in the life where she had a loving husband and three handsome sons. James would be 30 soon. He would have his own wife and kids. She would be a grandma. Thomas would be 27 already. Wow, he too would be married and maybe also have kids. Joseph… while she was dreaming might as well dream Joseph to still be alive too. He would be 24. What would he look like? Would he be married? What would his wife look like? She took a sip of her coffee. She did this often. Wonder what her life would have been like if the war had not happened. But it was to no avail. The war did happen and James would never be thirty. Thomas would never be 27 and Joseph would never be older than 8. She can still see that little coffin being lowered into the ground. He never knew there would be a war. He died thinking that 16 years later she would be a grandma. She took another sip. In an odd sort of way she wished she was the one who died of pneumonia. They have a cure now. But not back then. What would life have been like if she had died? She wondered this as she sat there. 46 years old. No husband. No kids. No life.